The difference between knowing about something and actually understanding it is the difference between shallow knowledge and deep knowledge.
Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman shared a piece of wisdom that his father once told him: Even if you know the NAME of a bird in every language, you still know absolutely nothing ABOUT the bird. So, how do we shift from a shallow knowledge of the Bible to a deep understanding of it? We do this by changing the way we learn. We move from memorizing facts to figuring out what holds them all together.
Genesis 1 describes the Creation as a process of forming and filling. In this regard, the world is like a house. The necessary framework comes first, and everything else rests or hangs upon that. The human body is the same: the skeleton is the thing that MAKES SENSE of all the other bits and pieces. It holds them together and provides the context and purpose of each element.
According to entrepreneur, industrial designer and engineer, Elon Musk, most people can learn more than they already know. The reason that they don’t break through their current perceived capacity is because they don’t know how to outline their information in a way that leads to further revelation. He says,
It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree—make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto.
In other words, to accelerate your understanding of any field of knowledge you must focus on the core. Instead of attempting to interpret each bit of information separately, you ascertain its significance quickly by viewing it as a part of the whole.
Most of us get bogged down in the particulars, or peripherals, collecting mountains of dislocated facts without understanding how or why they are connected to, and flow from, the vital truth that governs and drives the subject. We are so caught up in the “leaves” that we see neither the forest nor the trees.
When Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy wrote, “Princes establish principles; gentlemen prefer particulars,” he was referring to the fact that details often served as a protection from direct action by the king’s officials—a plethora of tiny “local” concerns could be used to keep “universal” interference at arms length. Sadly, the “particularism” that results from a scientistic approach to hermeneutics has distanced us from a deep understanding of the Bible. The particulars of systematic fact gathering are at odds with systemic study and an economy of thought.
This lack of integration in our knowledge leads to a systemic weakness in our understanding. Feynman expressed a similar frustration with many in his field of theoretical physics:
I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
The reason the faith of many seems so vulnerable is that our understanding of the Bible is so fractured and atomized. Even if we have all the pieces, we are not aware of the literary network that holds all those dislocated facts together. Or, to return to the metaphor of the “tree of knowledge,” we are sweeping twigs and dead leaves into piles instead of learning “organically.” We are on the outside of the subject looking in instead of being on the inside of the subject, at the core, looking out. We are too busy trying to stockpile and classify the multitude of “effects” instead of assimilating their common “cause.”
Since the Word of God is itself structured like a tree, a solid grip on the “system” that shapes the Bible and what happens in it will increase your understanding organically rather than artificially. Instead of a haphazard pile of lifeless sticks, it will be a spring of deep, integrated wisdom and a living, growing source of vital fruit for the Church and the world.
Making connections
Everything in the created order functions within relationships. To really understand something, we need to watch how it relates to other things. For instance, why does that species of bird like that particular species of tree? What does this tell us about those birds, and what does this tell us about those trees?
The same goes for biblical symbols because they are images that describe relationships between things. The added bonus for biblical theology is that the links also make it easier to remember the things that are connected because the resulting structure serves as a virtual map.
What sets Elon Musk apart from other entrepreneurs is his ability not only to understand the core principles, or “trunks,” of various spheres of knowledge, but to then also make connections between them. This is how he expanded his interests across numerous sectors. He can trace similar concepts through all of his “trees” like a live cable that runs through a series of power poles. His learning process has resulted in an electronic “ecosystem” in which every subject is interconnected.
This is where we plug in our new understanding of the “quantum chiasm,” which happens to be the core principle of Scripture. Since every part of the Bible has the same shape, and is governed by the same principle, learning the fundamental pattern found in all Scripture allows us to make connections between all of the different parts at lightning speed. The invisible “power lines” are suddenly made visible.
Following the Bible’s “trunk” as we build our “tree of knowledge” is actually not as tricky as we might expect. While it takes time to build a solid foundation based upon core principles, the practice of making connections eventually leads to exponential growth. That solid foundation becomes a launch pad, and learning becomes a process of multiplication instead of mere addition.
In organic terms, the Bible is structured like a tree. But the mathematical term for this exponential patterning is the word “fractal.”
THEOLOGY ACCELERATOR – COMING SOON
