Loving to Know

Loving to Know, Esther Lightcap Meek. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9781608999286) 2011.

Summary: A proposal for covenant epistemology, bridging the subject-object divide with the idea that knowing is a personal, loving act.

Esther Lightcap Meek believes we are in desperate need of “epistemological therapy.” Since Descartes, knowledge has been focused on objective facts and a sharp disjunct exists between the knowing subject and the thing known. It leads to all kinds of binaries: facts versus beliefs, science versus imagination and art, the public versus the private to name a few. More recently, the post-modern turn has challenged all this, proposing that our “objective” knowledge is socially constructed. Hence, truth is relative to the observer. We can all have our own truths. This explains the epistemic crisis of our age, one that has been called “post-truth.”

Esther Lightcap Meek offers an alternative epistemology which she frames for us in Loving to Know. The title offers a clue. Drawing foundationally on Michael Polanyi, she argues that true knowing is a personal loving act in relation to what is being known. She calls this “covenant epistemology,” signifying a committed personal relationship, an “interpersoned” character between knower and the known in the knowing.

Part One of her book explains why we need epistemological therapy and lays out the basic contours of her proposal, as discussed above. Most of the remainder of the book consists of “conversations” with thinkers who were influential for Meek. Essentially, she retraces her process in developing covenant epistemology.

Then Part Two consists of her interaction with Michael Polanyi and James Loader. Polanyi contributes the idea of knowing as subsidiary focal integration. We move between something focused upon and intuitive clues as to its nature, and knowing is the integration of the two, a transformative moment. Her conversation with James Loader further unpacks the transformative aspect.

But where does the covenantal aspect arise? Part three develops this in conversation with John Frame and Mike Williams. Frame sees human knowing as stewardship in response to God’s disclosed relationship of covenant relationship as sovereign Creator and Lord. Our knowing imitates God’s covenant relationship with the created order in understanding, preserving and developing that world. Williams likens covenant relationship to our marriage covenant, a pledge of care for that which we are knowing. We commit to love in order to know.

So, this all sounds very personal rather than the detached knowing that characterizes our “science.” Rather than back off this idea, Meek doubles down in part four. She draws on John MacMurray to support the interpersonal character of human knowing. Martin Buber’s shift from I-It” to “I-Thou” relationships further supports the interpersonal encounter in knowing. Meek includes one of several “Texture” sidebars at this point to discuss the nature of friendship as “knowing with” another. I thought this worth the price of admission! Following this, James Loader talks about knowing before the Holy, that all of our knowing is before, and part of, knowing God. In addition, there are chapters in this part on healthy interpersonhood, knowing as dance (Colin Gunton on perichoresis), and on reality as gift.

Finally, in part five, Meek draws all the threads of this 500 page work together in “Contours of Covenant Epistemology.” She then addresses how we might respond to all this in “inviting the real.” She describes this as an “etiquette” of knowing and offers specific practices for the well-mannered knower. For example, under comportment she discusses our pledge or covenant, trust, obedience, humility, patience, saying “you” and listening. She concludes by discussing “knowing for shalom,” her hope that covenant epistemology will indeed be transformative for her readers.

I believe Meek offers an effective epistemological therapy if we will receive it. For Meek, all knowing is an interpersonal loving act in the presence of our loving Creator and Lord. To love that which we seek to know is to treat it with personal care, allowing the beloved to disclose itself rather than imposing our understanding upon it. Covenantal knowing means a “knowing with” both the ultimate source of all knowledge but also with other knowers. All this undercuts the privatized assertion of “my truth.” Such knowing, as was the case with Polanyi, reconciles exacting processes and creative imagination, science and art. Above all, this proposal invites epistemological humility as we recognize that all our knowing is a gift from a good Creator.