Who is the Source of True Knowledge and Wisdom? - 02
Can we learn for ourselves or must God teach us?
I mentioned the dissimilarities of the Greek and Hebrew approaches to education.
The Hebrew, "shinan" (שִׁנַּן), approached the teaching and learning process from the perspective of man having received knowledge. Whereas the Greek, "paideia" (παιδαγωγία), approached the teaching and learning process more from the perspective of a man discovering knowledge.
I think both models have value, but also that the Hebrew model is mandatory to convey God’s knowledge and wisdom.1
I also believe that there is an important obstacle that interferes with our ability to gain true knowledge and to educate others. It is that, naturally, people don’t want to acquire knowledge, if it ends up handcuffing them to God. We are born turned against God. And we have no inclination to turn back to Him.
This predisposition (to act only according to the sinful nature) gets changed in a Christian, because God regenerates him. The change is real but it doesn’t completely remove a Christian’s unwillingness to learn from God. I think, as Christians, we can confess that from our personal experience with our sin and God. Sometimes we just don’t want to hear the truth.
The Apostle Paul talks about mankind’s bias mind in the first chapter of his letter to the Roman Church:
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Paul also speaks to the Christian’s ability to choose against God’s knowledge and wisdom. A Christian, though he has God’s Spirit, can still deceive himself.
18Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.2
So thinking of education at the ground level: you mustn’t start with man. You start with God. If you start with man, you never get to God, because you don’t want to!
If natural (sinful) man is put in the driver’s seat, he crashes his car into a wall and burns. He crashes intentionally, mind you, or else he might reach God at the finish line.
Whereas, if God is recognized as the giver of knowledge and wisdom, then the response is humble receptivity, gratitude, and a desire to submit to the Heavenly Father and learn more. This is not simply a humble receptivity of God’s gift of special revelation (the Bible), but also of His gift of general revelation (found in every detail of His creation).
Of course, as we saw earlier, those kinds of responses require a supernatural change3 in the learner (and human teachers as well). This supernatural work, though, will not completely erase the necessity for the learner and the teacher to guard against lingering sin and deception during the educational process.
If you recognize that God is in the driver’s seat of education, then you’ll be like a child who sits on his father’s lap, and learns from him, and loves him. You will even understand that his discipline is meant for your good.
If you think that mankind is the finder of facts and the determiner of truth, then you’ll be like the child that is set on the father’s lap but wishes to pull away from him and get down to the floor and scurry off.4
When I say both models have value, I say it hesitatingly. I do think certain question and answer techniques from the Greek model have helped men think harder in the world, though questions and answers were not absent from the Hebrew model. Also, I do not doubt that truth gets uncovered by non-believers, (like the Greeks and others) though I think, because of their unbelief, it is like finding a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that they are not sure where to put it. They have no picture to look at as their starting point (the box cover of the jigsaw puzzle) for they refuse the self-revealing Christian God. Nor do they submit their thoughts to Him, though He has established the final picture they are ultimately supposed to build toward.
1 Corinthians 3. It would be helpful to read the first three chapters of this letter to get a broader context of Paul’s thought of Greek learning.
In John 3:3 Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Cornelius Van Til denies that true knowledge of any sort can be found apart from God. He taught that all facts are interpreted facts and must align with God’s created intention of them. Van Til then wrote, “The unbeliever is like a child who has to sit on his father's lap to slap his face." By this metaphor, Van Til emphasized that people who deny God must ultimately depend on Him for their very existence and their capability to think or do anything at all, including the ability to rebel.