Is Christian knowledge really knowledge?

Is Christian knowledge really knowledge? Some people with “knowledge” are afraid of Christian knowledge. And some Christians are afraid of knowledge. The conclusion, for them, must be that Christian knowledge isn’t knowledge. But is that true?

Take a look at the adjacent image.

Bing Chat /DALL-E generated it for me in response to my request for “An image of the difference between general knowledge and Christian knowledge“

Now, if you’ve read much here lately, you know my thoughts on so-called artificial intelligence is that it’s not all that intelligent. It only does what its programmers tell it to do. It can only learn from what it’s told. As such, any “intelligence” it has is only a reflection of the intelligence of its programmers and trainers.

This opinion comes after working in the field for more than 35 years, starting as an operating systems specialist and ending up as director of IT infrastructure at a large university.

With that in mind, look at the image again. The left side is DALL-E’s representation of general knowledge. The right side is Christian knowledge. Did you notice, there’s a cross on both sides of the image?

Christians who aren’t afraid of knowledge know that God is the source of all knowledge. That’s something I’ve been writing for quite some time.

The beginning of knowledge

The Bible tells us that God is the beginning of knowledge. This comes from Solomon in Proverbs. Before we go any further, for those who may not know the intent/purpose of the book of Proverbs, here’s a few words on that.

Proverbs

The purpose of the book of Proverbs is “attaining wisdom and discipline … giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young” (Prov 1:2-4). The person addressed in the book is called “son,” and the counsel given is referred to as “your father’s instruction” and “your mother’s teaching” (1:8).

In his defense of divine wisdom, the writer turns first to the dangers of the evil influence of sinners and the devastating effect they can have on the young. Turning then to the metaphor of wisdom as a woman, the writer speaks of her crying aloud in the streets. She is a mother seeking her wayward son or a wife calling out to her unfaithful husband. She is looking for him in the very streets and public squares where he abandoned her. By contrast, finding wisdom is like finding a virtuous wife. Such wisdom God himself possessed in creating the universe, and he rewards those who have it.

With these exhortations and examples as a backdrop, the book opens up into the full array of Solomonic proverbs (Prov 10-24). They cover the whole range of human life and all levels of human social activities: relationships between family members, business partners, neighbors, friends, and enemies. Within these proverbs are two distinct groups. The first consists of short, single line sayings (Prov 10:1-22:29); the second (23:1-24:22) expands the sayings by introducing a new dimension into the discussion of wisdom—divine judgment and future punishment. Here wisdom has been brought into the arena of divine revelation. This is not just good advice for the here and now, it is eternal advice.

A further collection of Solomon’s wise sayings was gathered by court officials during the reign of King Hezekiah (Prov 25:1) and added to the book (chs. 25-29). The content of nearly all these sayings relates to political rule or governance, though the application of these principles applies to private life as well. One could entitle this section, “Principles of Leadership.”

The book of Proverbs has little recognizable structure to aid in the interpretation of each saying. Consequently, the reader must understand each saying apart from any literary context. In seeking an appropriate context we must search within the context of our own life for an application. Perhaps for just this reason the author of Proverbs closes the book with a close-up account of three individuals, Agur (Prov 30:1-33), Lemuel (31:1-9), and “wife of noble character” (31:10-31), in which we see wisdom through the lens of their lives. They become the model for the reader’s own life-application of wisdom.

With that backdrop, here are the opening verses of Proverbs. Pay special attention to the last verse. When you do get there, realize that fear of the Lord may not mean what you think it does.

Proverbs – Prologue – Purpose and Theme

Prologue: Purpose and Theme

Pr 1:1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

Pr 1:2 for attaining wisdom and discipline;
for understanding words of insight;

Pr 1:3 for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life,
doing what is right and just and fair;

Pr 1:4 for giving prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young—

Pr 1:5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance—

Pr 1:6 for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.

Pr 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

If you happened to read “The problem of ‘Fear of the Lord'”, (or not?) then you realize that it’s about having a deserved feeling of awe/respect/love for God, not literally shaking in our boots or sandals. One very early example of knowledge from God is below.

