Jul 13, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min · 12 segments
Our culture's crisis of confidence in knowledge is the culmination of a long history of the search for certainty. The Bible's picture of knowing, however, rests on fundamentally different assumptions…
It's a real privilege to be here, to interact with folks here at Labrie, and to have an opportunity to say something to folks.
The topic that I'm talking about is something that I've been thinking about for quite a long time.
As Joel said, I am from a great book school, and at a great book school, we read original works and discuss them.
And because of my background, which is in physics, of all things, is I get a lot of chances to read books about mathematics and science, original works in math and science, also in philosophy.
And the questions that tend to come up when we're reading these works and looking at the history and philosophy of mathematics and science, the questions that tend to come up is, what is knowledge and how do we know what is true? It comes up particularly with regard to math and science because for better or for worse, we think in terms of math and science as maybe the place where we can find truth and And so those questions come up a lot in our classes with our students.
They are intrigued by the questions, and they have a lot of uncertainty about how to deal with them.
And part of the reason why it is an interesting issue for me is because it feels to me as if our culture sort of has radically different perspectives at the same time about what is true, what is knowledge.
On the one hand, for instance, we might say, absolutely, we know what is true in sort of sciences and mathematics.
But if you go into the humanities or if you go into religion or if you go into these other things, the culture sort of leans towards thinking that that is an opinion.
So that's everybody has their own freedom to choose what they want, what they think is right.
It also shows up, I think, in our behaviors, for instance, about topics that are really important to us.
So I think people are very passionately committed to perspectives having to do with both religion and doctrine but also in political ideas and so on and so forth so that they are absolutely convinced that this is the right way of thinking about things.
But if you ask in the right way, then I think everybody would say, well, you know, matters of religion and politics are certainly opinion.
And so we can't really know for sure what is the right way of thinking about things.
And I think that the general belief, the general idea, the one that I have perceived from my own reading and also from interacting with students is that knowledge is that which has been proven.
And my thesis for tonight, the thing that I would like to convince you of is that distinction between things which are true and things which are opinion, that dichotomy that exists in our minds and our culture is in fact a lie.
It's a real privilege to be here, to interact with folks here at Labrie, and to have an opportunity to say something to folks.
The topic that I'm talking about is something that I've been thinking about for quite a long time.
As Joel said, I am from a great book school, and at a great book school, we read original works and discuss them.
And because of my background, which is in physics, of all things, is I get a lot of chances to read books about mathematics and science, original works in math and science, also in philosophy.
And the questions that tend to come up when we're reading these works and looking at the history and philosophy of mathematics and science, the questions that tend to come up is, what is knowledge and how do we know what is true? It comes up particularly with regard to math and science because for better or for worse, we think in terms of math and science as maybe the place where we can find truth and And so those questions come up a lot in our classes with our students.
They are intrigued by the questions, and they have a lot of uncertainty about how to deal with them.
And part of the reason why it is an interesting issue for me is because it feels to me as if our culture sort of has radically different perspectives at the same time about what is true, what is knowledge.
On the one hand, for instance, we might say, absolutely, we know what is true in sort of sciences and mathematics.
But if you go into the humanities or if you go into religion or if you go into these other things, the culture sort of leans towards thinking that that is an opinion.
So that's everybody has their own freedom to choose what they want, what they think is right.
It also shows up, I think, in our behaviors, for instance, about topics that are really important to us.
So I think people are very passionately committed to perspectives having to do with both religion and doctrine but also in political ideas and so on and so forth so that they are absolutely convinced that this is the right way of thinking about things.
But if you ask in the right way, then I think everybody would say, well, you know, matters of religion and politics are certainly opinion.
And so we can't really know for sure what is the right way of thinking about things.
And I think that the general belief, the general idea, the one that I have perceived from my own reading and also from interacting with students is that knowledge is that which has been proven.
And my thesis for tonight, the thing that I would like to convince you of is that distinction between things which are true and things which are opinion, that dichotomy that exists in our minds and our culture is in fact a lie.
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