Most great thinkers have their favourite theory of knowledge and the way in which it is best for us to find out the truths of existence. Jesus, too, must have something to say about knowledge, especially in relation to mysterious things, the things of God.
So, let me point you to a very important text in the Gospels on this topic, when Jesus blesses the Father for “hiding these things from the learned and the clever, and revealing them to mere children” (Mt. 11:25-27). Knowledge, in this passage, appears as a kind of game like “Hide and Seek,” with God hiding Himself and His involvement in creation, suddenly jumping out in front of children as they laugh with glee, while the serious adults frown at their foolishness!
Although Jesus in his reference to children is more likely to be thinking of uneducated adults, even tax collectors and sinners, the example of children is instructive. For children are unlike grownups in being more dependent on revelation than discovery.
The very young don’t deliberately set out to discover the world like an arctic explorer, they soak in the world around like them like a sponge. The world, we might say, reveals or shows itself to the child, as he / she wonders at each new reality.
But as we grow into adulthood, we learn to move towards a model of knowledge which I have already labelled “discovery.” The hidden world is a challenge to our minds and we long to literally “dis-cover” or uncover the unknown.
The emphasis moves from allowing the world to reveal or uncover itself, to our active searching, often aggressively, for what ought to be brought out into the light by human effort. And, often, in the effort, wonder and imagination lose out!
A gospel example of this distinction between revelation and discovery is to be found in the account of Peter’s recognition of Jesus as the Christ in the famous scene at Caesarea Philippi (Mt.16:13-20). Peter comes to Our Lord full of enthusiasm, confessing his new “discovery” and no doubt expecting Jesus to pat him on the back for being such a bright boy!
Instead, the Lord challenges him with the message “It was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (v17). Peter must learn that he has been blessed with this knowledge through a special divine revelation; it is in no way a natural discovery gained by Peter from looking at Jesus over time. And, even then, Peter still has a long way to go to grasp the fuller revelation of Jesus as the suffering Christ. He remains somewhere in between the “learned and clever” and “mere children.”
Another example of this distinction can be taken from the world of nature. Imagine someone who is keen to see some animal that only appears at night and is easily scared off. So, the person hides carefully and waits silently, patiently and, above all, attentively, for the exotic creature to “reveal” itself.
This example highlights the passive nature of knowledge, where the knower cannot grasp at the truth. This is where revelation is more appropriate than discovery as a model for our searching for truth.
A rush to discovery in a case like this will end with the creature not appearing or running away never to be found again!
Our Lord’s warning to the “learned and the clever” of the need to adopt the humble waiting posture of revelation rather than discovery, leads into the example of personal knowledge in which Jesus speaks about His relationship with His Father and how this is to be revealed to the world: “No one knows the Father, except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Mt.11:27).
It is impossible to discover God in a personal way without a direct revelation to someone who is open to the message in a response that we call faith. Someone may arrive at a philosophical understanding of the idea of God, but this is not the same as personal knowledge which, to repeat, requires revelation.
Personal relationships in general require a more intimate form of interpersonal knowledge that demands this notion of revelation I am stressing.
Psychology may help us to discover interesting truths about the sources of human behaviour, but we can only really know a person when they reveal their hearts to us. Sneaking into a person’s room out of curiosity and reading their personal diary or love letters is both unethical and self-defeating if one wants to know someone in a caring and loving way.
True friends are willing to trust each other with those secrets hidden in their hearts more than in their diaries and letters.
There is, of course, an important place for discovery of a scientific nature in our world today, and it too is a gift from God. Needless to say, scientists can also experience a sense of wonder in the face of creation, and this may or may not lead them to God.
But when it does, they move without knowing, perhaps, from knowledge as discovery to knowledge as revelation – and the proper word for that is the transition from knowledge to wisdom!
Kieran Cronin OFM