Is knowledge truth?

As those of you that know me are aware I have been trying to explore core assumptions that are carnal minded vs spirit minded and therefore constrain the Christians experience of God's privileges and provisions and interfere with a seeker's opportunity to know and trust God. Through a series of discussions with Philosophers and reading articles by Philosophers, I boil the core assumption issue to a couple of presuppositions that deal mainly with knowledge and truth. First I will summarize these and for those who get headaches when blogs get too deep, you can stop at that point and just accept or reject the ideas presented. For those who wish to dig deeper into the reasons I have reached these conclusions, I have provided more detail.
Summary:
1. Mainstream philosophy (in the Aristotle tradition) sees truth as the knowledge about an object that has withstood the test of reason (validated). The emphasis in philosophy is using head knowledge (eido) as evidence with little or no appreciation for heart knowledge (gnosis). The Bible teaches that truth is an attribute of the object independent of anyone's arguments about the object. Knowledge (both head and heart) is the outcome of awareness of an object's characteristics and is either valid or not based on whether the characteristic belongs to the set of characteristics of the object.
2. Mainstream philosophy believes that there is no way to determine whose arguments are right or best beyond human reason from observable data. For those philosophers who acknowledge objective truth, they really do not know how to explain where it comes from. Core assumption of the Kingdom mind is that the determinant of the object's true attributes is the one who originates the object and determines the set of characteristics that belong to the object. That is, the author of a story determines the truth about the characters and the plots and the outcome, not the reader's reasoning. If you want to know what is true about God's Kingdom, ask God who is the architect of His Kingdom.
3. Mainstream philosophy believes that having to rely on presuppositions that cannot be proven (faith) is aligned with "ignorance". The core assumption of the Kingdom mind is that reliable evidence that cannot be observed (faith) is the basis for inferences about the object that lead one to trust the object as true.

My intent is not to prove me right and mainstream philosophy wrong. If that were possible then it would have happened long ago by very smart people. I am simply trying to draw a contrast between two sets of core assumptions, one which I believe (and some philosophers confess) lead to a futile hope in human reasoning and the other a hope in God and His promises. You may read further into the details if you like or just review the points above and ponder these three challenges to core assumptions that may lead to unlocking for you the joy, purpose, freedom, hope, esteem and belonging the human heart yearns for.

Details.  
I have found it interesting in my discussion with Philosophers (whether Christian or not) that mainstream philosophy makes basically no distinction between knowledge and truth. From what I can gather Philosophy claims that something known is not knowledge until it is validated as truth. This results in truth depending on the "arguments" used to determine if the knowledge we have about an object is true, rather than claiming the object itself is either true or not. This is a very important core assumption that shapes how we make sense of objects when the evidence gets very complicated.

For instance, for visible objects, like a chair, we define it as an object based on some finite set of characteristics. A chair is an object that has legs, a seat, and a back. People must agree, however, whether a chair must also have arms or not. Some people may claim it doesn't have to have a back to be a chair, while others would say that an object with legs that you sit on without a back is a stool and not a chair. So, the definition of a chair is really a SET of characteristics that someone has determined that will make the object truly a chair. Philosophers would say that awareness of a characteristic of an object is not knowledge unless it is true, which means it is included in the set of characteristics of the chair.

There are two issues that are more than trivial.
1) there really is an infinite set of characteristics about a chair that can be identified, but we tend to stop with a finite number that is practically useful in seeing that an object with certain characteristics is in fact truly a chair. This is sufficient for an observable object, but is more of a problem for an abstract or unobservable object. In the case of an observable object, there is little, or any, need for evidence that we cannot experience with our physical senses. But for an unobservable object, we must rely on unobservable evidence as knowledge of members of the set of characteristics of the object. This requires a stronger use of heart knowledge (gnosis) than what we can obtain thru physical examination of the object. For example, an abstract object like love requires relational experience not just behavioral observation to know it is true love.
2) who ultimately determines the characteristics of a chair? Is there a designer or authority that sits beyond people's awareness that establishes the set of characteristics of the chair? Or, are the characteristics of an object that make it a chair just have to pass some criteria of inference to be included as a member of the set of characteristics of a chair? In the later case there is not an objective or single set that defines a chair, but many different sets in which each element is true knowledge of the chair if it fits a "valid" inference about what makes an object a chair. In this case there are many truths about a chair.

I tend to think this view of mainstream Philosophy is prevalent in our culture and contributes to the diversions to people seeing and comprehending truths of God's Kingdom. It is not good practice to claim error in something unless you can offer an alternative that deals with the error. So here goes ....

I believe that knowledge is an awareness of some characteristic of an object. Its the object that is true or false, not inference about the knowledge that is the focus of truth. Knowledge is only valid if it fits the characteristics of an object (is an element of the set of characteristics). For example, if I am aware of the legs of a chair, I have some valid knowledge of the chair, but not complete knowledge of the chair. I may also know (have an awareness of)  the object's color and size, but these forms of knowledge are not included in the set of characteristics of the chair, so they do not figure in the judgments I may make about this knowledge as belonging to the chair. Further, an awareness of the person sitting in the chair is not valid knowledge of the chair. I also believe an object has one set of characteristics that make it truly that object. The object is either truly a chair or not based on the set of characteristics of the object determined by the one who originated the object by defining the rules for its elements. If there is a set with different characteristics, then it is a different object.

Since I have been using the notion of "sets", let me use mathematics to illustrate my point here. Don;t panic. Its really very simple so don't let the optics distract you form the point, but help you more clearly understand the point.

You are probably familiar with the set of numbers where the numerator is 1 and the denominator is a whole number where each subsequent denominator is 1 more than the previous one. This is an infinite set in that you cannot ever count the number of elements. However, every awareness of a number is not characteristic of the set because it does not fit the rules for being a member. For example, I can show someone the number 2 and claim it is a member of set S. The number 2 becomes knowledge of a number for the other person, but it is not knowledge of the set S. This is like having knowledge of the person sitting in the chair, but it is not knowledge of the chair.

Now, what is true about the set S. First, knowledge (elements) of S is infinite. Second, S converges or has a greatest lower bound of 0. So, while S is infinite, every possible number does not belong to S. For an element to be in S, it must fit the rule of "numerator is 1 and denominator is a positive whole number." Third, the set S was established by some authority independent of people's idea and arguments of what should be an element of S.

These core assumptions about knowledge and truth are necessary to correctly grasp what God is saying about His Kingdom. He gives us in His Word the characteristics of His Kingdom (elements of the set). They are infinite, but they converge to Jesus ("I am the truth"). There exists an infinite number of objects we can know that do not belong in His Kingdom set, such as evil, because they do not fit the "rules" of the set. God's Kingdom is true because it is His design. He determines the characteristics of the elements in the set, not human reasoning. 

Basically, every human will operate under one of the two core assumptions, some derivation of mainstream philosophy (carnal mind) or the core assumptions of  the Kingdom mind. One other reason I an confident in this distinction is that the Aristotle tradition is anchored in Social Exchange. I have relentlessly defended this model of thinking as the heart of the carnal mind (human nature). The obsession with balance, proportion, equilibrium, and justice (Aristotle's premise) is what wars against receiving the free, unmerited gift of Grace.

I know this is a lot, but you have all the time to ponder this. It has to be more important than the hours spent watching Downton Abbey ,,,,,, just saying ....