What do you think?
Rate this book
Loving to Know: Covenant Epistemology
Knowing is less about information and more about transformation; less about comprehension and more about being apprehended. This radical book develops the notion of covenant epistemology--an innovative, biblically compatible, holistic, embodied, life-shaping epistemological vision in which all knowing takes the shape of interpersonal, covenantal relationship. Rather than knowing in order to love, we love in order to know. Meek argues that all knowing is best understood as transformative encounter. Creatively blending insights from a diverse range of conversation partners--including Michael Polanyi, Michael D. Williams, Lesslie Newbigin, Parker Palmer, John Macmurray, Martin Buber, and James Loder--Meek offers critically needed "epistemological therapy" in response to the pervasive and damaging presumptions that those in Western culture continue to bring to efforts to know. The book's innovative approach--an unfolding journey of discovery-through-dialogue--itself subverts standard epistemological presumptions of timeless linearity. While it offers a sustained and sophisticated philosophical argument, Loving to Know's texts and textures interweave loosely to effect therapeutic epistemic transformation in the reader.
536 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2011
105 people are currently reading
495 people want to read
About the author
Esther Lightcap Meek
12 books58 followersEsther Lightcap Meek (BA, Cedarville College; MA, Western Kentucky University; PhD, Temple University) is Professor of Philosophy emeritus at Geneva College. She is a Makoto Fujimura Institute Scholar, a member of The Polanyi Society, and an Associate Fellow with the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology.
Esther is the author of four books and several publications which express philosophical insights in every-day language for all of us. She also gives courses, workshops and talks for high schools, colleges and graduate institutions, as well as for businesses, churches, and other organizations.
Esther is the author of four books and several publications which express philosophical insights in every-day language for all of us. She also gives courses, workshops and talks for high schools, colleges and graduate institutions, as well as for businesses, churches, and other organizations.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 9, 2018
Esther Meek shifts the emphasis. Imagine that life is more about discovery, coming to know, than about knowing, or what might be called learnedness. And, she personalizes it. Rather than viewing knowledge as cold and informational, impersonal, pursuing raw evidence and facts, she sees it all in light of relationship, calling it covenant epistemology. Think of a dad walking his three year old around at the zoo on a sunny afternoon, offering names to his little boy who points in fascination at the animals. This is how it is with God who personalizes our learning experience. Such a framework naturally excludes relativism and skepticism.
There is a lot of good stuff here in this 500-page academic tome. The only thing holding me back from a five-star rating is its overly academic language, which I felt made it more abstract than necessary. Still, if your willing concentrate, it highly merits reading.
There is a lot of good stuff here in this 500-page academic tome. The only thing holding me back from a five-star rating is its overly academic language, which I felt made it more abstract than necessary. Still, if your willing concentrate, it highly merits reading.
April 27, 2018
John Frame has stated that epistemology is a subset of ethics. This book is a fascinating exploration of that idea. Interacting with Frame (and other philosophers and theologians) Meek challenges many of the assumption her readers will bring will bring with them and presents a compelling alternate. It is densely packed but well worth working through.
Meek primarily works with the epistemology of Michael Polanyi and focuses on learning instead of verification. Polanyi's subsidiary focal integration is interfaced with Frame's triperspectivalism and Williams' covenant story of redemption(as presented in his "Far as the Curse if Found") as well as the thought of several others. There are helpful "textures"(self-contained chapters) on related topics like beauty and the relationship of the body to knowing. The texture on teaching has changed the way I teach.
Meek shows that, if our worldview ultimately begins with a personal being, our epistemology must reflect that. She shows that all knowing is knowing God intimately(even if it's not knowing him salvifically.) The implications of that for so much of our daily lives(viewing a sunset or learning to drive) are fascinating to explore. The connection she makes between learning and a baby's first moments of expressing need(crying for food) and the subsequent connection with mom(seeing the face of the "Other.") and the importance of touch in that learning process were reorienting for me.
The connection between epistemology and ethics runs throughout the book. If we change the way we learn, if we reject the current, deficient epistemic default, it changes the way we live.
Any great book should leave you wanting more and this book has. I will need to reread Frame's "Doctrine of the Knowledge of God", go back and read Meek's earlier book "Longing to Know" and then reread this book. Reading it was transformative but I'm sure there are things I missed.
Meek primarily works with the epistemology of Michael Polanyi and focuses on learning instead of verification. Polanyi's subsidiary focal integration is interfaced with Frame's triperspectivalism and Williams' covenant story of redemption(as presented in his "Far as the Curse if Found") as well as the thought of several others. There are helpful "textures"(self-contained chapters) on related topics like beauty and the relationship of the body to knowing. The texture on teaching has changed the way I teach.
Meek shows that, if our worldview ultimately begins with a personal being, our epistemology must reflect that. She shows that all knowing is knowing God intimately(even if it's not knowing him salvifically.) The implications of that for so much of our daily lives(viewing a sunset or learning to drive) are fascinating to explore. The connection she makes between learning and a baby's first moments of expressing need(crying for food) and the subsequent connection with mom(seeing the face of the "Other.") and the importance of touch in that learning process were reorienting for me.
The connection between epistemology and ethics runs throughout the book. If we change the way we learn, if we reject the current, deficient epistemic default, it changes the way we live.
Any great book should leave you wanting more and this book has. I will need to reread Frame's "Doctrine of the Knowledge of God", go back and read Meek's earlier book "Longing to Know" and then reread this book. Reading it was transformative but I'm sure there are things I missed.
