As a teacher, I have the privilege of reading the works of many great mathematicians and scientists with my students. As we study these works, one theme always comes up: proof and certain knowledge. Some mathematicians and scientists, as well as philosophers, are seeking certain knowledge. Strangely, though, others claim that little, if anything, is knowable. Over time their ideas have produced in our culture a perspective on knowledge which, if taken to its conclusion, is deeply confusing and problematic.
These thinkers have created a world that allows and even encourages us to have radically conflicting perspectives about knowledge depending on the context. For example, in some circumstances, we describe something as “unknowable.” At other times, we confidently claim we have knowledge of “objective” and “undeniable” truths that everyone should agree with. Sometimes, science is the source of truth. After all, the physical world is measurable, testable, predictable, and knowable. However, when science challenges our cherished beliefs (often but not always religious in nature), we will ignore, doubt, or undermine science’s claims.
The flow of ideas from these influential thinkers has brought us to a point where knowledge is suspect. Thus, we as a culture are less likely to attempt to engage each other in debates about what is true, wondering if such a thing as “truth” even exists. The experts don’t agree, and everyone has an agenda, so what is the point? We have arrived at a time when the questions that haunt the thoughts of our culture are not questions about truth and falsehood, knowledge versus ignorance. Rather, they are questions about action, application, and experience. Doing supersedes knowing.
How did we get here? I propose that our current situation is rooted in this single core assumption that has animated the cultural conversation of the West: knowledge is that which is proved. This simple assumption is the source from which our troubles began. But this assumption is a lie.
We all intuit the falsehood of the lie because we don’t actually prove much of anything and yet we know lots of things. For example, we know the meanings of simple sentences like “the shirt is red” or “the dog is hungry.” We do not need a proof to be convinced. But despite this, we feel the power of the lie to the point that we generally accept it as obvious: “Of course knowledge consists of things that have been proven.”
This lie, that the standard of knowledge requires proof, provides the seed for all manner of confusion, doubt, and lack of discernment. In the end, since almost nothing is provable, everything is equally believable.
Even though the whole history of “knowing” in the West—from Socrates to Nietzsche—seems to embrace this lie in some form or another, one source denies it. The Bible utterly undermines the “lie of the proof” and presents us with a better view of knowledge grounded in our humanity.
Normally we don’t think about the Bible as a book that sets forth a theory of knowledge. After all, the Bible is about God and God’s relationship to mankind. If you want a theory of knowledge, read Aristotle, Descartes, or Kant. But the Bible does have an implicit view of knowing woven into every story, poem, prayer, and prophesy. The Bible’s view is definitively not the “knowledge requires proof” theory. The biblical record never gives us a systematic, axiomatic, logical set of statements that can be verified by testing or reason. The Bible never “proves” anything, nor does it seem to expect “knowledge” to satisfy a burden of proof. Instead, the Bible presents a view of knowing in which a relationship exists between the knower and the known.
To understand the Bible’s way of knowing, let us think about what it means to know a person. Knowing a person is very different from knowing a fact—a distinction expressed in many languages. For example, in German and Spanish, the two kinds of knowing are differentiated as kennen versus wissen and conocer versus saber. When I know a person, say Mike, it means that I have learned about Mike’s behavior, personality, interests, and loves. I recognize the way he looks and sounds and perhaps how he walks or laughs. I have had lots of experiences with Mike that give me a knowledge of him. In knowing Mike, I never “prove” anything. There are no tests or logical derivations. Mike is a person with whom I have a relationship, not a statement or claim that needs verifying.
Now it is true that my knowledge of Mike is necessarily incomplete and possibly flawed. I may think that Mike will behave one way when he behaves the other. Does that mean that I don’t know Mike? Not really. I can know Mike without being able to predict everything about him. The potential for error is not the same as lack of knowledge. It is only within the “knowledge requires proof” view that the potential for error must be ruled out. In fact, the desire to remove doubt has been the driving force behind the “knowledge requires proof” perspective.
That is all fine and good about Mike, but what does it have to do with other types of knowledge? We don’t “have a relationship” with a math formula or the fact that George Washington was the first president, right? Or do we? I certainly do not have the same relationship with Mike that I have with a math formula, but I do have a relationship. With Mike, I can recall a wide variety of mutual experiences. He is a person, and our relationship is two-directional. My math formula is different; it will not ask me out for coffee. But there is a sense in which I do have a one-directional relationship with a math formula. That relationship is also based on a wide variety of experiences and memories, as well as a commitment of belief. My relationship to the math formula is formed by my many past uses of it. I remember it and how to use it. I have a positive attitude toward it since my mastery of it makes me feel capable. I am also committed to its truth; if someone were to claim the math formula were wrong, I would resist. Thus I have a “relationship” with the math formula, and it is a part of who I am and what I think. I don’t question it, but I believe it.
