Knowledge gained by our senses can be true knowledge, indeed.

The importance of knowing how we know (3)

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 1 Corinthians 13:11

Inescapable experience

All human beings “know” things, even though not all human beings are scientists, nor perhaps even versed in the teachings and protocols of science. Science, as John A. Moore explains, is one way of knowing. But in order for science to do its work, certain “antecedent” ways of knowing must also be acknowledged and defined.[1]

Some things we come to know because others who love us, or who possess appropriate credentials, have explained something to us, and we accept their authority as knowing whereof they speak. When my eye doctor, for example, wrote a new prescription for my glasses the other day, his authority was sufficient for me to truck on down to the eyeglass store and order up what he prescribed. I felt no need to prove by any means other than the good doctor’s credentials, skill, and reputation that this was the thing I needed to do.

We cannot overstate the role of authority in the work of science or in any aspect of knowing what we know.

In addition, all of us learn certain things over time by simple everyday experience. Even apart from anyone explaining things to us, our five senses bring certain kinds of basic knowledge into our experience, so that it is possible to say that we are always coming to know new things. If we think of this process from the perspective of a child, it will help us to understand better how experience fits into the question of how we know what we know.

When I was a child…

All children learn from the experiences which they have each day, and which their senses transmit and translate to their brains as forms of knowledge. Granted, these are not very well developed forms of knowledge. A child may not even be aware that he is acquiring some knowledge as his eyes or ears work to construct paths of knowing across the synapses of his brain.

However, as experience continues and the acquisition of knowledge is repeated, expanded, and reinforced, the child comes to know even more. In time he will begin to know that he knows, even though he may not be certain, at least in every case, what he knows or what use such knowledge may have for his life.

Experience of the world is not the only way that a child comes to know, of course, but it is a real and important way. The child’s conscious and continuous interaction with his world serves both to accumulate knowledge and to prepare the brain for the next stages of knowing.

That a child knows seems to me to be indisputable. Even before reason and authority and further instruction and experiment begin to form what he knows into higher stages of understanding, a child knows – and we all continue to know – through the experiences which our senses open up to us day by day.

What can we say about what we can know by this process? And how does understanding this help us to think about the process of coming to know what we know? We may note at least five different kinds of knowing which children, and all of us, acquire through the involvement of our senses with the world around us.

…I understood as a child

First, we learn through our senses that things exist outside ourselves. We become aware of reality, of its many forms, smells, feels, flavors, shapes, and sizes. There are other things in the world besides us. There is a world of reality beyond the confines of our skin, and the mere existence of other things can provoke us to curiosity and enhance the desire to know.

We may not know precisely what a particular part of reality is, how it came to be, of what it consists, to what uses it may be put, or how it relates to other things external to us. However, by being aware of it, even if only in a subconscious manner, we acquire a type of knowledge – knowledge of things – that is foundational to other aspects of knowing.

As knowing continues, children learn to recognize certain things external to them, according to one or another category (see on). It’s easy enough to see this in action. Hold an unfamiliar object before the eyes of an infant, and he will perhaps gaze at it quizzically, not quite sure how to respond. Hold up a familiar toy, or put his mother in front of him, and he will break into a smile and perhaps begin to wave his arms and legs.

By some means a pattern of recognition has been created in the child’s brain, the result of repeated exposures to reality under particular conditions, and the child is now beginning to develop a higher stage of knowing, one that goes beyond mere acknowledgment of reality to recognition and response.

This indicates that a child is learning how to distinguish between certain kinds of objects and experiences. The ability to make distinctions is yet another form of knowing that all children acquire over time and that grows out of their ability to recognize differences in objects, including other human beings.

Distinctions develop, at least in part, by association with feelings of pleasure and pain, and not only physical pleasure or pain. Feelings of happiness, fun, sadness, fear, and so forth also grow with experience, bringing affections into the process of knowing and thus enabling the child to refine his ability to distinguish between certain kinds of experiences and things.

Thus children begin to learn how to put what they know to good use. A child knows – unconsciously at first, but consciously very quickly – that when his stomach is empty – a form of pain – that a good cry will soon enough bring the bottle or the breast. Crying thus becomes useful, and at some level, the child knows that. Unhappily, some children continue to believe this well into adulthood, as the tears of their childhood give way to tantrums, pouting, complaining, whining, and manipulating others in a variety of ways.

So what do children know? We might say, “Not much.” In fact, they know – truly know – a great deal, and their knowledge grows exponentially as adults provide them new and richer experiences, and as children learn to employ their senses in new and rewarding ways.

Experience is thus a reliable way of knowing. If we would understand the question of how we know what we know, and make the best use of our ability to know, then we must ensure that experience has its proper place in our own development as knowing creatures. We must, that is, remain open to the possibility of new experiences, perhaps even some experiences that challenge our existing assumptions and convictions.

T. M. Moore is Senior Theologian and Historian for the Center for Faith and Science International.