An Epistemology of Grace

            “Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” Ex. 33:13

The Background

• The people of Israel have been delivered miraculously from Egyptian bondage by the mighty hand of God.
• They have passed through the red sea and have come to the base of Mt. Sinai.
• Moses has recieved and delivered the Covenant with its commandments and the people of Israel have affirmed their covenant with God.
• Moses has returned to the top of the mountain and received additional instructions from God to the people.
• But while Moses is on the mountain, the people get restless, and, as we tend to do, they grew obstinate and returned to their sinful ways.
• This includes the egregious sin of idolatry, which the people committed by creating a golden calf and worshipping it.
• There are a number of theories as to the identity of the calf. The two most likely theories are that the calf was associated with Ba'al or perhaps it had ties to the mood god Sı̂n. It is thought that the latter theory had slightly more evidence than the former.
• After Israel commits her idolatry, Moses intercedes on her behalf.
• It is during this back and forth with God that Moses utters the text that serves as the basis for this post.

Moses begins his petition with a plea for grace that leads to revelation. In other words, divine revelation on God’s part is an act of divine grace. We do not deserve divine revelation. God would have been well within his right to leave human beings to their own devices, wallowing in immorality and epistemic blindness. Moses points up to grace and asks God to show him his ways, literally, “that I may know your ways.” Moses depends on God’s kindness for knowledge of God’s ways. So here we have our first premise: Human knowledge is utterly dependent on God. If it involves humans, and if it involves knowledge, it necessarily involves God. I always want to point out that the construction here in the Hebrew, weʿǎt·tā(h), is drawing a conclusion from a previous statement. That previous statement is located in v. 12: Moses reminds God that God had said to him, “I know you by name.” In other words, LORD, you know me by name, therefore, give me grace that I may know your ways. But it gets better.

The Hebrew word ḥēn appears 69x in the OT. The ESV translates it favor 53x, and grace 10x. Of the 69 occurrences, 43x it appears in the phrase "to find favor in the eyes of." According to Flack the verb describes “an action from a superior to an inferior who has no real claim for gracious treatment. [Harris, R. Laird, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody Press, 1999.] It is used when Noah is said to have found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen. 6:8)

Moses knew that if he was going to know God’s ways, God would have to graciously show them to him. He knew that there was no amount of evidence, arguments, or autonomous human reason that he could call upon in order to know God’s ways. He was epistemically helpless.

The Hebrew construction is very interesting: hōwdiʿēnî is a Hif'il imperative of ydʿ. The Hif'il stem represents the subject as causing an object to participate indirectly as a second subject in the notion expressed by the verbal root. [Waltke] Not only is this verb in the Hif'il stem, it is in the imperative conjugation. This means that Moses is expressing a strong desire for God to cause him to know God's ways. Moses is pleading with God to cause him to know God’s ways. What about this word “ways?” According to the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, it ranges from, way, path, road, passage, 2. journey, 3. venture, mission, errand. 4. manner, 5. course of life, conduct, morality, 6a. commandments of Y., 6b. activity of Y., 7. hill, mountain, pasture. This word appears 680x in the BHS biblical text and it is translated way/ways 516 in the ESV. In Gen. 6:12 it is used in an ethical sense: “for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” In Psalm 1:1 we are told that the man who does not stand in the way of sinners is blessed. Moses wants to know God’s ways. So, he pleads to God to cause him to know them.

The next construction wĕʾēdāʿăkā connects knowledge of God’s ways with knowledge of God. Literally, “and know you.” In other words, to know God one must know God’s ways. To grow in one’s knowledge of God, one must grow in his or her knowledge of God’s ways. The idea that knowledge of God can be separated from knowledge of God’s ways is patently false. The Bible paints just the opposite picture. So here we stand. We need grace in order to know God’s ways. And we need to know God’s ways if we are going to know God. Therefore, we need grace in order to know God in the manner described by Moses. Apart from divine grace then, knowledge of God as described by Moses is impossible.

