What is Knowledge? It’s More than just ‘Knowing’

There’s a Difference Between Knowing, and KNOWING, Especially in Catholic Life. Even the Legendary John Cleese Touches on it in a surprising video on his Substack (But the Bible does it better!)

I’ve been talking about the differences between belief and faith lately, most notably in my podcast episode Credo vs. Fidei (and here’s a 2 minute crash course video on my website if you don’t want to watch the whole episode). So I was intrigued when I saw a post from, of all people, John Cleese of Monty Python asking “Why do we only have one word for ‘know’?”

In the video he posted he talks about discovering that many languages have more than one word for "know” (or “to know”), yet in English we only have one. ‘Why is that?’ he wonders. I don’t really know. What I do know is there is more than one kind of knowledge, and each kind is distinct enough from the others that we should be aware of them all. Let’s start with John Cleese’s thoughts, and build on them from biblical and theological perspectives.

(Post continues below the video)

Here is the link to his post on Substack

John Cleese nails it pretty beautifully when he says there are two kinds of knowledge. The first is an intellectual knowledge, the second is a knowledge that enables us to enact what we know. I would say it’s a knowledge from the experience of doing a thing. But I would offer that there’s a third way to "know”—a knowledge that inspires or compels action. A knowledge that is, as I said in my episode, a confidence and a belief that is deeper than the intellect. It’s a knowledge that comes before the ‘knowledge’ of action and experience, but after intellectual knowledge. It’s what we act on, because we come to know, fundamentally, that it is true.

We see this play out in the fall of Adam and Eve. When the serpent tempts Eve, he says,

“God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
-Gen. 3:21

After the fall, God says that man has become like God, “knowing good and evil”. But God does not have knowledge of evil from having done it. Only Adam and Eve do. Again we see the difference between knowledge of the mind, and Knowledge from experience.

Adam and Eve’s knowledge of good and evil was not an intellectual knowledge, but the knowledge of having experienced the evil thing, and now having a context they never had before. Before they only knew the good. It was their entire lived experience. It was just “normal”. Now having done an evil thing, they divided their experience—and perhaps all creation—between two poles that should never have existed; the good and the evil.

But where was that third “knowledge” I mentioned? Where do we see ‘Fidei”—a confidence of belief that stirs us to act—in the narrative of the fall? You’ll have to back up to verse 6 for that.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, [so] she took some and ate it.
-Gen. 3:6

Adam and Eve did, according to what they believed in that moment. It was an anti-fidei, so to speak. A knowledge that lead to deep belief/confidence, which then sparked an action that shouldn’t have been done. Oh how different the world would be if we acted on what we believe and profess in the Creed every Sunday!

Action Point

I believe it was Thomas Aquinas, who, building on the Greek philosophers, said that to know the good is to do the good; to do the good is to become the good. Goodness is a habit and a progressive state of being. To be aware of the Good should inspire or encourage us to do it—to have a knowledge of Goodness by an experience of it, not just by an awareness of it. To do “the Good” consistently is to change our nature to where Goodness is our normal state of being and action. So let’s all work a little harder to “do the Good” more frequently and more consistently, and to have these encounters with and experiences of Goodness.

Hey, don’t forget to check out my crash course on “Credo vs. Fidei”. It’s a 2-minute video, and you’ll find links there to the full episode, should that crash course pique your interest enough.

God be with you all!