There are ways of knowing which are as important as any gathering, testing, and assessing of facts or data.

The importance of knowing how we know (7)

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:34, 35

We have been considering the various ways people come to know what they know. So far we can say at least this much: science is one way of knowing, and an important one at that. But there are other means, besides science, by which we come to know things. It is important that we understand each of these, in order to make the best use of all available means of knowing.

Even science teaches us that there are ways of knowing which are as important as any gathering, testing, and assessing of facts or data. Among these are what we might call intuition, or “gut feeling.”

Intuition

Gut feeling, among other things, helps us to grasp the significance or substance – or perhaps the “elegance” (Brian Greene) – of big concepts, such as evolution. According to a report on the Discovery News website (Jan. 22, 2012), “Gut feelings may trump good old-fashioned facts, and even religious beliefs, when it comes to accepting the theory of evolution, new research suggests.” The report continues, “Previous research has shown that the human brain doesn’t judge the merits of an idea solely on logic, but also on how intrinsically true the idea feels: Could this process of intuitive reasoning help explain why some people are more accepting of evolution than others?”

In a study conducted on students in Korea, researchers discovered that “intuition had a significant impact on what the students accepted, no matter how much they knew and regardless of their religious beliefs. Even students with a greater knowledge of evolutionary facts weren’t more likely to accept the theory unless they also had a strong gut feeling about the facts, the results showed.”

Artists, composers, and writers have long understood the importance of intuition and gut feeling in the creative process. Solutions to perplexing problems of composition frequently come suddenly, all at once, without any immediate effort of reasoning or trial and error. Just as Peter, the faithful Jew, suddenly grasped that God intended to include the Gentiles in His Covenant of redemption, so artists – and all of us – can in the snap of a finger come to the realization of some truth.

“Reagan” moments

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “intuition” as a form of immediate apprehension of a thing or truth, either by the intellect or by some other sense, such as the aesthetic. Here’s an example of the latter: The other day our two-year-old granddaughter was tooling around the living room listening to a string quartet by Mozart. Now Reagan is regularly exposed to classical music, and she has a special liking for Mozart and Vivaldi.

As she glided around to the music, her mother, our daughter Ashley, suddenly asked, “Reagan, is that piece by Mozart or Vivaldi?”

Now this was a new piece, one she’d never heard before. She paused in the midst of her dancing and seemed to cock her ear more attentively toward the music. After less than a minute, she concluded, “Mozart.” This involved no study on her part, no logic, just the ability, in her gut, as it were, to distinguish between her favorite classical era and favorite baroque era composers. You might say, Well, she had a 50% chance of being right. And that would be true. But the manner in which she said, “Mozart,” convinced me that she knew this was his music.

Intuition, however, does not operate in a vacuum. It seems to work by combining various aspects of our knowing regimen and store of knowledge into a single conclusive moment. Often, while riding in the car listening to classical music, I’ve had my own “Reagan moment” with a piece I’ve never heard before. I listen for anything that might be familiar – instrumentation, motifs, and the like – at the same time trying to “feel” the music with what must be some kind of aesthetic sense, developed over years of listening and appreciating music. Then I’ll make a guess at the composer. I’m not always right, but I am most of the time. How am I able to know this? Gut feeling.

Sudden insight – and true

Gut feeling takes off from existing knowledge platforms, launching into new areas of knowing by a means we don’t quite understand. Artists will tell you that, in seeking to solve a problem of composition, say, they will work at it and work at it, trying all kinds of possible solutions, or at least (Mozart), working it out as many ways as possible in their heads. Then they will go off and do something else for a while, something completely unrelated to the challenge at hand. Very often, in a sudden insight, the solution will come, then it’s back to the studio or desk to complete what gut feeling has wrought.

Peter must have had the same experience. When the Gentile Cornelius explained to him why he’d called Peter to Caesarea from his retreat in Joppa, the apostle was suddenly accosted by the following bits of information: 1. A Gentile had experienced a revelation, claiming to be from God. 2. In that revelation he’d been told that Peter was in Joppa. 3. He was instructed to invite Peter to come to him at once. 4. And Peter was to tell him “all that you have been commanded by the Lord” (v. 33).

Immediately upon hearing Cornelius’ account, Peter understood the implications. He didn’t have to go away and consult with colleagues, check through old books, or spend a lot of time searching the Scriptures. Suddenly the larger implications of the Gospel and his own mission were crystal clear, and he knew, he “just knew”, that Cornelius and all Gentiles should be welcomed into God’s Covenant through faith in Jesus Christ, just as he had been.

Intuition is not always reliable, of course. At the same time, it would seem to be an indispensable tool for developing a healthy ability to make sense of the world and our place in it. When we experience a moment of gut feeling, an intuition that suddenly makes everything clear, we want to cry out, “Eureka!” “I’ve found it!”, like Archimedes, when he suddenly intuited how much the gold of King Hiero’s crown had been alloyed.

It is not insignificant that this first and most famous incident of intuition is from one of the earliest scientific thinkers. Science, as a way of knowing, requires intuition, just as all knowing requires authorities, experience, learning, reasoning, art, science, and intuition.