Finally, Moses tells God that his purpose for wanting to know Him is so that he may find favor in his eyes. In other words, Moses’ real petition is that he would please God. Moses wants to live a life that pleases God. But in order to live a life that pleases God, Moses knows that he has to know God. And in order to know God, Moses knows that he has to know God’s ways. And Moses knows that in order to know God’s ways, God has to act graciously upon Moses to cause him to know God’s ways. This means that the only way we can live a life that is pleasing to God is if God Himself takes the initiative to dispense his divine favor, his amazing grace, upon us.

What are the implications of this passage for Christian theology and apologetics? First, it means that men cannot truly know God unless they know God’s ways and they cannot know God’s ways unless God acts to open their eyes. That act is a supernatural act of grace initiated by God alone. Yes, Moses petitioned God but God had already known Moses. This is the prayer of a regenerate man. An unregenerate man would never pray such a prayer because God does not know him and he does not know God.

This means that an apologetic method must acknowledge the Bible’s description of the unregenerate condition. We see how men come to know God throughout Scripture. I like to begin with the New Covenant description and move from there.

The New Covenant tells us that it is God who brings men into the covenant and that God is the one who teaches men and writes his law upon their heart and places the fear of Him in their heart. (Jer. 31-32)

Solomon clearly tells us that the fear of the Lord is the very beginning of knowledge. (Prov. 1:7) Again, it is God who places the fear of the Lord in the hearts of men. Unless God acts, there is no beginning of knowledge.

Luke tells us that Christ opened the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures. (Lu. 24:45) The act of opening up the mind was and is divine, supernatural.

Luke again reminds us in Acts 16:14 that it was the Lord who opened Lydia’s heart to respond to the gospel. The Lord acts and when he does, men always respond. Otherwise we are left with the implausible notions that God opens men’s minds and they still reject his good news or men come to understand the gospel themselves, based on their own analyses and assessments and criteria.

John articulates the epistemic situation quite clearly when he says, “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 Jn. 5:20) Here John says that our knowledge of the One who is true is dependent on our understanding, which is itself, dependent on the act of the Son of God coming and giving us that understanding. Apart from that act, we simply cannot know the One who is true.

Apart from faith that is given by grace, men cannot possess true knowledge of God.

Unregenerate men have not been given faith by grace.

Therefore, unregenerate men cannot possess true knowledge of God.

Now, if unregenerate men cannot possess true knowledge of God, they also cannot possess true knowledge of God’s ways. And since they cannot possess true knowledge of God’s ways, they cannot possibly subject Christian belief to a fair evaluation. They simply do not possess the necessary tools to do so. Only God can do that. Where does that leave us? Think about it.

The Knowledge of God, Degrading Passions & A Depraved Mind

Christianity can be shown to be, not “just as good as” or even “better than” the non-Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human experience. – C. Van Til

I thought I would take some time to share my theological and philosophical reflections lately as I continue to explore the wonderful phenomenon of how humans experience knowledge. Unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, you acknowledge that human beings are able to know and function within this state of affairs we call reality. Oh my, I have lumped epistemology and metaphysics together in the same sentence. What will the academic philosopher think of me now? Frankly, prof., I don’t really give a darn. All in good jest of course. I want to turn your attentions to Romans 1, a chapter that I believe serves as a basic foundation for a distinctly Christian epistemology. In this chapter we not only touch on modern controversies of epistemology, but also on some of the modern moral controversies of human sexuality; controversies which stem, as we shall discover, from man’s unethical approach to how he interprets himself, his experience of the world, and yes, his experience of God.

 As he lays the foundation for what he is about to discuss with the Roman Christians, the apostle Paul tells them that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He then informs these ancient Christians, and us I might add, that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous of men, who by the way, are suppressing the truth in unrighteous. Now, there is no question about the fact that God is revealing his wrath. That is clear enough. But why is this happening? Paul uses a very interesting Greek word to draw his inference. Please remember, this inference is the revealed truth God. God is revealing these things through Paul. What Paul writes, God speaks. The Greek word dioti is an adverbial causal conjunction. It modifies the verb apokalupto. Paul is about to tell us why God is revealing his wrath from heaven. Dioti is a marker of a causal connection between the idea in v. 18 and what is about to follow in v. 19. The reason is linked to man’s knowledge of God. Paul says that that which is known about God is evident within them. These are they who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And who does that? All unregenerate men do that until the glorious light of the gospel is used to open their eyes and that work is only performed by the Holy Spirit. This knowledge of God is evident within them for God made it evident within them. When God makes knowledge evident within someone, I would say we are safe to assume that they know. They are in possession of knowledge. They know and experience the truth of God’s existence.

