KNOWLEDGE IN MAN'S BEING

Created in the "image and likeness" of God, man is endowed with the faculty of "knowing." It is this faculty that provides the human being with the ability not only to understand himself and the world, but also to contemplate and worship his Creator. In other words, it is through knowledge that man perceives himself as existing and achieves the true meaning of life. In the beginning, according to Holy Scripture, he was endowed with exceptional knowledge about himself, about the world, and about God (Genesis 1:26-28; 3:8-13). 

With the Fall, however, man lost all this cognitive framework. He lost himself and God. Now, thunder, lightning frightens him. He no longer knows himself: he does not know where he came from, where he is going, and the reason for his existence in the world. He no longer knows the world: the sea frightens him and the immensity of the universe amazes him. He no longer knows God: in his heart he thinks that there is no God or worships, as gods, elements of creation.

After the first sin, the human being plunged into ignorance. Plato (428-347 B.C.), the important Greek philosopher, in his text Theaetetus, which deals exactly with the issue of knowledge, says that the Sun revolves around the Earth[1]. How did this scholar make such a mistake? It is clear that he made such a pronouncement, simply, because it was a given of science at the time. Here we have the problem with human science: it is incomplete, imperfect, partial and full of dubious generalizations.

Gaston Bachelard (1884 - 1962), a Frenchman, philosopher of science, in his Essay on Approximate Knowledge, states that "the act of the knowledge is not a full act" and that it is necessary to "adopt as a postulate of the epistemology the always unfinished character of knowledge". For him, "as far as nature is concerned, one never arrives at a complete and definitive generalization" and error "forces us to be content with approximations"[2].

Bachelard understands that, in the search for scientific "truth", sometimes "the search method becomes a construction method and knowledge is necessarily presented as finished"[3]. Take the case of the geocentric model, cited by Plato. The scholars who formulated it observed the movements of the Sun every day.  Considering, then, only this small window of the great phenomenon of the movements of the celestial bodies, they deduced the scientific "truth" that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Thus, in view of the immeasurable spectrum of data constituting Creation, human science represents little, knows little. The Fall made man incapable of coming to full knowledge. He always sees part and not all of the phenomenon. According to Kant, an important German philosopher, "man is not capable of absolute knowledge... does not know the object as it is in itself, as a thing in itself, but only as it manifests itself, appears, that is, as a phenomenon" [4].

This explains the fact that the images produced by the James Webb telescope, launched into space in December 2022, do not confirm current cosmological models and the Big Bang theory, which postulates an evolution of the cosmos from a large explosion, which occurred 13.9 billion years ago. Contrary to what was expected, the images captured revealed a ready-made universe, right at its beginning. They show, in primordial time, all kinds of astronomical structures: galaxies of different types, quasars, regions of hot gases, black holes.

It has become evident that such scientific "truth" does not correspond to the concrete reality of the universe. However, such "knowledge" was taught in schools as "finished knowledge", using Bachelard's words here. The same is done with the theory of the evolution of man, with the theory that affirms that life comes from an evolution of matter in time, and with the atheistic and materialist theories, which deny the existence of God, without scientific evidence, which requires that they be accepted by a pure act of faith. 

But man, as he turns to God and receives Him as his Lord and Savior, through faith in the sacrifice of the Son, Jesus Christ, regains the original knowledge he had before the Fall. But this knowledge, however, due to the present human condition, is still manifested in an unclear way. Notice what Paul said: "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

However, even though it is not in full expression, the human being understands the truth about himself again, now seeing himself as a child of God and with origin, not in an evolution, but in God. The mystery of the world dissipates, for now by faith he understands that the universe and all that is in it are the work of the Creator. And about God, the most sublime of knowledge, he comes to know again, not by hearing about him, but by feeling him in his being through the Spirit and his work within man.

Be that as it may, the truth is that man's return to God restores his faculty of knowing. The Apostle Paul speaks to this issue when writing to the Colossians and urges them to "have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:2-3). For this Apostle, the Christian, in his relationship with Christ, "is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (3:10). So that when in the glory of the eternal Kingdom of God, man will know things as they really are. 

Antônio Maia – Ph.B., M.Div.

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