1. A question any Christian leader should be able to answer: “What is truth?”
So, what is it? Is there a difference between a truth and a fact? What is the standard of truth?
These kinds of questions are so fundamental that most people never ask them. Being fundamental, they may superficially appear to be simple. But they require some moments of study.
A communicator of theological/philosophical/ethical/political ideas owes it to his audience to have a fleshed out understanding not only of what things are true, but also of what truth is. (Not only instances of truth; also the meaning of the concept.)
How would you answer the question? (There is more than one level to approach the question. Don’t be shy. Start by asking how you would explain the concept to a young child, then a teen, etc.)
2. Topic: What exactly is the difference between “knowing something” and “knowing that you know something”? Can someone know something without knowing that he knows it? If the answer is yes, here’s a followup: If you don’t know whether you really know something or not, is there usually a way to find out? Is it ever impossible to find out?
I think we can know by overwhelming evidence that there is a God and that he is the God of the Bible. If faith were a guess, then it would be called hope. I think faith is acting according to what you know, even when you don’t see all the information.
More on this topic: If knowledge is knowledge, then it is certain knowledge, so either there is certainty and there is knowledge or there is no certainty and there is no knowledge. Is “absolute” certainty or knowledge possible? When one asks whether his own knowledge is certain, the very question implies a contradiction, for to know something is to know it with certainty. Actually, when speaking with philosophical precision, the very concept of certainty should not be used except for cases in which a claim can only be established by an elaborate array of evidence that must be integrated (aka proof).
For example, we would attempt to prove that a certain person committed a certain crime by pulling in relevant evidence from many sources and integrating it. During the process of the collection and integration of the facts, we say a given theory is possible, probable, or certain.
That is the proper usage of “certain.” In a manner of speaking, we may also say that items within common knowledge that do not require elaborate demonstration are “certain.” But watch out not to impose on the normal cases of knowledge those standards of proof applying only to the special cases (for example, forensics).
Most knowledge does not require proof. Most knowledge is validated by observation only. Very few people seem to understand this point. But it is key to our understanding of knowledge.
The idea of “degrees of certainty” is invalid. The status of a given normal fact is either “known” or “not known.” When it comes to theories (cases in which proof is needed), the status of the theory depends on the status of the individual items of knowledge which compose it, as well as the method by which they are integrated. When a theory can account for all the known, relevant facts, and no facts contradict it, then, in that context of knowledge, the theory is certain. Any theory is either certain, or not. There are no degrees of certainty, only degrees moving from possible to probable to the point just before certainty.
Additional thoughts: “Possible” means there is some evidence for a given theory, and no evidence refuting it. We have no grounds to say “It is possible that person X killed person Y,” until we have some positive evidence substantiating the claim. We should not equate “it is possible” with “it is imaginable.”
If someone says “It is possible that person X killed person Y” but offers no positive evidence, this claim is arbitrary. It’s actually not possible. Not within our current frame of reference, not if we are speaking with philosophical precision.
“Probable” means that there is much evidence in favor of the theory, yet there is not enough to establish it, and there may be some evidence which has not yet been taken into account. For a theory to be probable, we must already have certain other items of real knowledge that we are bringing together to form a proof. These lower level items are not themselves “probable.” They are known.
All the above may come across variously as surprising, counter-intuitive, strangely right, of unknown practical use, etc.
You’ll see the importance of the above when you need to rebut someone who says, “How do you really know you know anything? Maybe you’re wrong… It’s possible that we can’t be certain of anything.”
That “maybe you’re wrong” is an arbitrary assertion with no facts behind it. The skeptic’s claim is also incoherent because he is asserting that he knows something about what is possible while at the same time asserting that he cannot know anything.
This is the answer to Descartes’ cogito problem, by the way. The whole line of reasoning can be rejected as absurd.