Because man revolted against God and tried to stand autonomous, the result, the great alienation, is in the area of man’s separation from God.  Meaning, separation from God is separation from truth and knowledge of existence.  When that separation happened, then everything else went too.  Man became lost to who he is and why he is here.  He is divided from other men in the area of knowing and he is divided from himself.  This separation carries over into the very basic area of ‘knowing’ and our desire to truly know who we are, to know the meaning to life and existence.  We search for common categories between the internal fantasy and the external world in an attempt to reconcile and make sense of what we see and feel in the reality around us.  But, if we have no universals and absolutes in truth to provide the answers to the questions, all we can do is to continue to search or remain in the realm of not being certain about the why and who of our existence.  And that is what we increasingly see in today’s modern era of thinking…we see and hear people screaming…“Who am I?”  This is not just some psychological thing, as we usually think of psychological.  It is basically the need and reality of man’s innate need and desire to ‘know’.  We were created to ‘know’.  We thus are on a lifelong quest and search to ‘know’ who we are and why we are here.   

The real space-time ‘Fall’ of man resulted in our continuing attempt to be autonomous and such autonomy is what robs us of embracing the reality that is there.  We have nothing to be sure of when our imagination soars beyond the stars if there is nothing in our frame of knowledge and reference to guarantee a distinction between reality and fantasy as to reason, cause, source, meaning, and purpose as to the absolutes of being.  But if we listen to the answers found in the Bible, which is truly the word of God, the confusion is ended, the alienation is healed.  This is the heart of the problem of knowing, and it is not solved until our knowledge fits under the apex of the infinite-personal, triune God who is there and who is not silent.  When it does, and only when it does, there simply is no problem in the area of ‘knowing.’  We can know that we are His and He is ours…eternally know.  What can be better than that?   

Thoughts developed and/or taken from the works of Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, Trilogy – He Is There and He Is Not Silent