The passage title in the NIV translation may not ring a bell, but the scenario might. It was God giving His people the knowledge needed to build His tabernacle in Exodus. Notice the underlined portions.

Bezalel and Oholiab

35:30-35 pp — Ex 31:2-6

Ex 35:30 Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts— 32 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 33 to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic craftsmanship. 34 And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. 35 He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as craftsmen, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them master craftsmen and designers. 1 So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the LORD has commanded.”

Ex 36:2 Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. 3 They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. 4 So all the skilled craftsmen who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left their work 5 and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the LORD commanded to be done.”

Ex 36:6 Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, 7 because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.

Knowledge and Christian knowledge – are both from God?

Are general knowledge and Christian knowledge both from God? It’s an intriguing question. Some will answer no, without even thinking about it. Some will answer yes, without even thinking about it. And yet, in both cases, aren’t those respondents, regardless of their answer, failing to use their minds to process whatever knowledge they have?

General knowledge image from DALL-E

Before asking DALL-E to make an image of the difference between general knowledge and Christian knowledge, I asked it to make an image of knowledge. No qualifiers. Just knowledge. Here’s one of the images I got back.

As often happens with AI images, it’s necessary to ignore the text representations.

AI image generators, at least at this time, don’t actually understand any of the text they spit back to us.

What it does recognize is that knowledge is generally shown as being in our heads/minds/brains. And those symbols, lights, and other things in the image are often present along with words like knowledge

And that’s how/why it gave me this to represent general knowledge.

Christian knowledge image from DALL-E

When asked about Christian knowledge, this is one of the images I got back.

As you can see, there are symbols in this image as well. That’s expected, since both are about knowledge.

What DALL-E did associate, through its “training/reading” of lots of digital data, is shown by the book and the cross. Obviously, the cross represents Jesus. The book, given its size and the cross emanating from it, is the Bible.

So it does pick up on the relationship between Christianity and both the Bible and the cross.

The difference between Christian knowledge and general knowledge

So, the image at the top resulted when I asked it to show the difference between Christian knowledge and general knowledge. It’s repeated here so you don’t have to scroll up.

We again have the symbols on both sides. That makes sense, since there’s knowledge in both.

The left side has a human brain, while the right side does not. That also makes sense, since general knowledge can come from us. More on that in a moment.

The right side, of course, has a cross, since Christian knowledge comes from God.

Now, what are we to make about the cross on the left side? The human brain side. Again, regardless of its name, artificial intelligence has no intelligence. At best, if properly “programmed and trained”, it can parrot back the things it’s trained on. Arguably, Bing Chat / DALL-E are right up there as leaders. As of the time of these prompts, Bing Chat used Chat GPT-4 and DALL-E, both from OpenAI.

Therefore, the cross exists on both sides of the image because when it was trained, it saw Christianity represented along with knowledge, not just Christian knowledge, often enough to put it on both sides of this image. It’s not OpenAI/Bing Chat/DALL-E coming up with all on its own. Rather, it’s the recognition that people usually put God in with knowledge in general and Christian knowledge specifically.

Christian knowledge merged with general knowledge

Now, I could stop there and say it’s conclusive. But that would be falling into a trap I don’t like to be in. How many of you remember, in court scenes from TV/movies if not in real life, where you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I must say, there’s something missing here.

So, as a kind of sanity check, here’s the missing piece.

If you’ve followed along with the logic, this is exactly what we should’ve expected.

We have the human head, of course. And the symbols that showed up in all the images. And lots of books. Of course, there’s also the cross that showed up in all cases.

One more time, let me say that artificial intelligence, has no clue about what all these representations actually mean. All it “knows” is that these images go together with the words in the prompts I gave to it and it put them together for all these combinations of general knowledge and Christian knowledge.

A conclusion about the beginning of knowledge

Hopefully this isn’t overkill, but – the conclusion coming in a moment is not because artificial intelligence is intelligent enough to know beyond doubt that Christian knowledge and general knowledge both come from God. It just doesn’t know that. Therefore, we shouldn’t use it to say it’s true.

However, given the images that OpenAI’s software generated from the prompts I gave it, we can reach a conclusion. Not a conclusion that AI reached on its own. Instead, a conclusion reached from its human programming and its human-guided “training”. And that conclusion is that people, yes real people like you and me, tend to put the words I used to ask for images along with the symbols and images together.

