How can you be so sure of what you write? We only learn from what we experience in life. Expand your horizons, stop judging and embrace life. Peace.
Dear friend,
How do you know that experience is the only source of knowledge? I would suggest that that is an unnecessarily narrow understanding of how we gain knowledge. I would also suggest that you do not live by this belief. Since you appear to be a student from your e-mail address, let me ask: Have you passed any history classes? You didn’t experience the subjects of the classes; you learned about them a different way. Did you ever see someone do something unwise or dumb and choose not to do it? You learned without experiencing.
We suggest that there are four primary ways we learn things:
1. Experience: living through it (for example, getting burned by putting a hand on a stovetop or in a flame)
2. Reasoning: figuring things out (for example, logic–2 premises and a conclusion. “My husband earned his doctorate. Ph.D.s are earned in graduate school. Therefore, Ray went through graduate school.”)
3. Observation: watching (things always fall down, not up)
4. Revelation: being told from an outside source. Some things we can’t know without being told. (for example, what God tells us in the Bible and through the person of Jesus Christ)
The reason you (correctly) discern confidence in our writing is that our faith is based on strong evidence, and because we understand that there are other ways of knowing than experience.
If you truly are curious–as opposed to simply venting some steam–we have a couple of articles you may find interesting:
• “Confident Belief by Rick Wade
• “How I Know Christianity Is True by Pat Zukeran
Thanks for writing.
Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries