Knowledge Discussion Moves Forward

So the regular reader may be wondering why I spent three posts to state the obvious about knowledge. Besides being a cumbersome thinker who is talkative, I have an overall goal. That goal, though in line with the sub-title of this blog, is stated so often here in the past two years (nearly that long anyway) my readers may feel cheated--or at least like yawning for the umpteenth time. Well, I hope I am being an effective witness for the narrow way of Jesus in the long run but even I think I am starting to sound like a broken record. (Guess that's a dated simile, but malfunctioning CD's don't repeat the same line over and over just a syllable or note in rapid staccato.)

The reason I posted on knowledge is to develop a background of delineated meanings from which an assertion may be made regarding Christian decision-making on a day to day basis, which then leads to some degree of wisdom-gain over a life time. The next stop is to identify how the common man or woman deals with scripture. There might be generated a complex list if I attempted a no-stone-unturned approach, but for the sake of this blog is not a tome, I will work with a few main possibilities. I came up with three:

• Reaction--meaning the words flip some switch in the heart on and the person goes off. Most of what is thought then is really skewed by this deeply ingrained, emotionally-controlled state which is our baggage in common terms and in secular terms is closely akin to psychosis. (That's a joke, but it may not be far from the truth.)
• Interpretation--sounds formal but for many of us, it is not. Once the switch is flipped back off (this is not completely possible except under one condition but a person must believe it is at least attempted--that's a later post), the person begins to work on understanding what the scripture actually means. I do not mean formal interpretation as if one is a Bible scholar, just the sense that, "Hey, I better figure out what this means. I'll go ask Joe. He knows stuff like this."
• Application--"OK, I got it now and I'm gonna do the right thing by this."
  

For any reason, if one of the readers think another bullet or two must be considered, please help me here.

Idling

Go figure...I said I was gonna write more and school kicks into high gear. I didn't see this coming??

I have a next post in my head and am looking for a spontaneous moment when writing for a few moments fits in. Maybe this weekend even!

Oops

Sometimes I sit to write and begin to throw terms around that I think I understand. Hoping to keep from looking foolish, I check the term in dictionary or encyclopedic sources and discover I am way over my head in either understanding the term or in being able to offer a reasonable opinion related to what I thought I intended to say. In other words, before I checked the sources I was writing something akin to horse manure.

Well, horse manure can harm or help plants in the garden depending on how it is applied. Not wanting to harm the relationship with readers, I have withheld application tonight.

Spirit Knowledge

Now I add a third category of knowing. It is neither intellectual nor carnal, though it is related to both. It is the knowledge fully resident in the new creature being. A knowledge in God, which He shares with us and is about all of life. It wells within the heart and springs from there--under the right conditions--like a river flowing from us to others.

Spiritual knowledge isn't the practice of disciplines which inhibit carnal knowledge expression. Spiritual knowledge is a heart reality become understanding which brings the will into submissive loving of God and the mastery of the body's appetites to rest fully quieted underneath the foot of the believer. These appetites are to be regarded as dead, though a shift in love from God and toward self will cause the animal to rise.

Spiritual knowledge isn't simply the ability to offer a sharp apologetic from the scriptures about life in God. Such is an intellectual exercise which may or may not be a function of one's spirit.

Spiritual knowledge begins with God, develops with God, and results in the glory God deserves as it is the mark of the sons of God for which revelation the earth groans . That mark is the fruit of the spirit which so naturally emanates from individuals who walk in it.

An interesting characteristic of spiritual knowledge is that it is so dependent on God, the possessor is so aware of that connection, that spiritual knowledge never declares itself as the property of the human in which it is found. Spirit knowledge only acknowledges the One who is the source of the knowing.

On a personal note...

I had an epiphany a moment ago about this blog. The two of you that regularly give this site a hit, my kids who check in fairly often, along with a bit wider readership that isn't quite regular will recognize I haven't written very consistently for the past several months. The tech troubles of the late spring notwithstanding, there is a simple reason of motivation behind the paucity of writing. I haven't been engaged for the last six months or so with the blog.