In fact, we put them together so often that OpenAI’s software was able to consistently come up with the images we just looked at. Not because of its so-called intelligence, but because of the pattern recognition of our own links between those image and words.

In other words, it’s a conclusion reached based on an analysis of what real people tend to do.

We, real people, tend to speak/write based on a belief that God is the source of all knowledge, Christian or otherwise.

Of course, once we get into what we do with that knowledge, that’s up to us.

As is the ability to corrupt that knowledge.

That’s a lesson we should’ve learned from Eden.

And yet, a look around us makes it quite obvious that we didn’t learn.

Christian knowledge versus general knowledge

This is the opening of a series about Christian knowledge versus general knowledge. It feels a lot like the name of this site: God versus religion.

Religion is supposed to be about God. And yet, it often isn’t.

Knowledge is from God. And yet, what we do to and with that knowledge often puts it and us, far from God.

It’s going to be based on a book by Dallas Willard. Someone who many people think is too hard to understand.

The book is Knowing Christ Today: Why we can trust spiritual knowledge.

Dallas Willard closes the introduction with two things. His own thoughts. And a quote from C. S. Lewis, one of my other favorite authors.

I SHOULD ALERT readers to the fact that this is not a devotional book and that it will require considerable mental effort to understand. This lies in the nature of the problems to be dealt with. I have tried to ease the pain as much as possible. One result of the displacement of faith from knowledge, which we are dealing with in this book, is that many people now believe you do not need to think deeply and carefully to follow Christ. C. S. Lewis makes a very penetrating comment about this matter:

God has room for people with very little sense, but He wants everyone to use what sense they have. The proper motto is not “Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever,” but “Be good, sweet maid, and don’t forget that this involves being as clever as you can.” God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all…. One reason why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. ¹Willard, Dallas. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (p. 16). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I hope that doesn’t drive you away. Not, it’s not simple. And yet, Jesus did tell us:

The Greatest Commandment – Matthew

22:34-40 pp — Mk 12:28-31

Mt 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I’ll try to make this as not-too-difficult as possible. Early on, when I was first getting into computers, before there were PCs and MACs in virtually every household in developed countries, it was extremely difficult to learn anything about mainframe computers. They were the things bigger than my house, but less powerful than the smartphone you probably have with you right now and carry everywhere.

Once I finally did start to learn, I promised myself that I’d try to never be like the people who wouldn’t help me get started, because I didn’t already know a lot. How is one supposed to learn if you have to have knowledge before someone will help you learn?

Now, I try to carry that into what I write and the classes I lead. It doesn’t matter, hopefully, if you know nothing or a lot. I try to have something for everyone. And in the classes, it’s a given that we all can/should learn from each other. It’s part of being in Christian community.

I pray the same carries to this series.

What’s next?

Let’s close then with the very beginning of the introduction to the book:

THIS BOOK IS about knowledge and about claims to knowledge in relationship to life and Chris-
tian faith. It is concerned, more precisely, with the trivialization of faith apart from knowledge
and with the disastrous effects of a repositioning of faith in Jesus Christ, and of life as his students, outside the category of knowledge. This is one result of the novel and politically restricted
understanding of knowledge that has captured our social institutions and the popular mind over
the last two centuries in the Western world.

Serious and thoughtful Christians today find themselves in a quandary about knowledge, on
the one hand, and religious belief and practice, on the other. It is a socially imposed quandary. In
the context of modern life and thought, they are urged to treat their central beliefs as something
other than knowledge—something, in fact, far short of knowledge. Those beliefs are to be relegated to the categories of sincere opinion, emotion, blind commitment, or behavior traditional
for their social group. And yet they cannot escape the awareness that those beliefs do most
certainly come into conflict with what is regarded as knowledge in educational and professional
circles of public life. This conflict has profound effects upon how they hold and practice religious
beliefs and how they present them to others. ²Willard, Dallas. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (p. 16). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

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all images by Bing Chat / DALL-E

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Footnotes

• 1
  Willard, Dallas. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (p. 16). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
• 2
  Willard, Dallas. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (p. 16). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.