epistemology
Definition
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy and theology that investigates the nature, foundations, and limits of knowledge — in theological context, primarily the question of how the human being can know God. What faculty, method, or path grants access to authentic knowledge of God? Epistemology thereby grounds all theological method.
Within the apokatastasis.wiki corpus, the five authors hold sharply contrasting positions. Warnock defends an identificatory path to knowledge (walking in the Way), Noordzij a pneumatocentric heart-knowledge (heart over head), Nee/Lee a two-principles-of-life epistemology (inward life over external standard), Jones a transformative coupling of knowledge and sanctification, and Bullinger an inductive-empirical grounding of verbal inspiration. The fundamental dispute: is knowledge of God primarily cognitive (via study and text) or existential-pneumatic (via walk, spirit, and participation)?
Author Variants
George Warnock
Warnock’s epistemology is identificatory in character: knowledge of God is not acquired through study but through walking in the Way. In The Feast of Tabernacles:
“A consecrated and holy walk in the Spirit, therefore, is the only genuine basis we have for a proper understanding of the Scriptures. Without that consecration and that walk in the Spirit we might acquire a considerable understanding of theology, but it will be theology devoid of Truth.” (The Feast of Tabernacles, ch. 1)
In The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall he develops this via John 14:6:
“Jesus is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE — not merely the pointer of the Way, the giver of Truth, and the communicator of Life. We must become one with Him in all three areas. And as we begin to identify with Him, we discover realms of Truth and Life that we could never have discovered through much study and effort.” (The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall, section “The People of the Way”)
Warnock diagnoses the church with Ps. 95:10 — “they have not known My ways” — as a structural epistemological verdict: theology without identification with God’s Way produces knowledge without Truth. In Who Are You? he adds that knowledge of God is by definition special revelation through the Spirit (1Cor. 2:7-10): no one can know God unless blinded eyes are opened.
Stephen Jones
Jones links epistemology to divine sovereignty as the hermeneutical frame. In Secrets of Time, the goal of theological inquiry is not merely informational but transformative:
“A third purpose — and certainly not the least important — is to awaken in your heart a burning desire to know God more, to be more perfectly formed in His image and likeness.” (Secrets of Time, Preface)
Knowledge and sanctification are epistemologically inseparable for Jones. In The Laws of the Second Coming he diagnoses hermeneutical blindness as a structural epistemological problem:
“The end-time church is generally just as blind to the prophecies of His second coming as the people of Judah were to His first coming — because they do not understand the meaning of the Biblical feasts.” (The Laws of the Second Coming, ch. 1)
Jesus’ own hermeneutical method — beginning with Moses and the prophets — is the normative model that opens the mind to the Scriptures (Luke 24:27, 44-45). Blindness to the feasts is not merely a knowledge deficit but a spiritual epistemological blockade that conceals the revelation.
Cees and Anneke Noordzij
Noordzij inverts the customary relation between mind and heart. In The Word of God and Scripture:
“The more we ‘hear’ in our heart, the more we understand of the Bible. Not mere rational interpretation, but learning to ‘know’ through the Spirit what God’s Word is about. First spiritual communication, then interpretation of the Bible.” (The Word of God and Scripture, section “Head or Heart”)
God’s language is moreover “sign-language” — symbols and types that can only be understood through the heart and Spirit (Rev. 1:1, Greek sēmainō). The “enlightened eyes of the heart” (Eph. 1:18) are the required epistemological organ, confirmed in The Ark of Noah. The Bible functions as a confirmation and recognition book: the Spirit communicates primarily through the heart; the text confirms what one has already heard.
Watchman Nee / Witness Lee
Nee formulates in Basic Elements of Christian Life, Volume 3 a dual epistemology based on Gen. 2. The two trees represent two foundations of knowledge: the tree of life (inward life-sense) versus the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (outward standard):
“Our Christian life is based on an inward life, not on an outward standard of good and evil. Everything that increases the inward life is right, and everything that decreases the inward life is wrong. No one should determine whether a matter is good or evil by an outward standard.” (Basic Elements of Christian Life, Volume 3, ch. 1)
On the Mount of Transfiguration God dethrones the external standard in favor of the indwelling Christ: “This is My beloved Son… Hear Him!” (Matt. 17:5). In Basic Elements of Christian Life, Volume 1, Lee identifies the human spirit as the proper organ: God is Spirit (John 4:24), and only the spirit — not the soulish faculties (mind, emotion, will) — can contact Him: “The soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God” (1Cor. 2:14).
E.W. Bullinger
Bullinger employs an inductive-empirical epistemology. In Number in Scripture he argues for verbal, literal inspiration not dogmatically but from demonstrable numerical patterns in Scripture:
“If not only the ‘days’ in which revealed events take place are numbered, but the very words themselves are numbered, then we have a great and wonderful proof of the divine, verbal, and even literal inspiration of the Word of God.” (Number in Scripture, Part I, ch. II)
At the same time Bullinger sets an epistemological boundary: “Our search must be limited to what is revealed. With what it has pleased God not to reveal, we commit the sin of presumption by even speculating about it” (Deut. 29:29). He also warns methodologically against eisegesis as the besetting temptation of the enthusiastic interpreter.