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J. P. Moreland helps us position ourselves for effective action on a number of issues vital to Christian faith in our times. Those issues gather around the one central question of whether or not the follower of Jesus has unique and indispensable knowledge to guide human beings today into life that is "life indeed." This is a book about Christian knowledge.
Knowledge has a unique and irreplaceable function in human life. Unlike any other human capacity, it authorizes individuals to act, to direct, and to teach, and the lack thereof disqualifies one in those same respects. This role of knowledge in human life is as ancient as humanity itself and still sustains itself throughout practical life, no matter what views may be aired in circles thought to be sophisticated.
You have knowledge of a certain subject matter when you are capable of representing it as it is on an appropriate basis of thought and experience. Providing that basis is the function of study, training, and - so one hopes - of education. Knowledge therefore lays the foundation for confident and successful dealings with reality and, as such, is one of the most precious things one can acquire. People "perish for lack of knowledge," as the Bible tells us, precisely because, without it, disastrous encounters, or lack of encounters, with reality are certain to occur; most importantly, they occur with reference to God, God's Kingdom, and any possibilities for an eternal kind of living.
Through most of Western history those identified with Christianity - in short, "the church" - were thought, and thought themselves, to possess a unique and indispensable body of knowledge about human life. This body of knowledge included specific teachings about how to live in God's universe in such a way that one would have a good or "blessed" life and become a truly good person, forever. This body of knowledge was thought accredited not only by special interventions of God into human history, but also, in many respects, by ordinary human thought and experience.
Because of a complicated sequence of processes and events, this position of "the church" as possessing and communicating such a body of knowledge about reality and human life was historically negotiated away. Today you will find few among Christian leaders, even in Christian "higher education," who are prepared to say loudly in their professional contexts that their institutions are in possession of a body of knowledge for life that secular organizations do not have; much less will they teach what they teach as knowledge.
The causation back of all this is complicated. For one thing, the development of Christian traditions has managed to bring knowledge into opposition to faith and grace. But the valid contrast to faith is not knowledge, but "sight" or sense perception. In emphasizing that faith comes through grace, we must not make the mistake of thinking faith does not amount to insight into reality or that it has no involvement with "appropriate" thought and experience on the human side. Grace does not eliminate intelligent effort, though it does eliminate earning.
The "secular" world has, for its part, been busy redefining "knowledge" in such a way that knowledge of God and of the spiritual life are impossible. "Not scientific," and so forth! Of course, with that, almost everything of fundamental importance to human existence has also been eliminated from the field of "knowledge." Given what knowledge really is and does, however, that could not be tolerated. The "postmodern" reaction is to insist that "scientific" knowledge also is not knowledge in the traditional sense, involving truth and reality. Everything we call knowledge is considered, in that reaction, to be just a human construct for negotiating life within the range of present concerns. So all that is really left is politics and power. Political correctness is the only correctness left, and it is not a matter of being right, but of winning. The "best man" is always the one who wins. There's no other standard. That is pretty much where we stand today, even in many segments of the church.
If you will carefully work your way into what Moreland has to say about knowledge, you will be prepared to profit from his discussions of spiritual formation into Christlikeness and of the life of Kingdom empowerment, the other two points in his "Kingdom triangle." The knowledge issue comes first, for otherwise practicing Kingdom living will look weird and unapproachable. You have to understand that you are in a domain of reality and trustworthy knowledge, tested by multiplied thousands of pilgrims before you. Otherwise you will not be able sensibly and experimentally to begin to learn simple Kingdom life under the personal direction of Jesus. It is by stepping experientially into the practices of spiritual transformation and into the "with God" life of power beyond yourself that all the truths about God and his Kingdom become truths about your actual existence. This is how you seek and find the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
With clear insight and lucid explanations, Moreland puts the thoughtful Christian in a position to understand the issues swirling about us today and to return to a responsible presentation of "the way of Christ" as a way of knowledge, with all the rights and responsibilities accruing thereto. No one is better prepared by thought and experience to do this than Moreland. He writes for the nonspecialist, but the points hold up under the most thorough and critical examination. He knows about knowledge and about knowledge of the way of Christ. It is his life.
DALLAS WILLARD
