"Knowing for sure" is definitely key in relationships, but "knowing truth" or "knowing for sure" is fundamental to all that we think, feel, and do. A required 2 year course for all International Baccalaureate high school degrees is "The Theory of Knowledge." Premium education recognizes "knowing" as vital to the narratives such as economics, government, and religion.
Stephen Hawking has spent a lifetime pursuing his passion for The Theory of Everything. His best selling book, "A brief history of time", which explores a model that can explain what is true about every object we ever encounter, seems to be the ultimate achievement and contribution to society. Yet, can his brilliance actually help a 17 year old "know for sure."
Let's take a common example to see what is involved with "knowing for sure." Suppose I claim I know that you are beautiful. Most people will focus on how you look, feel, smell, and sound. These are observable data that anyone can process against their criteria for beauty to infer if you are in fact beautiful. They may or may not come to the same conclusion of you based on their definition or criteria of beauty.
But, its common to say, "not only is she beautiful on the outside, but she is beautiful on the inside too." Wait, I cannot observe her "insides" with the same senses I observed her "outside". Knowledge of her beauty becomes more difficult. What do we mean when we say "her beauty is more than skin deep?" We are in fact referencing two forms of knowledge. The Greeks recognized these two forms and called them eido and gnosis. Eido means "head knowledge" or what we can infer from observable data. Gnosis means "heart knowledge" or what we can infer in ways that do not involve physical senses. I know your kindness, your gentleness, your loyalty, your passion, your soul's desire to be with me in somewhat mysterious ways that come from close relationships. My intimate knowledge of you is how I know you are beautiful on the "inside". I can tell others about my gnosis, but they must experience or gain their own gnosis to "know you on the inside".
Ultimately we must trust our gnosis knowledge about an object to act consistently with what we eido know about the object. How do I know for sure you love me? I observe your actions and hear your words, but ultimately I trust your heart. A HallMark movie captures this notion of trust with a line in it from a young lady, "I trust my heart more than any spreadsheet."
Stephen Hawkins is a physicist and maybe one of the greatest eido people in the world. His Theory of Everything seems to discount or ignore gnosis knowledge. It would be interesting to "know for sure" if the IB program is helping young people understand eido knowledge only, or whether it helps students understand the role gnosis plays in "knowing for sure."
I can ponder this or better yet, I'll ask my grandson who took the IB course ....
FootNote: the above discussion is based on the core assumption that "knowing for sure" is a process of trusting the inference an observer makes about an object. There is another core assumption that I have blogged on and embrace more - "knowing for sure" comes from trusting the inferences I make about the Originator of the object, not the object itself. It's like trusting what the architect says about a building than what I infer from observing the building. Likewise, God made you beautiful so that makes you beautiful. With regards to "knowing for sure he/she loves me and I love he/she", again I must ask the Originator of our love for each other, God, what He thinks. Only His revelation insures I know for sure.
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