I love the word "epistemology"; don't you? It's the study of learning to know how we know that we know; and it helps us to discover that what we know we are sure we know. Sounds cool, doesn't it? My wife doesn't think so, she calls this a waste of time philosophizing over philosophy. But tell me, how do we know that we know? Plato said human knowledge is like being bound in a cave staring at shadows on the wall. Behind the bound men is a fire that is shining on objects which reflect an image against the wall. The bound men can not look behind them but only guess at what the shadows on the wall represent. Plato says this is the present state of mankind: ignorant and clueless, only able to guess at passing shadows and totally lacking in knowledge about the real world outside the cave. The book of John in 3:19 says that men actually have chosen to live in this ignorance of unknowing because the darkness veils their sinful behavior. The only way for a person to truly know is if one man was able to break his bonds and run out of the cave. Not only would he be able to see the fire and the objects directly; but as he left the cave he would now be able to see the sun, moon and stars as well. Plato considers these people as the 'enlightened ones' who really know. And as a result, they have an obligation to return to the cave and share their knowledge with the prisoners who are still bound in darkness. It would be cruel to leave them in ignorance. Knowledge for Plato comes from light outside the darkness of the cave. He gets it. Recently, my sons and I have been watching reruns of "Man vs. Wild" with Bear Grylls. We love watching it because he is absolutely nuts -- but boy does he know how to survive. He can stay alive anywhere: He once ate a camel in the Sahara, he choked down grubs in the Amazon rain forest, and he even tried to catch sharks off the Pacific isles. He says one of the most important lessons to survival is the ability to make a fire wherever you are. Fire not only provides you with light, but it gives your body the necessary warmth to stay alive. He was once dropped high into the French Alps, and his ability to make a fire allowed him to withstand the frigid below zero temperatures all night long. Fire indeed gives life. Bear Grylls gets it. Sadly, the man who is heralded by much of mankind as "the enlightened one" doesn't get it. He is still lost in his own dark cave...poor ole' Dalai Lama. Listen to what he says: "Do you want to create heaven, or paradise, here and now? It is simple, it is within you." When he was asked if he was god, he laughed and grabbed the hands of the two people on each side of him, lifted them in the air, and said emphatically, "God exists or god does not exist? Leave it for us to decide, what matters is to embrace all and exclude none, love all and hate none. Then you will understand." Understand what? Sounds like guessing at shadows on the wall to me. Try applying that wisdom to when you are thirsty: "Drink all liquid, exclude none." Try applying that wisdom to when you are hungry: "Eat everything, exclude none." So the next starving man I see I will say, "Hey buddy, here is some battery acid and poison mushroom, have at it!" I am not sure he gets it! But there was one man, who entered history and boldly proclaimed, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Jesus declares that he comes to us from the outside who makes sense of the shadows. He is the answer to Plato's dark cave. And he is the one who offers warmth and life to all of mankind. He is the true source of fire for all mankind to survive. So if you want to "really know that you know", skip the class on "epistemology" and go straight down the hall to "Christology." It is here, gazing upon the person of Jesus Christ, where everything will make sense.
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