How We Know It’s True
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, Hebrews 1:1 NASB
In many ways – The opening statement of the author of Hebrews contains a hidden and very important axiom. God spoke to us “in many ways.” The Greek word is polutropos. The word is a combination of two other words that mean “many, multiple,” and “mode, style.” The author wants us to begin our investigation by assuming the legitimacy of prior knowledge of God; knowledge that has been given to us by the prophets and by a host of unnamed methods. In other words, the investigation to follow depends upon a certain cultural perspective; a perspective that is not justified, articulated or examined. It is simply “the way we know what we know.”
Wittgenstein puts it like this: “But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.”[1]
Did you understand the importance of this statement? “It is the inherited background.” For most of us, this is the Greco-Roman worldview. It comes with definitions of truth, right, good, beautiful, worthy, honorable, success and, most important of all, God. We did not investigate all of these seminal ideas in order to independently determine their correctness. We were handed these concepts when we were born and we gradually learned them as “the way we do things around here.” It is true that we may have altered some of these definitions along the way. We may have, for example, changed our views about God’s purposes for our lives. But even that wasn’t done in a vacuum. How we know is not the neutral, rational process that we were taught in science classes. It isn’t even the way science actually works, although the theory is propagated in our Greco-Roman education. How we know is more like osmosis, a gradual and often imperceptible acceptance of ways of doing things, ways of thinking about things, ways of understanding things. And that’s why it is so difficult to 1) examine our axioms, and 2) see the world through another way of accumulating knowledge.
The author of Hebrews doesn’t present his case without his own cultural assumptions. The startling discovery is that his world is not the world of the early Church fathers, the Roman Empire or Hellenism. His world is the way that Jews in the first century did things. Perhaps that’s why the book often seems so strange and so difficult. His examples and conclusions follow rabbinic midrashim, not Greek logical arguments. He is saturated in a way of thinking and doing that is for all practical purposes alien to our thinking. We have inherited a worldview that is influenced by the Church, the Empire and the Greeks. He has a worldview unaffected by any of these things.
So the real question for us is this one (and it is the same question for all the biblical texts): Do you think you can understand what these Jewish authors are really saying without jumping head-first into the Jewish world they came from?
Perhaps you can appreciate these insights:
“We do not learn the practice of making empirical judgments by learning rules: we are taught judgments and their connexion [sic] with other judgments. A totality of judgments is made plausible to us.”[2]
“Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.”[3]
Topical Index: knowledge, knowing, culture, Hebrews 1:1, Ludwig Wittgenstein
[1] Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, e15.
[2] Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, e21.
[3] Ibid, e49.
One More (Comforting) Thing
~ But when the Comforter [the Advocate, the Helper,the Counselor, the Paraclete] is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me ~
and.. [can I get a Witness?]
~ We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him ~
for it is..
~ The Spirit Himself [Who] testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children ~
My Heart, – His Home
~ Jesus answered, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him ~
Ask, and you will receive..
Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.
Laurita, where have you gone? I miss seeing your posts.
Me, too.
Our reptilian brain is said to be rather rigid and compulsive. And then we have our amygdala part of the limbic brain — our emotional control center. As someone with some phobic tendencies I remember reading an article that suggested we don’t necessarily think or have a thought before an emotional response. This goes against most accepted research. This the reason phobias are so hard to treat.
I think we could apply this to our resistance to new or different ways of thinking. As you wrote today:
“Did you understand the importance of this statement? “It is the inherited background.” For most of us, this is the Greco-Roman worldview. It comes with definitions of truth, right, good, beautiful, worthy, honorable, success and, most important of all, God. We did not investigate all of these seminal ideas in order to independently determine their correctness. We were handed these concepts when we were born and we gradually learned them as “the way we do things around here.” It is true that we may have altered some of these definitions along the way. We may have, for example, changed our views about God’s purposes for our lives. But even that wasn’t done in a vacuum. How we know is not the neutral, rational process that we were taught in science classes. It isn’t even the way science actually works, although the theory is propagated in our Greco-Roman education. How we know is more like osmosis, a gradual and often imperceptible acceptance of ways of doing things, ways of thinking about things, ways of understanding things. And that’s why it is so difficult to 1) examine our axioms, and 2) see the world through another way of accumulating knowledge.”
HUMAN ERROR
Jesus said “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures
or the power of God.”
We obviously have a 2 point mission in acquiring Godly knowledge.
1. His Word
2. Personal experience with Him as His Spirit gives our repentant heart
direct access to His character, His love, and His power.
Good Morning All.
While many of us are up for learning about this shift, I think a person would have to move to Israel to start to internalize these ideas or at least move into a Jewish community. Changes in attitude changes in behaviors. I don’t think that is going to happen.
If I move from eastern US to western US I’m in a different world. From US to England different. From US to Russia different.
” One wants to say “All my experiences show that it is so”. But how do they do that? For that proposition to which they point itself belongs to a particular interpretation of them. “That I regard this proposition as certainly true also characterizes my interpretation of experience.”
We shouldn’t think of our experiences on one side, providing lessons that we can apply to a new proposition that appears from the other side. Rather, this new proposition already has a relation to our framework of beliefs, as if its fate – whether it is believed or doubted – is almost sealed before we consider it.” -Critique of Pure Reason
Interesting! Doubt comes when it ‘s in conflict with what we believe in, what we accept to be without doubt.
According to our personal interpretation and understanding, that is, as certainty.
“We are taught judgments and their connexion [sic] with other judgments”. We learn judgment through the practice of correct judging!
“Analytical and synthetical judgments in general-
Synthetical judgments are expansive, require a principle that is different from the law of contradiction.
Judgments of experience are always synthetical. Mathematical judgments are all synthetical.
It is synthetical and cannot be known from mere conceptual analysis. Mathematics require the intuitive construction of concepts, not based on experience.
Analytical judgments are not based on experience. They are based merely on the subject’s concept. All analytical judgments are a priori- from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. – Prolegomena
My take on this- experiences WILL change our attitudes, IF we see/reeh in our spirits what ABBA requires us to see and understand.
Shalom.