Not Knowing Is Part of the Fun -- Breanna Poole

Not Knowing Is Part of the Fun
by Breanna Poole


Coming directly after Descartes, I think I speak for everyone when I say that John Locke is a brilliant breath of fresh air. Allowing us to keep out philosophy wheels turning but also maybe using language that is a bit easier to understand. This reading is just fascinating to me, in particular this line: “If we disbelieve everything, because we can not certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.”

This one line holds so much wisdom, and I’m so glad that that Locke put it in his work. It can be hard to accept things and knowledge since we can’t know for certain things about the world and about God from here on Earth, and that often leads us to having questions that we can never answers to. These lack answers can lead people to doubt or even lose faith altogether. We can’t ever know everything about everything, even in the secular world. It is foolish of us to believe we can know all things, and it does no good to stop believing because we can not know an answer. Locke’s point was frighteningly simple and yet so hard to understand, because everyone at every point in their life has had to grapple with that they can not know everything about the Christian faith no matter how hard they try or believe, and it is important to know we shouldn’t throw it away because we don’t know these answers.

{I commented on AnnaKate and Cade's posts.}

Comments

I'm glad you chose to blog about this quote, because I was kind of disappointed in myself for not doing it! It is so easy for us to fall into the trap of serial skepticism, but you're so right - not knowing truly is part of the fun. To embrace our inability to understand everything is to recognize how much more glorious our omniscient God is by comparison.
Our nature truly nudges us to be insatiable creatures. Give us an inch, and we want the entire mile, even when it comes to knowledge. Also, you are absolutely right about Locke being a breath of fresh air. I'll take his writing over Descartes any day! Great blog, B!