February 28, 2013
Exceptionally good. Exceptionally long. Worth the read. Provides a wonderful perspective on what it means to know and experience knowledge in the heart as a transformative encounter. Esther Meek draws from numerous sources and voices to offer a diverse range of knowledge and innovation. A great place to begin wondering what you can do with what you know and how it can shape how you live.
November 7, 2020
The terms that usually spring to mind concerning the study of philosophy and all its attendant issues are those like, “dry,” “technical,” “abstract,” “cold,” etc. As Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote in his endorsement for Loving to Know, “Nobody acquainted with philosophical epistemology would associate it with eloquence or passion.” In contrast, Esther Lightcap Meek’s Loving to Know is passionate, warm, and evocative. Drawing on the work of scholars across many fields, mainly Michael Polanyi, but also John Frame and many others, Meek attempts to articulate a vision of “Covenant Epistemology,” a view of knowing “fraught with the interpersoned.”
Over against Enlightenment dichotomies that set science against religion and art, belief against knowledge, mind against the sense, Meek argues for a view of knowledge that is thoroughly engaged with persons and by persons. All knowing is performed by persons: drawing on Michael Polanyi, Meek argues that knowing is fundamentally a focal-subsidiary integration. Knowing is the coming together of our narrow focus with the tacit or unconscious subsidiary attention that draws our focus into contact with reality and reflexively imbues it with meaning, becoming what James Loder calls a “transformative event.” Drawing on John Frame’s work on the knowledge of God, Meek argues that all knowledge involves the three coordinates or perspectives of the person (existential), the object (situational), and the standard (normative). All knowing is personal because it is ultimately coram Deo, done before God under His covenant ordering of the world: this makes all knowing, as John Frame argues, a subsidiary of ethics, fraught with “ought”s. Drawing on the work of many 20th century existentialists and philosophers of the person (e.g. Martin Buber, James Loder, John MacMurray), she argues that as a gift from the personal God, reality is itself interpersoned and takes on a personal dimension “metonymously,” “imbued with the dynamic interpersonal relationship which contexts it, yet freely distinct from Giver and recipient” (381).
Loving to Know is not argued in a laborious philosophical manner—the mode against which her proposal argues—but is intended to embody Meek’s epistemological agenda. As such, it is cast as a series of conversations or interactions with thinkers, ranging from novelists to theologians and philosophers. The first part gives a diagnosis of the defective epistemology Meek identifies in Western culture and introduces her counterproposal. In the second part, Meek interacts with Polanyi and Loder to identify the nature of knowledge and knowing as transformation resulting from a focal-subsidiary integration. Part three interacts with two theologians, John Frame and Mike Williams, to situated knowing in a “covenantal” context, where covenant refers to the “unfolding relationship between persons, such as in a covenant of friendship or of marriage” (194). She does add the dimension of obligation that is requisite for a covenant in the Biblical sense of the word (197). Part four draws on the work of several philosophers and theologians to argues that knowing is thoroughly “interpersoned.” Meek wants to argue that all knowledge takes on a personal dimension not because reality is itself actually personal or divine but because of its close relationship to God who gifts reality to His creation within the contours of a covenant. The fifth and final part draws together the threads of her argument to offer her proposed “covenant epistemology.”
Loving to Know has many strengths for which the reader will benefit. Meek writes with a passion that makes it easy to read, despite being nearly 500 pages in length. Her theological appropriation of Polanyi and the integration of his thought with John Frame is well worth attention. These two have been highly influential in my own thinking and I wholeheartedly concur with her summary of their contribution to her own thought, “if Frame offered the parameters of human knowing in the context of biblical lordship, then Polanyi showed me how it worked” (167). However, I was less than persuaded by her attempt to integrate the personal on the side of the object of knowledge or the “real.” Meek’s desire and efforts closely mirror my own, as I am working them out in my PhD thesis and series “God’s Gifts for the Christian Life,” but I believe her volume suffers under the same deficiency I detect in the work of Frame, Polanyi, and others. I am not convinced that she offers an ontology (or an account of reality and its realness as it corresponds to knowledge) sufficient to account for the Biblical account of God and the knowledge of Him that we all possess (according to Romans 1), nor am I convinced it is sufficient to account for the complexities of knowing as she identifies in her account of Polanyi and Frame. Part four, in which she argues for this most significant part of her project is thoroughly evocative, provoking ideas of all sorts, but it never quite lands—in my opinion. Of particular concern is her employment of Gunton’s perichoretic model of the Trinity. This model is historically discredited: for the early church, perichoresis did not mean “circle dance” and the Cappadocians and others, nothing of the sort of reciprocity or mutual divine inner life was developed. (As one commentator puts it, for the Cappadocians, the hypostases are merely realizations of the one ousia.) From a theological perspective, the social trinitarian account is dubious, and the implications drawn from it are more so.
In sum, Meek’s Loving to Know is a significant step of “Epistemological therapy” for Evangelical Christians steeped in Modernism and its successors. It is valuable and important for its development and integration of Polanyi and Frame’s thought in an accessible manner. However, in the area of ontology, I think there remains work to be done.
