Trusting to Know

What are the practices of knowledge that cultivate the necessary trust under which it flourishes? Firstly, listening to the Word of God is an essential practice – not because the Bible is an epistemological text book, but because (as we have seen) it tells us with remarkable explanatory power about ourselves as knowers and the world we seek to know. It is because that Word of God is a divine declaration of the significance and meaningfulness of all we know. The scriptural gospel both encourages us in our human capacity and rebukes our pride. Along its spine is the story of the divine creator whose unshakable commitment is to the world that he has made and the men and women who inhabit it. Though human beings may know truly and even know truth without knowing Christ, they cannot know without him. Knowledge flourishes best within earshot of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Second, curiosity about God’s world is an appropriate expression of the creation mandate. That humankind has an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge about the world in which they live and of which they are a part is part of the way we were designed to interact with the creation that we might serve it. The contemporary epidemic of boredom – and particularly, of boredom with the real (as opposed to virtual) world – is deeply dehumanizing. Christian educators must surely seek to give nurture to the curiosity of students about the created order. An environment in which the activity of knowing is celebrated and enjoyed is essential to the flourishing of human beings as knowing animals.

Third, the cultivation of the virtue of epistemological humility is indispensible to true knowledge of the world. The scientific method itself, properly understood, recognizes the limitations and provisionality of human knowledge – without thereby despairing about the possibility of knowledge. The proper basis for the growth of human knowledge is the admission of incompleteness and even error. This is one of those truths that we can learn from observation; but it finds its confirmation and explanation in the gospel word which judges human beings. Schools must teach their students to say ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I was wrong’. Without these phrases, there is less chance to say ‘I know’.

Fourth, as knowing is a collective practice, a critical respect for tradition and for knowledge from and of other cultures enhances the ability of human beings to know. The current shape of most curricula recognizes this. However, it is not only essential to recognize that history is an important subject in and of itself, but that each subject area has its own history of inquiry, error, revision and understanding. Tradition is not prescriptive. It requires a practice of receiving it respectfully but critically. Anglican Christians in particular are well placed, as heirs of the sixteenth century reformation, to accord to the traditions of human knowledge the kind of critical respect that enables its development. Learning to see from the perspective of other cultures is also a marvelous aid towards the development of a proper regard for one’s own subjectivity.

Fifth, enabling communities of trust – trust in the coherence and meaningfulness of the world, in the potential for meaningfulness of human words, and so on – is the basis for the transformation of domestic and public life. By contrast, the erosion of trust in the political and economic sphere is deeply destructive of community. As we have seen, there is an urgent need for the schooling future citizens in the responsibilities that come with the possession of knowledge and the virtues that are needed for maintaining it.