DStilled

Knowing Christ

November 2, 2007 on 10:52 pm | In Blog |

Asking what is true is like asking what is yellow. There is indeed a “yellow” out there and many if not most people see it in a similar way. However, “yellow” is experienced – as is every other aspect of life – through the human senses, which can fail or mislead us. Fortunately we have wonderful minds to make sense of things. We trust and believe that when we look at something yellow in color that there is truth to what we experience. It is exactly this trust and belief in anything that leads us to “know.”

“Knowing” is nothing more than being sure of something. This is our truth and the more often it is verified to us, the more we know it. The scientific method is based precisely on such repetitious scrutiny. We cannot act accordingly on things we do not know and it is impossible to pretend to not know something we do. All of this enables our understanding of truth to be relative for each individual person. Trust and belief in the unknowable as well as the consistency of the known illustrate what is true.

This understanding of the how we “know” truth is necessary to move beyond the question to the answer at hand. Do I believe that “Christ alone can save sinners, and the salvation in Christ alone is the true and genuine salvation”? Yes. Do I know that it is true? No, not 100%. Let me explain. As previously stated, all “knowing” is just stronger faith. The problem with this idea is that nothing on earth is guaranteed. Nothing we can perceive is so absolute that we can be 100% sure simply because it is a human being having the perception. I can say that earlier today I ate and that I am an American male. These are only observations that my senses have conveyed to my mind. They very well could be wrong. The Matrix comes to mind.

What is the Matrix? The Matrix is a computer-constructed program of control to keep the human mind imprisoned but alive in order to change the human body into a battery. Take away the science fiction aspect of the story and we come to the same conclusion that Plato came to long ago with the Allegory of the Cave. We cannot fully know anything because everything or anything may be an illusion. This possible failure of perception demonstrates how only thinking and meta-cognition can be trusted. As Descartes said in his Archimedean point, “Cogito ergo sum.”

The great thing is that there exists a spiritual realm alongside this physical one. This is a realm in which truth is certain – 100% – and where things can be known. Faith and belief is how we interact with this other plane of existence, but we do interact nonetheless. In the spiritual, there is no “yellow” but there is “peace.” The idea of “sour” is not, but “fear” is. It is in the spiritual that much of our daily and certainly our lifelong happenings actually take place with effects in the physical. Truth manifests itself all around us. I believe this is precisely what and who God is.

If as Anselm said, “God is that than which no greater can be conceived,” then (He) is beyond, ineffable. God literally exists in all realms and no realms because (He) created them all. The idea that we are made in (His) image means that we too move beyond the physical into the spiritual place of being. This explains why we are aware of our own reason and emotions. Other creatures can have these effects, but they cannot work outside of them in a “meta” sort of way. Now that reality and the knowing of truth have been defined, we can resume with the answer to the original question.

Is it true that “Christ alone can save sinners, and the salvation in Christ alone is the true and genuine salvation”? Sung Wook Chung said this was true because he believes it to be so. As an evangelical Christian, he puts forth this information as one of the cornerstones of his faith. Chung quotes Acts 4:12 where Peter says, “There is salvation in no one else [Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” So not only is he relying on his own thoughts, but also the thoughts of his community of believers, the historical record of Christian thought, and his own experience with other religions. Is he right?

I do not know if Chung is correct in what he is saying because this knowledge is beyond the physical. We exist in the spiritual realm as well, but we are too bound to the physical to be unaffected by it. We can only have very strong faith about anything as human beings and therefore “true knowledge” as a human is impossible. I happen to agree with Chung but am less factually certain of it do to my understanding of the nature of truth. I believe with all my soul that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” and that “no one comes to the Father except through Him.” I just do not “know” it. That is precisely my point: absolutes are real and true, they are just beyond humans’ ability to fully comprehend and know them.

What does this mean for non-Christians? My faith and that of Chung’s say that non-Christians are exactly that, non. This means they are not chosen by God as children to enter (His) glory and that while here on earth, they will not eat of the fruits of the Kingdom of God. Wonderfully though, I am not the one that judges people and makes the calls of who gets into Heaven and Hell. Jesus is the only One who has the power and authority for this. I believe that God is a gracious God but also a just One. How (He) deals with non-Christians is not my business; I am only to do (His) will and that means telling other people about Jesus. So once again, I do not know anything, especially about the spiritual status of anyone else. I am called to simply believe. I will leave the “knowing” to God.

And now the trivial stuff. I got to see Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D last weekend when I came into Lex to help my parents move lots of furniture. The movie was fantastic! It was really cool how you could focus on the different levels of depth realistically. In real life, whatever you focus on, only things at that depth are in focus. In normal movies the director tells you what is in focus because s/he uses a camera. In this 3D, I determined what was in focus by using my eyes with the assistance of the glasses. It just amazed me; oh and btw it’s my favorite Christmas movie. I start my new tutoring job next week and Monday’s my birthday.