Over against Enlightenment dichotomies that set science against religion and art, belief against knowledge, mind against the sense, Meek argues for a view of knowledge that is thoroughly engaged with persons and by persons. All knowing is performed by persons: drawing on Michael Polanyi, Meek argues that knowing is fundamentally a focal-subsidiary integration. Knowing is the coming together of our narrow focus with the tacit or unconscious subsidiary attention that draws our focus into contact with reality and reflexively imbues it with meaning, becoming what James Loder calls a “transformative event.” Drawing on John Frame’s work on the knowledge of God, Meek argues that all knowledge involves the three coordinates or perspectives of the person (existential), the object (situational), and the standard (normative). All knowing is personal because it is ultimately coram Deo, done before God under His covenant ordering of the world: this makes all knowing, as John Frame argues, a subsidiary of ethics, fraught with “ought”s. Drawing on the work of many 20th century existentialists and philosophers of the person (e.g. Martin Buber, James Loder, John MacMurray), she argues that as a gift from the personal God, reality is itself interpersoned and takes on a personal dimension “metonymously,” “imbued with the dynamic interpersonal relationship which contexts it, yet freely distinct from Giver and recipient” (381).
Loving to Know is not argued in a laborious philosophical manner—the mode against which her proposal argues—but is intended to embody Meek’s epistemological agenda. As such, it is cast as a series of conversations or interactions with thinkers, ranging from novelists to theologians and philosophers. The first part gives a diagnosis of the defective epistemology Meek identifies in Western culture and introduces her counterproposal. In the second part, Meek interacts with Polanyi and Loder to identify the nature of knowledge and knowing as transformation resulting from a focal-subsidiary integration. Part three interacts with two theologians, John Frame and Mike Williams, to situated knowing in a “covenantal” context, where covenant refers to the “unfolding relationship between persons, such as in a covenant of friendship or of marriage” (194). She does add the dimension of obligation that is requisite for a covenant in the Biblical sense of the word (197). Part four draws on the work of several philosophers and theologians to argues that knowing is thoroughly “interpersoned.” Meek wants to argue that all knowledge takes on a personal dimension not because reality is itself actually personal or divine but because of its close relationship to God who gifts reality to His creation within the contours of a covenant. The fifth and final part draws together the threads of her argument to offer her proposed “covenant epistemology.”
Loving to Know has many strengths for which the reader will benefit. Meek writes with a passion that makes it easy to read, despite being nearly 500 pages in length. Her theological appropriation of Polanyi and the integration of his thought with John Frame is well worth attention. These two have been highly influential in my own thinking and I wholeheartedly concur with her summary of their contribution to her own thought, “if Frame offered the parameters of human knowing in the context of biblical lordship, then Polanyi showed me how it worked” (167). However, I was less than persuaded by her attempt to integrate the personal on the side of the object of knowledge or the “real.” Meek’s desire and efforts closely mirror my own, as I am working them out in my PhD thesis and series “God’s Gifts for the Christian Life,” but I believe her volume suffers under the same deficiency I detect in the work of Frame, Polanyi, and others. I am not convinced that she offers an ontology (or an account of reality and its realness as it corresponds to knowledge) sufficient to account for the Biblical account of God and the knowledge of Him that we all possess (according to Romans 1), nor am I convinced it is sufficient to account for the complexities of knowing as she identifies in her account of Polanyi and Frame. Part four, in which she argues for this most significant part of her project is thoroughly evocative, provoking ideas of all sorts, but it never quite lands—in my opinion. Of particular concern is her employment of Gunton’s perichoretic model of the Trinity. This model is historically discredited: for the early church, perichoresis did not mean “circle dance” and the Cappadocians and others, nothing of the sort of reciprocity or mutual divine inner life was developed. (As one commentator puts it, for the Cappadocians, the hypostases are merely realizations of the one ousia.) From a theological perspective, the social trinitarian account is dubious, and the implications drawn from it are more so.
In sum, Meek’s Loving to Know is a significant step of “Epistemological therapy” for Evangelical Christians steeped in Modernism and its successors. It is valuable and important for its development and integration of Polanyi and Frame’s thought in an accessible manner. However, in the area of ontology, I think there remains work to be done.
May 19, 2023
I didn’t know I needed a book on epistemology, but Meek has convinced me of its usefulness. I am also not deep in academia, nor am I more than a novice in philosophy (or epistemology), so my review will not be useful for those who are.
At the beginning of the book, I could see Meek’s thesis and I realized how helpful the journey might be. However, halfway through I book, Meek kept pulling on different voices, examining one per chapter, and I remember thinking, “This book is becoming a mess; unless she pulls all this together, I’m getting lost.” However, she did just that, using all of these other thinkers — philosophers, theologians, and other epistemologists — to show the validity of the proposal she has constructed.
Meek proposes what she calls “covenant epistemology,” which is a process of relational, loving, coming to know. It describes the relationship between “known, knower, and knowing” — triangulating a dynamic experience that rises above a lot of what modern epistemology has suggested.
The implications of this are wider than I can even imagine, and considering “how we know” was a fruitful journey for me as a creator, pastor, and educator.
At the beginning of the book, I could see Meek’s thesis and I realized how helpful the journey might be. However, halfway through I book, Meek kept pulling on different voices, examining one per chapter, and I remember thinking, “This book is becoming a mess; unless she pulls all this together, I’m getting lost.” However, she did just that, using all of these other thinkers — philosophers, theologians, and other epistemologists — to show the validity of the proposal she has constructed.
Meek proposes what she calls “covenant epistemology,” which is a process of relational, loving, coming to know. It describes the relationship between “known, knower, and knowing” — triangulating a dynamic experience that rises above a lot of what modern epistemology has suggested.
The implications of this are wider than I can even imagine, and considering “how we know” was a fruitful journey for me as a creator, pastor, and educator.
August 28, 2018
A thick and fat (and original) version of Meek's A Little Manual for Knowing, this book has been profoundly helpful in shaping my view of education, relationships, and the modern dilemma. Read it!...over a few months.
