How Do We Come To Know The Things We Know?

Around Thanksgiving, it's a common thing to discuss all we've been blessed with... literally our Thanksgiving Blessings. But give this a thought. What if words meant something different each time you used them? Can you imagine if gravity was in play one day, but not the next? What if it was wrong to steal during Christmas season, but on January 1st anything goes? The truth is, there are foundations of thought that make reasoning possible. Epistemological foundations that allow us to think and to have categories of thought. Unfortunately, most folks never give this concept the time of day.

"Being thankful for the foundations of rational thought

should be part of every Thanksgiving get together"

Romans One And The Rejection Of Thanksgiving Blessings

First and foremost, scripture insists that human knowledge rests completely upon God’s self-revelation. God reveals Himself in creation generally and then more specifically in our nature. Therefore, a good starting point is to recognize that humans are made in God’s image. Consequently, this means that we can and do know many things with certainty. That is, we are morally obligated to receive God’s self-revelation and to understand the whole universe in terms of it. The problem is that we’re sinners. So, in our natural state… we’re not on good terms with God. And for the most part then, we tend to resent (even hate) anything that genuinely reveals God directly to us. In essence, understanding this conflict or antithesis is crucial to having a truly biblical epistemology.

Indeed, Paul describes this “biblical epistemology” in the first chapter of Romans. There he argues for the clarity of a general revelation. Man, he says, is confronted with the knowledge of God, the true God who has indelibly “stamped” his own personal nature across the scope of all creation (v. 19). It’s always been that way, Paul says. 

Knowing The Truth... They Suppress It

God’s divine nature and sovereignty have been made manifest in the things He has called into existence from the beginning of creation (v. 20). But humans willfully and culpably suppress this knowledge in unbelief (v. 18-20). So in this sense, all humanity knows God. Nevertheless, they know God apart from the grace of God. Paul goes further and speaks of a time in history “when they knew God” but willfully rejected that knowledge out of ingratitude. Now we're getting somewhere.

There were, in fact, two times in human history when all living humanity acknowledged the reality of the Creator God and the validity of His claims on mankind. In Eden after the Fall and on Ararat after the Flood (Gen. 3; 9). Adam and Eve, as well as Noah’s tribe, heard the promise of God and gave thanks for His mercy. But that thankfulness was short lived. 

In each case, within a few generations, mankind became out-rightly annoyed with God and His boundaries… both physical and metaphysical. Yep, they knew God, but refused to give Him glory (v. 21). Like people today, they grumbled about His laws and His providence. They complained about His nature too. They wanted Him to be more like them. In particular, Paul describes this and indicts them by simply saying that… they weren’t thankful.

Making Up Things To Worship

So, since they didn’t like how God did things, they decided to reinvent Him. They imagined that God was like man… or like the birds of heaven, or the beasts of the earth, or the snakes and beetles that crawl in the dust (v. 23). And they gave form to their imaginations and manufactured idols. All in all, they worshipped the works of their own hands… manifestations of their own creative and reproductive energies. 

Bottom line: They worshipped sex and power. And interestingly, God seemed to let them have what they wanted most: Their own way.

Paul then says that God in judgment gave them over to “reprobate” minds, minds void of judgment (v. 28). And if they wouldn’t make the logical distinction between God and beasts and bugs… He would abandon them to the full range of such craziness. Then, Paul describes in some detail the ethical degradation that came from this type of idolatry, but he begins with man’s intellectual inability to discern the true nature and proper use of human sexuality. 

It’s not surprising then that men who put a transcendent God in the same category with a piece of wood or a rock… eventually found that they could no longer think in clear sexual categories. Ingratitude then, has both ethical and epistemological consequences.

God, Knowledge And Community

God’s self-revelation is also tied to His total self-knowledge. Furthermore, God fully understands, fully loves, and fully delights in His creation. He is absolute love, goodness, and joy. As eternal “Trinity-in-Unity,” the Father loves and delights in His Son (Matt. 17:5), the Son rejoices in His Father (Prov. 8:30-31), and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the Father as the living, divine bond of their love and delight (John 15:26; 16:7-15). God then… is overflowing joy and delight. 

As far as we’re concerned, God is the Author of every good and perfect gift (Jas. 1:17). There is nothing we can give Him that He has not first given us. And yet in His absolute self-sufficiency… He calls us to find our joy in Him (Ps. 43:4). He also calls us to be thankful and to enjoy all Thanksgiving blessings in Him.

However, since the Fall, this is only possible when we come to Him through faith in Christ… crucified and risen (Rom. 15:13). Ultimately then, only those whose sins are forgiven have real cause to be thankful and rejoice in God. Only those who have been born again by God’s Spirit can lift grateful hearts and voices to God in true thanksgiving. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge and the starting point of true joy and all thanksgiving blessings.

"The fear of the Lord should condition our Thanksgiving Blessings"

When You Count Your Thanksgiving Blessings

Ingratitude always leads humanity to idolatry. Thankless humanity then reinvents God to free themselves from His laws and ordinances. But when they reject and replace the true God, they also reject the very basis of law, value and meaning. They reject the living Truth and find their world devoid of anything absolute. For these folks… all things are relative. As a result, truth is meaningless. Ethics are fleeting. Claims to knowledge are merely power plays to control, enslave, and abuse. 

Thankfulness, on the other hand, is really just submission to reality. It’s not only a recognition that God exists… but it’s a joyful understanding of who God is and what he’s done in time and space. Thankfulness then, is the natural response of true faith to the goodness and grace of God in creation and redemption. So the human heart that’s truly thankful to God rejoices in all God's works because it knows the world we live in for what it is… the creation of a loving and sovereign God who reveals Himself in plain sight.

The Ability To Reason Is One Of The Greatest Thanksgiving Blessings

Altogether, it’s absurd to compare any of this with a cold, dead stoicism. Or any philosophy that posits an impersonal universe for that matter. Imagine having Thanksgiving and celebrating a loveless, joyless, hopeless past, present and future. On the other hand, a Godly…

Thanksgiving becomes a great time not just to celebrate physical blessings. And despite liberal politicians' claims to the contrary, most Americans have plenty of things. In fact, we Americans should realize that we probably have too many physical things.

But most important of all… Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks to God for the foundation of knowledge itself. And all that goes with that. What a Universe! What an amazing blessing!

Happy Thanksgiving!  

"You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake.
If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon