Ways of Knowing

Disciplined inquiry, then, is not a method for getting from text to application. It is a structured way of thinking that considers four ways of knowing. The cognitive psychologist John Vervaeke describes these four ways of knowing as follows:

Propositional knowing is knowing that something is the case, the recognition of a truth claim.

Procedural knowing is knowing how to do something, the embodied skill that operates whether or not it can be stated.

Perspectival knowing is knowing from a particular vantage point, the sifting and sorting by which we recognize what is relevant to the situation we are in.

Participatory knowing is knowing by being, the kind of knowing that emerges through embodied participation in the world.

For example, I may know that a bicycle is a form of transportation (propositional), even if I don’t know how to ride one (procedural). If I am standing next to a bicycle a mile from where I need to go, the bicycle is irrelevant to my situation (perspectival) because I don’t know how to ride it. If I learn to ride, the bicycle becomes relevant in a way it was not before. Having learned to ride, I now know the world in a different way. I know, for instance, the burning in my legs when pedaling up a steep hill and the cooling breeze that comes when going down the other side (participatory knowing). The four ways of knowing are not necessarily four independent activities. They can be four dimensions of a single integrated engagement with reality.

Applied to biblical and theological discernment, the four ways of knowing structure what mature discernment requires. Consider Malachi 3:10–12: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.”

Propositional knowing allows us to recognize what the text says. Israel has been holding back offerings from the Lord. The Lord challenges his people to test him (participatory knowing) by bringing in the full tithe. He promises material blessing as the result. We can recognize these claims and articulate them as truths the text affirms.

Procedural knowing allows us to engage the text well. Beyond that, research skills, the ability to consult commentaries, knowledge of Hebrew, familiarity with the genre of prophetic literature, and the practice of prayer all contribute to a skilled engagement with the text. The procedural dimension remains relatively constant across our readings of Scripture, though new skills can be developed and integrated over time.

Perspectival knowing allows us to recognize what is relevant. Not every part of Scripture is equally relevant to every situation. When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, he does not quote Genesis 1:1. He quotes Deuteronomy (Matt 4:4, 7, 10). Jesus is not negating the rest of Scripture. He is recognizing what Deuteronomy 6:13, 16, and 8:3 afford in the situation he faces. With Malachi 3:10–12, we might recognize a narrower relevance to financial support for the local church, or a more general relevance to the logic of obedience itself—that we obey God not because what God commands always makes sense to us but because obeying God expresses trust in him. We would also need to discern whether verses 11–12 obligate God to distribute material blessing whenever we tithe, which would lead us to other passages that show the range of blessings God offers his people.

Participatory knowing is the site of transformation. Participatory knowing is the dimension in which we recognize that we are not standing outside the text reading it as observers. We are participants in a world over which God reigns, and God is part of the environment in which we read. The text opens up possibilities for action that did not exist for us before we read it, and our participation in those possibilities is itself part of how the text comes to mean what it means. With Malachi 3:10–12, we are not simply learning that Israel was challenged to test the Lord. We are being invited into the kind of obedience that puts God’s promise to the test in our own situation, with the recognition that the God who issued the challenge is real, present, and prepared to act.

What Malachi 3 and the four ways of knowing together describe is what the Thinking Christian Framework calls disciplined inquiry. Disciplined inquiry is the structured practice of Christian discernment guided by considerations of truth, skill, perspective, and participation (Heb 5:14). It is not a method that can be applied apart from the formation of the person practicing it. Recognizing God’s reality, developing a theological disposition, and committing to Theo-Logic are the formation that disciplined inquiry operates within. The four ways of knowing are not techniques. They are the dimensions in which a formed Christian engages the text and the situation together, responding to the God whose word is being read and whose work is being done.

A Christian who has developed this capacity does not approach the text as a deposit of facts to be applied, nor approach the situation as a problem the text must solve. The text and the situation meet through the disciplined operation of all four ways of knowing. The text affords possibilities for obedience that the situation could not have offered on its own, and the situation makes legible what the text was always saying. Apart from this disciplined integration, what looks like biblical and theological discernment may be propositional retrieval without skill, procedural competence without relevance, or relevant application without participation. Disciplined inquiry is what makes the difference between knowing about God and knowing God in the concrete circumstances of a life under his authority.