From True Belief to Confident Knowledge

I don’t want students to
merely believe true things.  That’s a start, but it’s not
enough.  I want students to know true things.  So what’s the difference?  

What would you think if I
said I know it’s raining outside, but I didn’t believe it was raining
outside?  You’d be puzzled.  It doesn’t make sense to say I know
something that at the same time I don’t actually believe.  All the facts we think we know are also
facts we believe, so knowledge includes belief. 

What if I said I know it’s
raining outside, but it’s not true that it’s raining outside?  Again, you’d be confused and wonder,
“How can you know something that’s not true?”  You can’t.  A
belief is true if it matches reality and it’s false if it doesn’t.  So to say someone’s belief is false
means they don’t know.  Therefore, knowledge not only includes
belief, but truth as well. 

Now, what if I said I know
it’s raining outside and it turns out that I actually believe it and it’s true?  Would you say I have knowledge
it’s raining outside?  At first
glance, you’d probably answer yes. 
But what if my true belief is the result of a lucky guess?  I don’t have any good reason to think
it’s raining outside, it’s just pure speculation that happens to be accurate.  In that case, it doesn’t seem my true
belief rises to the level of knowledge. 
We wouldn’t equate dumb luck with knowledge.  So what’s missing? 
What would transform my true belief into knowledge?  Justification. 

Justification is simply the
reasons we believe things–it’s the “why” behind the “what.”  We may think our beliefs are true, but
how can we be sure?  We justify
those things with reasons and evidence. 
Justification gives us confidence our true beliefs are not merely
guesses, but actual instances of knowledge.  The more justification we have for the truthfulness of a
particular belief, the greater our confidence will be. 

This is why I’m not
satisfied if students merely believe true things.  Indeed, many students attending our churches today will
affirm all kinds of Christian beliefs while in our midst.  They believe God exists, they believe Jesus
is the Savior of the world, and they believe the Bible is God’s Word.  All true.  But in a few short years, to our dismay we’ll discover that
many have deserted those beliefs. 
Why?  According to the groundbreaking
study by sociologist Christian Smith and the National Study of Youth and
Religion, student’s “intellectual skepticism and doubt” will overwhelm mere
true belief.  Students who fell
away from their faith reported, “It didn’t make any sense anymore,” and there
were “too many questions that can’t be answered.”  Students often abandon belief because they have no good
reason to continue holding them.

And that’s why I’m not
satisfied if students know what they believe.  They must also know why
they believe.  We must arm them
with good reasons to think that what they believe is actually true,
transforming mere true belief into confident knowledge. 

Not only will this
knowledge prepare them for the secular skepticism of the culture, it will play
a key role in their spiritual transformation.  Unlike much of what is offered by contemporary writers on
spiritual formation, the Bible paints a picture where knowledge is absolutely
central to our spiritual transformation. 
As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).  Dallas Willard summarizes our
discussion and its implications:

“Knowledge has a unique and
irreplaceable function in human life. 
Unlike any other human capacity, it authorizes individuals to act, to
direct, and to teach, and the lack thereof disqualifies one in those same
respects…Knowledge therefore lays the foundation for confident and successful
dealings with reality and, as such, is one of the most precious things one can
acquire.  People ‘perish for lack
of knowledge,’ as the Bible tells us, precisely because, without it, disastrous
encounters, or lack of encounters, with reality are certainly to occur; most
importantly, they occur with reference to God, God’s Kingdom, and any
possibilities for an eternal kind of living” (in Willard’s foreword to
the book, The Kingdom Triangle, by
J.P. Moreland).

If we want to give our
young people a “foundation for confident and successful dealings with reality,”
we must see apologetics as necessary, not optional.  Apologetics offers students the “why” they so desperately
need and ask for.