December 9, 2025
Summary: A proposal for covenant epistemology, bridging the subject-object divide with the idea that knowing is a personal, loving act.
Esther Lightcap Meek believes we are in desperate need of “epistemological therapy.” Since Descartes, knowledge has been focused on objective facts and a sharp disjunct exists between the knowing subject and the thing known. It leads to all kinds of binaries: facts versus beliefs, science versus imagination and art, the public versus the private to name a few. More recently, the post-modern turn has challenged all this, proposing that our “objective” knowledge is socially constructed. Hence, truth is relative to the observer. We can all have our own truths. This explains the epistemic crisis of our age, one that has been called “post-truth.”
Esther Lightcap Meek offers an alternative epistemology which she frames for us in Loving to Know. The title offers a clue. Drawing foundationally on Michael Polanyi, she argues that true knowing is a personal loving act in relation to what is being known. She calls this “covenant epistemology,” signifying a committed personal relationship, an “interpersoned” character between knower and the known in the knowing.
Part One of her book explains why we need epistemological therapy and lays out the basic contours of her proposal, as discussed above. Most of the remainder of the book consists of “conversations” with thinkers who were influential for Meek. Essentially, she retraces her process in developing covenant epistemology.
Then Part Two consists of her interaction with Michael Polanyi and James Loader. Polanyi contributes the idea of knowing as subsidiary focal integration. We move between something focused upon and intuitive clues as to its nature, and knowing is the integration of the two, a transformative moment. Her conversation with James Loader further unpacks the transformative aspect.
But where does the covenantal aspect arise? Part three develops this in conversation with John Frame and Mike Williams. Frame sees human knowing as stewardship in response to God’s disclosed relationship of covenant relationship as sovereign Creator and Lord. Our knowing imitates God’s covenant relationship with the created order in understanding, preserving and developing that world. Williams likens covenant relationship to our marriage covenant, a pledge of care for that which we are knowing. We commit to love in order to know.
So, this all sounds very personal rather than the detached knowing that characterizes our “science.” Rather than back off this idea, Meek doubles down in part four. She draws on John MacMurray to support the interpersonal character of human knowing. Martin Buber’s shift from I-It” to “I-Thou” relationships further supports the interpersonal encounter in knowing. Meek includes one of several “Texture” sidebars at this point to discuss the nature of friendship as “knowing with” another. I thought this worth the price of admission! Following this, James Loader talks about knowing before the Holy, that all of our knowing is before, and part of, knowing God. In addition, there are chapters in this part on healthy interpersonhood, knowing as dance (Colin Gunton on perichoresis), and on reality as gift.
Finally, in part five, Meek draws all the threads of this 500 page work together in “Contours of Covenant Epistemology.” She then addresses how we might respond to all this in “inviting the real.” She describes this as an “etiquette” of knowing and offers specific practices for the well-mannered knower. For example, under comportment she discusses our pledge or covenant, trust, obedience, humility, patience, saying “you” and listening. She concludes by discussing “knowing for shalom,” her hope that covenant epistemology will indeed be transformative for her readers.
I believe Meek offers an effective epistemological therapy if we will receive it. For Meek, all knowing is an interpersonal loving act in the presence of our loving Creator and Lord. To love that which we seek to know is to treat it with personal care, allowing the beloved to disclose itself rather than imposing our understanding upon it. Covenantal knowing means a “knowing with” both the ultimate source of all knowledge but also with other knowers. All this undercuts the privatized assertion of “my truth.” Such knowing, as was the case with Polanyi, reconciles exacting processes and creative imagination, science and art. Above all, this proposal invites epistemological humility as we recognize that all our knowing is a gift from a good Creator.
Esther Lightcap Meek believes we are in desperate need of “epistemological therapy.” Since Descartes, knowledge has been focused on objective facts and a sharp disjunct exists between the knowing subject and the thing known. It leads to all kinds of binaries: facts versus beliefs, science versus imagination and art, the public versus the private to name a few. More recently, the post-modern turn has challenged all this, proposing that our “objective” knowledge is socially constructed. Hence, truth is relative to the observer. We can all have our own truths. This explains the epistemic crisis of our age, one that has been called “post-truth.”
Esther Lightcap Meek offers an alternative epistemology which she frames for us in Loving to Know. The title offers a clue. Drawing foundationally on Michael Polanyi, she argues that true knowing is a personal loving act in relation to what is being known. She calls this “covenant epistemology,” signifying a committed personal relationship, an “interpersoned” character between knower and the known in the knowing.
Part One of her book explains why we need epistemological therapy and lays out the basic contours of her proposal, as discussed above. Most of the remainder of the book consists of “conversations” with thinkers who were influential for Meek. Essentially, she retraces her process in developing covenant epistemology.
Then Part Two consists of her interaction with Michael Polanyi and James Loader. Polanyi contributes the idea of knowing as subsidiary focal integration. We move between something focused upon and intuitive clues as to its nature, and knowing is the integration of the two, a transformative moment. Her conversation with James Loader further unpacks the transformative aspect.
But where does the covenantal aspect arise? Part three develops this in conversation with John Frame and Mike Williams. Frame sees human knowing as stewardship in response to God’s disclosed relationship of covenant relationship as sovereign Creator and Lord. Our knowing imitates God’s covenant relationship with the created order in understanding, preserving and developing that world. Williams likens covenant relationship to our marriage covenant, a pledge of care for that which we are knowing. We commit to love in order to know.
