Google Knowledge

Dallas’ Corner: Dec. 2013

Knowledge is the ability to represent (think about, talk about, and deal with) a corresponding subject matter as it is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience. - Dallas Willard

One of the biggest (and most complicated) questions people wrestle with today is, “What counts as knowledge?”  That question may sound a little grand, but it’s definitely the question-under-the-question for most of our daily decisions.  If you Google something, does that mean that what you find is always reliable and trustworthy?  I used Google last week to answer a question about wiring my front porch light, but what if that answer was wrong?  How would I know?  When my wife was teaching elementary school, she got into several conversations with students who believed that because they saw something on the internet, it must be true.  Can we call that “Google Knowledge?”

Our location in history has a lot to do with how we find knowledge, and how we make decisions based on what we consider to be knowledge.  Because we live in a time period after the Enlightenment, we tend value things like science, scholarship, and popular opinion – the latter of which is what we usually find via Google.  There are ‘tiers’ to what we consider to be reliable and trustworthy forms of knowledge – books, the proclamations of our preferred cable news network, a university professor giving a lecture – all carry different weight behind them.

Of course, it’s pretty easy to go through life without thinking about these kinds of things.  Entire industries are devoted to distraction and entertainment, which can be good but often are useful for distancing us from thinking deeply and broadly about issues like what counts as knowledge.  I’m not thinking about authority sources and tiers of reason when I’m deciding what kind of coffee to buy at the store – at least not on most days.  :)

 If you took an introductory logic or philosophy class in college, questions about knowledge might be more familiar to you, but like many things, they simply fade into the background as life gets louder and busier.  Dallas Willard studied the subject of knowledge in-depth during his nearly 60-year academic and pastoral career.  Willard once said that we pick up beliefs throughout the day like a jacket picks up lint.  Which beliefs have you and I picked up today?  A big part of his ministry was helping people identify which beliefs they picked up and how to evaluate them based on faith in Christ.

Back to the top: Willard’s definition of what counts as knowledge is complicated but very helpful, especially as we think about the intersection of faith and our real-world concerns.  How does my faith impact where I live, or how I relate to my neighbors?  How does the knowledge of the Bible speak to my decisions about serving others, buying groceries, health care options, jury duty, voting, and other seemingly-innocuous choices?

Jesus told his disciples that they would “know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).  That’s the best possible place to start our pursuit of knowledge.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis