What does it mean to know something? When does someone know that in a vacuum, gravity accelerates falling objects at 9.8 meters per second? When does someone know Christ? When does a husband know his wife? When does someone know that 2+2=4? When does a white person know what it is like to be a minority? 

The Platonic Model

The Western tradition in philosophy has historically affirmed what Plato taught regarding knowledge. In Plato’s model, knowledge requires three things: it has to be justified, it has to be true, and someone has to believe it. So, someone knows something when they believe something that is true and they have a good reason (justification) for believing it. Notice: all of these conditions for whether someone knows something are in the mind. In this model, we are brains on a stick and thus our human essence is that we are “thinking things.” This is the dominant way of thinking about knowledge among those who were raised in the West: knowledge exists in the mind.

This Platonism eventually matured into what could be called “Positivism”, which essentially is Platonism in which the justification condition is rooted in testable, repeatable and observable phenomena (scientific method). In this model, if I lack knowledge about something, I simply need to acquire more information. Non-Fiction books can relate to me all that I need to “know” about the world. One could think of knowledge in the Platonic Model as inherently encyclopedic—an indexing of information. Empirically derived quantifiable “facts” are what is needed to analyze and understand the world. 

The Polanyi Model

Michael Polanyi had a huge influence on Leslie Newbigin, who had a huge influence on Michael Goheen, who has had a huge influence on me. Polanyi had a working model of knowledge that incorporated two different types of knowledge that, I believe, does a better job accounting for both human experience and a biblical worldview. In this model, there are two types of knowledge: formal and tacit. Formal knowledge is the knowledge which can be transferred through verbal means and tacit knowledge is the form of knowledge that cannot be transferred through verbal means, thus, it must be acquired through experience. Knowledge is fundamentally embodied. 

As Mark Twain said, “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” Some examples of tacit knowledge are driving a car, playing guitar, social skills, and riding a bike. For example, you could read 1,000 books on how to play piano, but until you put in the hours practicing (experiencing) the piano, you do not know how to play piano. This type of knowledge often has to do with the formation of intuitions and instincts. In this model, when I lack knowledge about a given category the solution is not necessarily about acquiring more information, but developing opportunities for new experiences. Knowledge is inherently linked to action. 

This model of knowledge is consistent with what the Bible talks about when it speaks of “knowing God” — knowledge of God is tacit (this model has also been called "Hebraic" in that it is the way the Hebrew people imagined about knowledge). Knowing God is not a justified true belief about him i.e. giving mental assent to propositions and principles. Rather, knowing God and being known by him is about following after him, experiencing him in the context of relationship, sensing his presence, obeying him, and turning away from evil. Knowledge of God is ultimately about covenantal faithfulness:

Job 28:28 — To turn from evil is knowledge. 

1 Samuel 2:3 — The LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. 

Hosea 4:1 — There is no faithfulness or kindness; no knowledge of God in the land!

Matthew 7:21–23 — “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father… many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord…And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you.’

Why We Need Diversity

You have only lived life from your perspective. Thus, your subconscious belief system of instincts and intuitions (your lifetime accumulation of tacit knowledge) has been shaped by your experience. We are not simply thinking-people who can change our views by acquiring more empirical data, rather, we are fundamentally experiencing-people that can only have our emotional-social instincts shaped by experiences. 

Many, like myself, grew up in churches and schools with people who were almost entirely made up of similar ethnicities and socio-economic statuses. This creates what has been called an “implicit bias” — we spend the vast majority of our time with people who look and think like us, therefore, our whole bank of tacit knowledge creates intuitions that associate safety with similarity. 

We can learn formal knowledge about other ethnicities in a book, but we cannot gain tacit knowledge—knowledge that shapes our intuitions and implicit biases, without fostering and building relationships over time. This is not to say that by forming a relationship with someone from a different part of town or someone of a different racial background means that you therefore “know” what life has been like for them, rather, you know them. They take on flesh, incarnate, and become human to you. They once were facts—when you experience them in the context of a relationship they become a fully-orbed human.

Dr. Anthony Bradley, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at The King’s College in New York City, wrote this in World Magazine this week (I encourage you to read the whole article, here):

"Newt Gingrich made an important point this week when he said, “It took me a long time, and a number of people talking to me through the years to get a sense of this. If you are a normal white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively underestimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.”

Gingrich points to the importance of relationships developed over time. I remain amazed at the number of white Christians who have no close black friends…Whites will never understand the black experience in America by reading Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, as good as they are on public policy issues. Public figures are no substitute for real relationships where blind spots are exposed and challenged."

When does a white Christian know what it is like to be an ethnic or religious minority? We can’t, but if we want to minimize our implicit biases, we must authentically befriend people who don't look and think like us. This works in both directions and in every occasion. Will we create space in our lives for people who are different than us?

If Christians want to be a force of reconciliation in our disintegrated world we must be relationship-initiators who reach across lines of division and authentically love people who are different than us. This is necessary for the sake of expunging evil from our individual souls and our collective society. 

“It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.” Philippians 1:9