So, this all sounds very personal rather than the detached knowing that characterizes our “science.” Rather than back off this idea, Meek doubles down in part four. She draws on John MacMurray to support the interpersonal character of human knowing. Martin Buber’s shift from I-It” to “I-Thou” relationships further supports the interpersonal encounter in knowing. Meek includes one of several “Texture” sidebars at this point to discuss the nature of friendship as “knowing with” another. I thought this worth the price of admission! Following this, James Loader talks about knowing before the Holy, that all of our knowing is before, and part of, knowing God. In addition, there are chapters in this part on healthy interpersonhood, knowing as dance (Colin Gunton on perichoresis), and on reality as gift.
Finally, in part five, Meek draws all the threads of this 500 page work together in “Contours of Covenant Epistemology.” She then addresses how we might respond to all this in “inviting the real.” She describes this as an “etiquette” of knowing and offers specific practices for the well-mannered knower. For example, under comportment she discusses our pledge or covenant, trust, obedience, humility, patience, saying “you” and listening. She concludes by discussing “knowing for shalom,” her hope that covenant epistemology will indeed be transformative for her readers.
I believe Meek offers an effective epistemological therapy if we will receive it. For Meek, all knowing is an interpersonal loving act in the presence of our loving Creator and Lord. To love that which we seek to know is to treat it with personal care, allowing the beloved to disclose itself rather than imposing our understanding upon it. Covenantal knowing means a “knowing with” both the ultimate source of all knowledge but also with other knowers. All this undercuts the privatized assertion of “my truth.” Such knowing, as was the case with Polanyi, reconciles exacting processes and creative imagination, science and art. Above all, this proposal invites epistemological humility as we recognize that all our knowing is a gift from a good Creator.
May 31, 2021
This book was a long read but worth wading through every section of it. I was looking for a deeper reading of Meek's Longing to Know but found, instead, a Parker Palmer-esque, therapeutic balm of co-journeying with Meek through her reading of Polanyi, John Frame, Parker Palmer, Simone Weil, and other theologians, psychologists, and philosophers who all added to, and supported her framework for a covenantal (interpersoned, perichoretic) epistemology. The co-reading of these other authors would best be described as an "indwelling" (without violating the authors' beingness and "independences") of these authors' and how they help to flesh out (a good metaphor given her emphasis on the body as a way of knowing) the idea of covenant epistemology. In between the readings (and sometimes in the middle of the readings themselves) she includes additional "thought pieces" (my words, she calls them "textures") that engage the reader in various ways about the ideas presented in that section.
This book almost strikes me as a type of "Socratic dialogue" that introduces the ideas, engages the reader, and invites the reader to engage the author (via the text) in a shared, meandering journey that take the reader from Polanyian subsidiaries to a focal point. I do not mean "meandering" as an insult but as an attitude where the author engages the reader with various questions and various entering points. She asks the reader to do more than read passively through the prose and absorb the propositional statements. The progression of the book may feel like meandering but it is actually piecing together, bit by bit, the various dialogues and perspective s that bring this all together into one whole.
I read this book while working through some very difficult church-related issues and thinking through the ideas I want to present about covenant epistemology and metaphysical rhetoric. By the time I was done reading this book, the emotionally-draining church issues were clearer to me (how church people tend to violate the "imago dei" in each other by denying each other's faces--purposefully vague), my ideas on covenant interaction were significantly more robust, and my understanding of metaphysics challenged and broadened.
I know several people who will benefit greatly from this book. I encourage you to read it. You will not be able to read it as a disengaged mind--it brings you to indwell the ideas, admit your personhood, and your need for others. This will also NOT be the last book you read--I now have a half dozen other books, authors cited and engaged by Meek, I now need to read.
I have been using Meek's Longing To Know: the philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people for about 20 years now--extra credit reading for my undergraduate students. It is one of the most gracious ways to introduce the idea of epistemology and how our knowing God is a way of knowing all things. As Meek reiterates in Loving to Know...ultimately all knowing is knowing God.
This book almost strikes me as a type of "Socratic dialogue" that introduces the ideas, engages the reader, and invites the reader to engage the author (via the text) in a shared, meandering journey that take the reader from Polanyian subsidiaries to a focal point. I do not mean "meandering" as an insult but as an attitude where the author engages the reader with various questions and various entering points. She asks the reader to do more than read passively through the prose and absorb the propositional statements. The progression of the book may feel like meandering but it is actually piecing together, bit by bit, the various dialogues and perspective s that bring this all together into one whole.
I read this book while working through some very difficult church-related issues and thinking through the ideas I want to present about covenant epistemology and metaphysical rhetoric. By the time I was done reading this book, the emotionally-draining church issues were clearer to me (how church people tend to violate the "imago dei" in each other by denying each other's faces--purposefully vague), my ideas on covenant interaction were significantly more robust, and my understanding of metaphysics challenged and broadened.
I know several people who will benefit greatly from this book. I encourage you to read it. You will not be able to read it as a disengaged mind--it brings you to indwell the ideas, admit your personhood, and your need for others. This will also NOT be the last book you read--I now have a half dozen other books, authors cited and engaged by Meek, I now need to read.
I have been using Meek's Longing To Know: the philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people for about 20 years now--extra credit reading for my undergraduate students. It is one of the most gracious ways to introduce the idea of epistemology and how our knowing God is a way of knowing all things. As Meek reiterates in Loving to Know...ultimately all knowing is knowing God.
July 14, 2019
Loving to Know is Esther Meek's proposal of an epistemology that she feels more adequately fits with 1) how we (as humans) actually engage reality and learn/know/discover within it and 2) a biblical account of knowing and a revealing God. To do so she has to push back (and rather forthrightly) against what she calls the "defective default", the seemingly standard epistemology of the West. In this she takes Platonic and Cartesian thought to task, calling out their dichotomous take on knowing and being and the unrealistic (and disheartening) disconnect of belief and knowledge.