But if knowledge is a relationship, how do we avoid mistakes? Don’t proof, evidence, and reason help us avoid the pitfalls of error? Weren’t proofs invented for this very reason—to avoid that which is untrue? Certainly, proof, evidence, and reason are tools we can use as we build our relationships with what we know. But they never have—and never will—protect us from error.
This relationship of connections and belief is central to all of my knowledge, whether I am talking about a person or an insignificant fact. Such relationships could be rich and multifaceted or they could be shallow. For instance, my relationship with Mike will be shallow if I have only met him once. The same is true for a math formula I barely remember and have rarely used. But this sort of relational knowledge is what ultimately matters. Whether or not I can prove something—this has far less impact on my life than the relationship that I have with that something. And it is exactly this sort of knowledge that the Bible urges us toward over and over again.
The primary relationship that God is concerned about is our relationship with Him. He wants from us belief and commitment. He creates experiences to help us remember Him and His character. You can pick nearly any part of the Bible, and God’s call to trust Him shines through. Consider just a few examples: the Exodus, the Psalms, and the teachings of Jesus.
In the Exodus, God gives the Israelites the formative experience for His people. He wants to get their attention. “Israelites,” He says, “this is who I am. I am who I am. I am a God of salvation. I am a God who cares about you. I am faithful to my promises. I did not do just one miracle; I did many miracles so that you would remember. I set up feasts, rituals, and symbols to help you remember. I will recreate the Exodus over and over by saving you repeatedly from your enemies and ultimately from yourselves.”
In the story of the Exodus, God is developing a relationship with the Israelites so that the nation of Israel will know Him and trust Him and believe that He is who He says He is. The Exodus does not provide a set of logical proofs. The miracles were not proofs of the existence of God. Rather, they were powerful experiences that affected the souls of individual Israelites in deeply personal and emotional ways.
Consider next the Psalms. The Psalms are poems or songs sung by the Israelites in a way that impacted their communal life. In many of the Psalms, the Psalmist cries out for help or laments his situation. Nearly always, that cry or lament is followed by a powerful reminder of God’s love, power, or faithfulness. Each Psalm captures some experience in the Psalmist’s life that describes a relationship with God. The Psalm communicates about God in an experiential, artistic, relational way. What the Psalms never do is to logically analyze the philosophical coherence of a biblical view of the world. God does not offer a proof because He does not want merely analytical adherence to statements. He wants our souls, and the Psalms speak to our souls.
Finally, consider Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is not creating a systematic theology or an apologetics for belief. If He were, He would not speak in parables and oblique but pregnant sayings. No, Jesus is always talking to people. He addresses people where they are in their situation and asks them to follow Him. Whether it is Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the Pharisees, or the disciples, Jesus speaks and acts in such a way as to invite these people to trust and believe in Him, and in so doing, to trust and believe in the Father. Jesus is asking people to have a relationship with Him. He does miracles not just for the sake of proving something but rather for the same reason God did them with Israel: to get their attention. Like the Father’s, Jesus’s first and central message is “Repent.” Repentance is not an intellectual thing; it is a matter of one’s soul.
Our culture is blighted by the lie that “knowledge requires proof.” It ravages our politics, ethics, economics, and relationships. Calvin in a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon (October 2, 1995) captures the dysfunction perfectly. When his mother catches him, he tries to escape guilt: “I didn’t do it. I didn’t throw that! You can’t prove I threw it!” Psychologically, this belief that knowledge requires proof plagues us with doubt and despair. If so many things are unprovable, what can I know? We have all heard that “you can’t prove that God exists” and its apparent rebuttal, “but you can’t prove that He doesn’t.” Some people believe that we are part of some elaborate virtual reality like the Matrix or that aliens started life on earth. Since we can’t disprove it, maybe it is true. What can I believe? How should I act? What if I am wrong? These are fears that we speak only in secret because they are troubling and unsolvable.
God knows us better even than we know ourselves. He knows that we doubt and that we, like Calvin, use that doubt to avoid responsibility for what is plain to see. That is why He has gone to so much effort to tell us about Himself in the Scriptures. He is asking for us to trust Him and seek His righteousness. He is modeling the kind of knowledge that is most quintessentially human: the knowledge that comes from relationship.
By adopting a biblical view of knowledge, we can be set free from the fear, confusion, and lies of our cultural heritage. We need not be overly burdened by the need for proof. God does not want us to relate to Him with a proof. He wants so much more. If we adopt this view, will it magically fix our relationship with God? Of course not. We are still broken humans in need of God’s mercy. But at the very least, we can be free of the lie and focus on the kind of knowledge that really matters.
This article first appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of Colloquy, Gutenberg College’s free quarterly newsletter. Subscribe here.