After clearly point out that men are in possession of the truth of God, and that these men willingly suppress that truth, Paul goes on to expand on his indictment. And make no mistake about it, this is an indictment. Paul elaborates on this fact by saying that God’s invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made. Therefore, they are without excuse. Notice that Paul did not say that men ought to infer God from what was made. Paul said that men do actually see clearly and understand something about God’s attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature through what has been made. The experience of being created in God’s image as well as the experience of God’s created order ensure that all men everywhere know God; they possess the truth about God by way of their experience of these things. And this experience is impossible to avoid. It is the experience of reality, God’s created world.

After expanding his indictment, Paul feels the need to elaborate even further. He says that even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God nor did they given thanks. Instead, they went down a different path. They became, humanity became mataioo in their dialogismos. They become utterly worthless in their reasoning, in their cognitive faculties. Man possesses the truth about God. He knows God. He understands enough about God to render him without a defense for this behavior. There is no excuse for men to reject belief in God. There is no excuse for men to refuse to give God thanks in all things. None! This behavior is condemned by God as idolatry. The traded to image of God for a different kind of image. Rather than accepting the truth that humanity is creating in the image of God and owes God all that he is, they, we, exchanged that image for a variety of different ones. In modern culture, we have exchanged the image of God for evolutionary theory. Paul has told us the wrath of God is being revealed. Now he is about to tell us how that wrath is being revealed.

Paul uses the Greek conjunction, dio, to tell us how God is pouring his wrath out on the earth. We saw a hint above when Paul references the complete uselessness of unregenerate cognitive faculties. Now he tells us, using this little word which is a logical inferential. It is the conclusion of his indictment. For this reason, God gave them over to the lusts of their own hearts. How is God’s wrath revealed from heaven? First, God gave them over to degrading passions. Atimia is a Greek word that has a sense of a state of dishonor or disrespect. The Greek word, Pathos employed by Paul in this instance, carries the sense of a strong desire. In other words, God’s wrath is revealed in the shameful, dishonorable, and disrespectful strong desires of humanity. This behavior is evidence of the wrath of God. And it is brought about because humanity experiences God in everything they do and refuses to interpret that experience righteously, giving thanks to God for all they are. But that is not all. Not only is humanity suffering from shameful strong desires because of its obstinate behavior, there is more.

God not only gave humanity over to degrading passions, he also gave them over to a depraved mind. Here the Greek word is adokimos, and it means unqualified, worthless, base. God has given unregenerate men over to a mind that is worthless. The word for mind carries the sense of intellectual perception, understanding, you know, the cognitive faculties of human beings. In this context it means a mindset, a way of thinking, an attitude, an outlook, or, a worldview. Unregenerate men display the wrath of God upon the human race by way of embracing a worthless, unqualified, base worldview. The thought-pattern of unregenerate humanity is debased.

In summary then, we observe the revealed wrath of God on humanity in the form of unregenerate men having sank into the moral confusion of even the most basic of human behaviors, sexuality. We witness the degrading passions of homosexuality not only being freely expressed in our culture, but we also observe a frightening dogmatic insistence on celebrating such behavior. Moreover, we observe an irrational and extreme hostility toward those who disagree with these practices. Second, the wrath of God is also revealed in the expression of an anti-God, anti-Christian worldview that reduces not only to moral confusion but also to an irrationalism that only be made sense of in the Christian worldview. We murder innocent babies in the womb. We celebrate perverted sexual promiscuity. We affirm men who want to be classified as women. We are forcing our young girls to share bathrooms and shower facilities with the opposite sex. And somehow, this is supposed to be progress? What we see in American culture in particular is the clear revelation of the wrath of God in the immoral sexual perversion of homosexuality along with the absolute abandonment of anything remotely resembling a worldview or mindset that makes sense. In closing, man knows God exists. Man understand something about God within God’s created order. This knowledge comes to him. Man is the passive recipient. This knowledge is unavoidable. But man forces his own interpretation on things. He rejects the Creator, exchanges God for anything but God, to include evolutionary theory. He interprets everything apart from God refusing to acknowledge or thank God in any way. God reveals his wrath by turning men over to degrading passions and lusts as well as depraved minds. Man’s desires and cognitive faculties are spiraling downward without restraint. And in it Christians are instructed to interpret this phenomenon as the revelation of the wrath of God.

This condition makes one wonder why God stopped to save any of us. Why do that? The purpose of God’s electing and saving grace is located in God. Indeed, the mystery of the loving-kindness and grace of God is above and beyond anything we could ever hope to understand.

Christian Belief: Justification, Rationality, and Warrant

From Thales to Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to Epicurus to Descartes to Kant to the Enlightenment, philosophers have been attempting to construct a view of the world that satisfies man’s insatiable appetite for understanding both, who we are, and what this state of affairs in which we find ourselves, is exactly. Indeed, these philosophers have produce more intellectual fodder than one can possible keep track of. As one might expect, Christians have been exposed to these diverse philosophies as well. This exposure has produced some good results but it has also had devastating consequences in numerous areas of Christian belief and praxis. You see, these philosophies have been, for the most part, entirely pagan, attempting to arrive at an answer to the question of our world apart from, without relying on, God for their answer. And this is exactly the sort of influence that the Christian must guard against according to the apostle Paul: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Col. 2:8)

Recently, I told a young man studying philosophy at a local seminary that the basis of Christian belief is not philosophical arguments, or historical evidence. He was stunned and I was stunned that he was stunned. We both were stunned. He wanted to know what the basis of Christian belief is if it is not those things. So the point of this post that I want you to get if you get nothing else is this: the basis for Christian belief, what makes it justified, rational, and warranted, in essence, what makes it real knowledge, is the revelation of the Christ event in Scripture. And make no mistake about it, the entire corpus of Scripture is pointing us to the Christian event. If that is not what makes Christian belief justified for you, rational for you, warranted for you, knowledge for you, then there is nothing Christian about your Christian belief. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle cannot lay the foundation for Christian belief. They were not capable of providing such a foundation for something so majestic, so spectacular, and to be clear, so supernatural. Christianity is a supernatural belief, a transcendent reality, and only a supernatural foundation can serve as the foundation for such a thing as Christianity. This means that a supernatural experience is required in order to impart the sort of knowledge necessary if Christian belief is going to be justified, rational, and warranted.

Cornelius Van Til writes, “From these considerations, it follows that if we develop our reasons for believing that a true knowledge of God and, therefore, also of the world, is possible because actually given in Christ, we have in fact given what goes in philosophy under the name of epistemology.” [Survey of Christian Epistemology] The basis of Christian belief is the Christ event that is Christian Scripture. If the basis of Christian belief is something other than Scripture alone, then that Christian belief is not a belief that is Christian. Rather, it is a belief that is formed within the presuppositions of pagan philosophy. And pagan philosophy, at its core, is antithetical to Christian belief. Pagan philosophy rests on a foundation that is hostile to Christian belief. In fact, pagan philosophy, by nature is antithetical to Christian belief. The apostle Paul tells us that pagan philosophy is on par with “empty deception,” and is according to the tradition or standards of men, rather than according to, or in accord with Christ. Christian apologists in modern Western Christianity have to a large degree uncritically accepted the wisdom and philosophy of men like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. And this explains why, when someone says to them that the basis of Christian faith is not rational arguments, they are stunned. They spend hours studying pagan philosophy and minutes reading Paul. This trend is deeply disturbing because these men are filling our churches, becoming pastors, youth leaders, and Sunday school teaches and they are passing on their unbiblical methods to unsuspecting and poorly equipped Christians.