One of the ways she does this is to build and borrow from the thought of Michael Polanyi. His concept of subsidiary-focal knowing is crucial to her epistemology. This book is an excellent example of how seamlessly Polanyi's thought can integrate with a biblical worldview. But Meek doesn't stop there. A majority of the chapters are "conversations" with specific scholars from different disciplines. All are engaging epistemology within their field or speciality and many are utilizing Polanyian contours in their thought. But Meek manages to pull off the incredible feat of practicing what she's preaching in her execution of her argument. She builds it conversationally and thusly relationally, in an almost reciprocal manner with the work of these other scholars.
Because of this the reader is also introduced to some excellent sources and their thought. This creates a sense of breadth to her work. As a student (and bibliophile at heart), I find myself with a rather large reading list now, because she has introduced me to a pile of books and scholars I want to read and grasp.
The breadth and depth of her argument is hard to summarize very concisely here, but suffice it to say that I think her title is hugely representative. She argues for a relationality to knowing, a perichoretic reciprocality to knowing and being known. It is an epistemological vision that not only embraces a world that is real and that impacts us in our doing and being, but also one which concedes room to the unknown and is equipped to engage discussing how one discovers that which is unknown.
Though she goes deep, this is not a work that is inaccessible to non-academic readers. I think most anyone with a high school level education could read and understand this book. And I think everyone who does so will greatly benefit from it. I think pastors and church leaders would greatly benefit, as would any teacher. But I think musicians and researchers and just about anyone would benefit and be encouraged from reading it. The book invites the reader to engage the world, to be drawn by love and delight to know.
One of the ways she does this is to build and borrow from the thought of Michael Polanyi. His concept of subsidiary-focal knowing is crucial to her epistemology. This book is an excellent example of how seamlessly Polanyi's thought can integrate with a biblical worldview. But Meek doesn't stop there. A majority of the chapters are "conversations" with specific scholars from different disciplines. All are engaging epistemology within their field or speciality and many are utilizing Polanyian contours in their thought. But Meek manages to pull off the incredible feat of practicing what she's preaching in her execution of her argument. She builds it conversationally and thusly relationally, in an almost reciprocal manner with the work of these other scholars.
Because of this the reader is also introduced to some excellent sources and their thought. This creates a sense of breadth to her work. As a student (and bibliophile at heart), I find myself with a rather large reading list now, because she has introduced me to a pile of books and scholars I want to read and grasp.
The breadth and depth of her argument is hard to summarize very concisely here, but suffice it to say that I think her title is hugely representative. She argues for a relationality to knowing, a perichoretic reciprocality to knowing and being known. It is an epistemological vision that not only embraces a world that is real and that impacts us in our doing and being, but also one which concedes room to the unknown and is equipped to engage discussing how one discovers that which is unknown.
Though she goes deep, this is not a work that is inaccessible to non-academic readers. I think most anyone with a high school level education could read and understand this book. And I think everyone who does so will greatly benefit from it. I think pastors and church leaders would greatly benefit, as would any teacher. But I think musicians and researchers and just about anyone would benefit and be encouraged from reading it. The book invites the reader to engage the world, to be drawn by love and delight to know.
April 5, 2021
Both challenging and encouraging, Meek's building off of Polanyi's philosophical position and Bubers I-and-Thou, is a work that puts the supernatural/spiritual element into a world so focused on science and humanism.
In Loving to Know (2011) Esther Meeks sets forth her case for the need of an epistemology that moves knowing from a static intellectual exercise into a dynamic transformational experience as a result of the constant interplay between the knower and that which is known. This interplay is a circular exchange, in which the knower is impacted by that which is known, which then further changes and impacts the knower.
In setting up the need for what she calls a Covenant Epistemology, Meeks speaks of the unhealthy effect that Western tradition has upon society, regarding ideas and culture. Whether recognized or understood by the masses, this warped “epistemological vision” is lived out without examination (p. 6), and prejudices us toward faulty ways of viewing life and ways of knowing. Whereas sociologists might speak of the effects of one’s social location on understanding, the anthropologist might speak of how one’s world view effects understanding, and the theologian can speak of the importance of context to arrive a truth, Meeks speaks of a defective “subcutaneous epistemological layer (p. 4, 6) that, when unexamined, leads us astray in our proper understanding and experience of that which can be known.
Where did humankind go wrong and how did we get saddled with this ‘defective epistemological vision’? Meeks would go on to reference both Plato and Descartes tendency to pit certain categorizations of knowledge into dangerous and incorrect dichotomies or “binary oppositions” (p. 8-9). Using the daisy as an example, we see how certain ways of knowing are pitted against others, creating unnecessary, unhealthy and false dichotomies. Some of these are knowledge vs. belief, facts vs. opinion/values/morals, reason vs. faith/emotion, science vs. Arts/religion etc... (p. 8).
The effects of these false dichotomies lead to three negative consequences: boredom (knowledge without passion), hopelessness (no truth, only opinion) and betrayal (without truth, there is no trust (p. 13). Meeks states that this way of viewing and understanding reality makes our reality “impersonal, mindless, soulless and impassive” (p. 14).
