Christianity and Non-Empirical Knowledge (i.e., beyond the five senses)

"We tend to think that we can't know something unless it's able to be tested by the five senses. But is this the only way to figure out if we know something? Dr. Moreland says "no." In fact, he shows us that we know a lot of things that we are unable to empirically test."

This is a very helpful and important short article for Christians.

(Excerpt from the article)

Various Kinds of Knowledge

In my last article, we looked at the nature of knowledge and we defined it in this way:

To represent (i.e., experience or think about) reality the way it really is on the basis of adequate grounds, on a solid basis of evidence, experience, intuition, testimony and so forth.

We also saw that there are three different
kinds of knowledge:

Knowledge by acquaintance: This happens when we are directly aware of something, (e.g., when I see an apple directly before me or pay attention to my inner feelings, I know these things by acquaintance).

Propositional knowledge: This is knowledge that an entire proposition is true. Propositional knowledge is justified true belief; it is believing something that is true on the basis of adequate grounds.

Know-how: This is the ability or skill, usually based on the other two sorts of knowledge, to do certain things (e.g., to use apples for certain purposes). (MORE...)