So what is a Christian to do when someone challenges your beliefs? There are two types of challenges you should prepare for: 1) De jure challenges the rationality of Christian belief while 2) De facto challenges the facts of Christian belief. I am dealing with the former challenge that says, in general, that something is basically wrong with Christian belief. The claim is that Christian belief is irrational or not justified. There is apparently not enough evidence to not a good argument for Christian belief. How does the Christian prepare to deal with such a challenge? Let me say for starters that you do not run out and study The Organon in hopes that this will help you. It will not. What then is the Christian to do? You are to stay true to your belief and here is how you do just that.

First, you must remember what produces Christian belief in the human person to begin with. Christian belief is not produced by unaided human reason upon reflection about the events of Scripture. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” (Jn. 6:65)           Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.” (Matt. 13:11) I could produce dozens of places in Scripture that testify to this truth: Christian belief is granted to those whom God regenerates and to no one else. Christian belief is for the Christian, basic. To say that a belief is basic is to say that it is not believed based on some other proposition or belief. It is self-evident. This is why Christian theism holds that Christian Scripture is self-justifying. We do not believe the Bible is “God speaking” based on an argument but rather based on the inward testimony and the Holy Spirit we know it immediately.

Alvin Plantinga says it well when he writes,

“The deliverances of the sensus divinitatis are occasioned by the circumstances; they are not conclusions from them. It does not work by way of an argument. My apprehension and experience of the beauty of nature of the moral guilt involved in the conscience are not evidences for God. It is that I simply find myself with the belief that God is disapproving of my behavior. It is in that circumstance that my belief arises, or better, is revealed, uncovered, becomes obvious.”

The ability that a Christian has to form Christian belief is not the product of natural cognitive processes. Those processes are held in bondage to the curse of sin. Man cannot and is not willing to see the truth of Christian belief so long as he is dead in his trespasses and sins. It is only when the Holy Spirit comes rushing in to instigate a rebirth that our cognitive processes are now able to see and know the Christ who died for us properly. And this belief arises immediately, not because someone made a great argument or preached a wonderful sermon but because God has called that sinner out of darkness into His glorious light, into His kingdom, indeed, into His family.

We should not worry that the unbeliever is going to object to our model. He has his own model and that model comes with its own set of presuppositions and standards. This is not to say that we have an equal stand-off with the Christian having his system and the unbeliever his own. The Christian can and should demonstrate to the unbeliever how, on his own principles and presuppositions, his system, when all is said and done, is reduced to skepticism or irrationalism. But that is not the purpose of this post. The purpose of this post is to remind the Christian what is the basis for Christian belief. It is the Christ event that is Scripture. We know this because God the Holy Spirit regenerates our heart and mind, making it known to us. Otherwise, we would never know that Christian belief is true knowledge. We do not examine evidence and study argues and from these things infer God. It is in within the circumstances of regeneration that Christian belief arises in the heart by the sole work of the Holy Spirit. From that circumstance we know immediate that all that the Scripture testifies about is true. After all, the Spirit of God, God Himself, witnesses to the things that are in His own word. What greater argument or evidence could anyone ever present than the testimony of God?

Christian belief then is formed in the heart by the Holy Spirit as He works the miracle of regeneration within God’s elect. As a result, our cognitive faculties are delivered from the bondage of sin, and regenerated so that now we can receive instruction, think correctly, understand, and know the things which God has prepared for us. It is impossible for the Christian to explain this in such a way that an unbeliever will not object to it. Because the experience transcends human reason, the unbeliever, so long as they are an unbeliever will reject this model. Some will give it lip service, but in their heart they will not receive it because only God can make them capable of receiving it.

In the end, the Christian has to be concerned, not with the unbeliever’s de jure objections, but rather with being faithful to the gospel, to basic Christian theology. It isn’t the reaction of the world that should shape how we deliver the truth or how we defend the faith. Our primary concern has to be what says the Scripture. God regenerates through the foolishness of preaching. Unless we keep this ever before us, we will always find the seductive methods of pagan philosophy irresistible because of how they are received and how that reception makes us feel about ourselves.