I recognized why this morning. Somewhere along the way--and I'm not sure where--I shifted from wanting to express my ideas to needing to expound well. The emphasis on achieving a quality experience for myself before the reader has undercut my interest. Oh well. I have never been interested in a personal blog in which I journal about my life, nor the casualness of such writing. Yet, by moving to pieces that are thought out and "crafted," I was not enjoying the writing.

Anyway, I think with a little more spontaneity back in the mix of my approach, I will write more often.

Is Ice Cream Consumption a Carnal Act?

As human beings, we find ourselves within the boundaries of a time and space dimension. Our physical bodies have a finite amount of time to exist measured against the movement of the earth around the sun. While knowledge is, on the one hand, understood to be a function of intellectual capacity, each individual gains a body-based composite of knowing by being alive in our physical bodies we may label in two categories:

kinesthetic knowledge --physical understandings like knowing how to ride a bicycle, wherein a person need not be able to carefully articulate the physical laws involved, nor the math of speed computation, but nonetheless "knows" the way to balance and move the vehicle forward successfully.

carnal knowledge--within Christian circles, carnal knowledge is synonymous with sin but in the fullness of definition is a bit broader.

1. pertaining to or characterized by the flesh or the body, its passions and appetites; sensual: carnal pleasures.

2. not spiritual; merely human; temporal; worldly: man of secular, rather carnal leanings. (Dictionary.com)

Is riding a bicycle carnal? It pertains to the body and is a mere human activity. (Though I have had many a bike ride wherein my sense of God's presence and my communion with Him during the physical activity was sublime.) So...biking is carnal. Biking is carnal?! Consider the carnal pleasure of eating ice cream. (We visited a local ice cream shop here in Seattle. All organic ingredients and the spoon/bowl was compostable. I selected coffee and the product included ground coffee beans--yum!) Most of us do not place this human act--based on no nutritional need but pursued by the majority of us who enjoy ice cream simply because the taste and texture of the dessert is enjoyable--in the sin category. Carnal acts which are sinful have a quality that goes beyond simply enjoying a pleasurable, physical act. When do we cross that line? What do you think? (I'm using my daughter's Mac and frustrated by it!!! I have no clue why the second half of this post is showing up in a white box, nor can I figure out how to get it to stop. I think I need to rename the blog to reflect my continuing fight with technology.)

Degrees and a Cabbie's Knowledge

The brain grows a dendrite, and literally an individual gains a mental connection. The person has new knowledge. A fact is known.

The word science is rooted in a Latin word, scire, meaning to know. Knowledge is simply what we know. Knowledge builds on itself, hence a formal education requires years; and individuals categorize their learning into specialties of focus, which drive a lifetime of learning in that field. We award such knowledge a credential verifying the education met standards.

Gaining knowledge includes non-formal education. One's brain may contain a pile of facts about a particular city's streets which has developed as a function of driving a cab for a living. The brain in this case rarely requires a map for reference. Experience is a great teacher.

In the cab example, the individual learns more than just where the streets lay. The cab driver will be aware of related but necessary facts that are a function of the city planner's action, which streets run two-ways versus one-way for instance; and of particular importance, which way that one way is! (I've been visiting Portland, Oregon since yesterday, and this city employs the one-way more than most cities I have visited! Well done, I might add. It hasn't been difficult to navigate.)

Further, the cab driver will be well versed on facts that impact the orientation and the planning of the streets: hours when the given streets experience heavy traffic, locations of popular attractions that will impact traffic flow, ethnicity concentrations, crime areas, etc. Knowledge is layered and nuanced.

We gain and accept our level of knowledge capacity and the layering of our given circumstances as a function of life. Taken as a whole, the amount of knowledge and its expanding diversity leaves the common person within an unfathomable labyrinth. All of us live with his of her pile of facts while leaving much information to reside out of our brains but within the reach of research. Factoring in the multiples of other people's nuance, add in the forces of nature and the laws of physics wherein a volcano may erupt or trained bicyclists misjudge by millimeters into a shattering fall and to knowledge is added the complication of "randomness" which at times scrambles life beyond planning, protocols and policies that all stand upon knowledge.