Coffee Knows

So, I'm here at Van Java. Suzanne is working. Chey is in some sort of business meeting. Nicole is on her computer. Jaden is sleeping. I kind of miss the days of working at Java House in Springfield. The early morning customers who get the same drink every time, Van Morrison in the background. It was coffee bean aromatherepy for all who enter: the artists, the business folks, the homeless, the college students. I remember the sun slowly rising and me, being all alone in the shop. It was my discipline of silence. I enjoyed the simplicity of the work. It was my job to make coffee, tidy up a bit and chat with the patrons. Simple.

So onto something a bit more complex. The word know.
let's start out with the definitions....
To perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty.
To regard as true beyond doubt: I know she won't fail.
To have a practical understanding of, as through experience; be skilled in: knows how to cook.
To have fixed in the mind: knows her Latin verbs.
To have experience of: “a black stubble that had known no razor” (William Faulkner).
To perceive as familiar; recognize: I know that face.
To be acquainted with: He doesn't know his neighbors.
To be able to distinguish; recognize as distinct: knows right from wrong.
To discern the character or nature of: knew him for a liar.
Archaic. To have sexual intercourse with.

I'm not the first to talk about this. I'm not claiming to have any philisophical/linguistic intelligence. But I am writing this because I think that there is a cultural rift that this word causes in regards to our epistemology. The rift is mostly between boomerish evangelicals and the youngers who have grown up in postmodern culture.

Mr. Modern Evangelical is defensive about his apoligetics. These "proofs" give him good reasons for his faith. They show that his faith is not illogical, his "Christian Worldview" is somewhat consistent, somewhat coherent. He "knows" that God exists. He believes that if you can just get a willing person into a conversation about "proofs" for God etc...that that should then logically move one to faith.

On the other hand Miss Younger Evangelical "knows" that you can't truely "know" anything. How can you "prove" that God exists to someone? Doesn't that kind of certainty eliminate the need for faith? Was Kirkegaard heard at all when he talked about the existential "leap of faith" that Christians must take in light of the fact that we can't prove anything? She doesn't understand why it's not ok to question things. Why do we have to act like we have all the answers to everything. Why do we think we know?

Well, I am not about to think that there is any real solution to this outside of more honest dialogue between the two groups. I'm not even sure I'm representing them well. I do however know people like Mr. ME and Miss YE. And I think that one of the basic misunderstandings is our meaning of the word know. If we go back to our definition at the top of this page. We find one definition: "To perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty." Some people use the word know in this way. If this is the case I really have a hard time with it. Certainty means 100% evidence in many peoples minds. Whereas I think or knowledge of God is more acuately defined as: "to have experience of."

Now to the Modern thinkers out there I am not sugesting that you cannot have a Justified True Belief. But you just can't really prove it. You just don't have 100% evidence. You must admit that you have to have faith that brings you to that belief.

And to the cynical Post-Moderns out there. Shame on you (us?) for just assuming that the Moderns use the first definition of know. We should be more aware of the deconstructionist understanding that we assign meaning to words. And instead of looking for meaning we have our definition of "know" (100%) and expect that that is the way that everyone else is using it (and therefore shouldn't be using it). Instead let's dialogue. I think if we can explain what we mean to the olders, then we might get somewhere in this conversations. But instead, so much of the time we have just been talking past each other.