Humankind is not without hope for correcting these faults and Meeks call is for a progression to be followed: Discovering one's own subcutaneous layer------> Assessing validity------> Making adjustments --------> Indwelling reforms with intentionality and virtuosity. (p. 7)
In Loving to Know (2011) Esther Meeks sets forth her case for the need of an epistemology that moves knowing from a static intellectual exercise into a dynamic transformational experience as a result of the constant interplay between the knower and that which is known. This interplay is a circular exchange, in which the knower is impacted by that which is known, which then further changes and impacts the knower.
In setting up the need for what she calls a Covenant Epistemology, Meeks speaks of the unhealthy effect that Western tradition has upon society, regarding ideas and culture. Whether recognized or understood by the masses, this warped “epistemological vision” is lived out without examination (p. 6), and prejudices us toward faulty ways of viewing life and ways of knowing. Whereas sociologists might speak of the effects of one’s social location on understanding, the anthropologist might speak of how one’s world view effects understanding, and the theologian can speak of the importance of context to arrive a truth, Meeks speaks of a defective “subcutaneous epistemological layer (p. 4, 6) that, when unexamined, leads us astray in our proper understanding and experience of that which can be known.
Where did humankind go wrong and how did we get saddled with this ‘defective epistemological vision’? Meeks would go on to reference both Plato and Descartes tendency to pit certain categorizations of knowledge into dangerous and incorrect dichotomies or “binary oppositions” (p. 8-9). Using the daisy as an example, we see how certain ways of knowing are pitted against others, creating unnecessary, unhealthy and false dichotomies. Some of these are knowledge vs. belief, facts vs. opinion/values/morals, reason vs. faith/emotion, science vs. Arts/religion etc... (p. 8).
The effects of these false dichotomies lead to three negative consequences: boredom (knowledge without passion), hopelessness (no truth, only opinion) and betrayal (without truth, there is no trust (p. 13). Meeks states that this way of viewing and understanding reality makes our reality “impersonal, mindless, soulless and impassive” (p. 14).
Humankind is not without hope for correcting these faults and Meeks call is for a progression to be followed: Discovering one's own subcutaneous layer------> Assessing validity------> Making adjustments --------> Indwelling reforms with intentionality and virtuosity. (p. 7)
June 22, 2023
One of the most profound books I've ever read!
I am not a specialist or academic. This work at over 400 pages took me quite a while to read. Now it's on to the ruminating.
The author claims to have written for the classroom as well as for the academy, but I had to keep my dictionary handy and found myself in many places wondering what I had just read.
This might sound like a difficult read (it was for me) BUT, well worth the time and effort. Even though I feel like I have only understood 50% I have the confidence that I will eventually get it.
Loving to Know is one of the most hopeful and practical tools that anyone can use to make the world a healthy flourishing culture of peace.
This book is a paradigm changer. You will never know (epistemology) in the same way again. You will never understand yourself, creation, or others the same way again. Although challenging Meeks is a delight in the fullest sense.
I am not a specialist or academic. This work at over 400 pages took me quite a while to read. Now it's on to the ruminating.
The author claims to have written for the classroom as well as for the academy, but I had to keep my dictionary handy and found myself in many places wondering what I had just read.
This might sound like a difficult read (it was for me) BUT, well worth the time and effort. Even though I feel like I have only understood 50% I have the confidence that I will eventually get it.
Loving to Know is one of the most hopeful and practical tools that anyone can use to make the world a healthy flourishing culture of peace.
This book is a paradigm changer. You will never know (epistemology) in the same way again. You will never understand yourself, creation, or others the same way again. Although challenging Meeks is a delight in the fullest sense.
Read
December 3, 2023DNF at 26%.
This book is one step higher than my mental capacity and tends to feel like long academic words strung together. I don't generally like philosophy, as I'm too pragmatic for seemingly impractical musings. However, when I read "Biblical Critical Theory" by Christopher Watkins he quoted some interesting parts of this book. That made me want to read it. Well, I've been reading a chapter at a time for months and I just don't want to keep trying to force myself to read this book. I feel like covenant epistemology is how I already view knowing, and so trying to tackle this book is a chore because of its highly academic diction. I don't think it would be fair to give it a star rating, though.
This book is one step higher than my mental capacity and tends to feel like long academic words strung together. I don't generally like philosophy, as I'm too pragmatic for seemingly impractical musings. However, when I read "Biblical Critical Theory" by Christopher Watkins he quoted some interesting parts of this book. That made me want to read it. Well, I've been reading a chapter at a time for months and I just don't want to keep trying to force myself to read this book. I feel like covenant epistemology is how I already view knowing, and so trying to tackle this book is a chore because of its highly academic diction. I don't think it would be fair to give it a star rating, though.
May 16, 2024
I feel like I want to rate this 4-stars cause the good parts were really good, but that middle half is an academic slog. Meek references many writers to buttress her arguments with external sources, but one cannot help but feel that she (like any could and many do) cherry-picks thinkers in order to say "See! Other people say the same thing." Which is fine and good and maybe necessary, but ultimately I do not think it strengthens or much more thoroughly explains her very strong thesis, as explicated in the first and last quarters of the text.
I suppose professional academics can appreciate Meek's approach more and understand the importance of the full argument, but as a lay reader, I was more bored than edified by many of the supporting references.
I suppose professional academics can appreciate Meek's approach more and understand the importance of the full argument, but as a lay reader, I was more bored than edified by many of the supporting references.
November 26, 2025
This is an extraordinary book with a genuinely transformative view of what it means to know Building on the epistomology of Michael Polanyi - burdened with the unfortunate name of 'subsidiary-focal integration' - which he derived from his own experience of scientific research, knowing is a process of finding patterns, 'integrating' a sea of observations and finding in them, not only a coherence but a coherence which promises further integrations and revelations.
In the process of expanding this root idea she introduces the biblical concept of covenant to capture the sense of relationship that is present in all knowing. To know something means conforming to its requirements, and presenting yourself to its demands. There is something of the personal and relational in all knowing experiences. Consequently, knowing will transform us as we, in her words, 'invite the real'.
She also progresses through 'conversations' with a number of other philosophers and thinkers. This is informative and intended to be an example of this model of learning. However the quality of her introductions to these other thinkers is variable and with some she leaves so much out that it is impossible to follow the argument without researching their thinking independently.
However the overall thrust, that the interpersonal nature of all knowing means that all knowing is a knowing of God, is profound and challenging.
In the process of expanding this root idea she introduces the biblical concept of covenant to capture the sense of relationship that is present in all knowing. To know something means conforming to its requirements, and presenting yourself to its demands. There is something of the personal and relational in all knowing experiences. Consequently, knowing will transform us as we, in her words, 'invite the real'.
She also progresses through 'conversations' with a number of other philosophers and thinkers. This is informative and intended to be an example of this model of learning. However the quality of her introductions to these other thinkers is variable and with some she leaves so much out that it is impossible to follow the argument without researching their thinking independently.
However the overall thrust, that the interpersonal nature of all knowing means that all knowing is a knowing of God, is profound and challenging.
October 20, 2021
This book is excellent it has taught me a lot while leaving me with more questions. Meek has weaved the works of Michael Polanyi, John Frame, Martin Buber, John Macmurray, James Loder, Mike Williams, David Schnarch, Colin Gunton, Philip Rolnick, Annie Dillard, Lesslie Newbigin, and Parker Palmer into one cohesive philosophy.
Her philosophy is obviously rather complicated since it incorporates so many people's philosophies. At times, I found it to be difficult to grasp at times, but it is worthwhile to struggle with.
Her philosophy is obviously rather complicated since it incorporates so many people's philosophies. At times, I found it to be difficult to grasp at times, but it is worthwhile to struggle with.
June 27, 2024
Sometimes things that make the biggest impact take some effort. This is a large book and if you're not familiar with philosophical writing, it might take a few pages to get into the flow. But wow! Stick with it and a whole new world will open before eyes. Dr. Meek's work has been perspective-altering in the most wonderful way. Eternal life is connected to knowing God (John 17:3). So what is knowing? Our culture's idea of knowing has stunted us. Drawing from several great philosophers and her own work, Dr. Meek gives us the gift of covenant knowing. Enthusiastically recommend this book!
December 12, 2020
Well, I'm glad I read it. But it was tough. It is, I think, a bit indulgent in terms of its unnecessary length... But it remains an incredibly important book. Meek has a lot to say about epistemology, and it boils down to one key element: covenant is key to epistemology. I know it says that in the title! Covenant, though, is based on interpersonal relationship.
There are multiple quotations I have noted from this book, so while the path is long there is plenty to consider along the way.
There are multiple quotations I have noted from this book, so while the path is long there is plenty to consider along the way.
November 27, 2023
I actually didn’t finish the whole book, but I got far enough that I wanted to comment here.
I absolutely loved the first 1/4 of the book and how beautifully the author conveys deep ideas. But around the quarter mark, the book gets bogged down and extremely cumbersome and a little repetitive. By the 1/3 mark I felt like the book had said what it needed to say - adding more in another volume if desired.
It’s a great work I may return to one day, but I have to put it down now.
I absolutely loved the first 1/4 of the book and how beautifully the author conveys deep ideas. But around the quarter mark, the book gets bogged down and extremely cumbersome and a little repetitive. By the 1/3 mark I felt like the book had said what it needed to say - adding more in another volume if desired.
It’s a great work I may return to one day, but I have to put it down now.
June 22, 2024
What’s not to love about the idea that we are in covenant with the real that shows up in personed ways. When we treat it with respect, hospitality and deference, our knowing results in a transformation and an encounter with the Divine. This book brings many other thinkers work to bear. There is a lot in here.
January 24, 2026
Sesquipedalian.
The author uses loads of big words in combinations I had never seen before. My two Master's degrees and long-time status as a language nerd and Jeopardy fan couldn't make any sense of it. I understand covenant theology pretty well- still no chance of understanding what she's trying to say.
Recommended for Philosophy majors who understand covenant theology.
The author uses loads of big words in combinations I had never seen before. My two Master's degrees and long-time status as a language nerd and Jeopardy fan couldn't make any sense of it. I understand covenant theology pretty well- still no chance of understanding what she's trying to say.
Recommended for Philosophy majors who understand covenant theology.
July 16, 2023
Mind blowingly good
Read
November 11, 2024For grad school
Was really stretching for me
Was really stretching for me
September 1, 2017
This is Esther Meek's presentation of covenant epistemology, which I understand much better after reading her later book on Michael Polanyi's realism, Contact with Reality. Meeks synthesis of Polanyi with other influences is, I believe, sound, and even inspiring in places, especially her finding that "All reality is either God or God's personal effects." In view of this, the heart of her epistemology is the thought that all knowing is personal, even the knowledge that proceeds from science.
My recommendation is, if you are interested in epistemology, especially from a Christian perspective, read Contact With Reality first, then Loving to Know.
My recommendation is, if you are interested in epistemology, especially from a Christian perspective, read Contact With Reality first, then Loving to Know.
August 25, 2020
Love Meek's thesis here, but I struggle with her prose.
I'd start with her shorter works!
I'd start with her shorter works!
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews