Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology

 Buy the book.

Currently a 40% publisher discount. 

 What this book is about 

This book develops covenant epistemology, an innovative, biblically compatible, holistic, embodied, life-shaping epistemological vision in which all knowing takes the shape of the interpersonal, covenantally shaped, relationship. Knowing is less about information and more about transformation; less about comprehension and more about being apprehended. Rather than knowing in order to love, we love in order to know. I want to show that all knowing is like knowing God—a transformative encounter. Covenant epistemology creatively blends insights from Michael Polanyi’s philosophically revolutionary epistemological proposals, the motif of covenant as historically unfolding interpersonal relationship (theologian Michael D. Williams), and an important exploration of “interpersonhood,” (John Macmurray, Martin Buber, and James Loder). Covenant epistemology rings true to the urgent calls for an interpersonally relational epistemology of missiologist Lesslie Newbigin and educator Parker Palmer, as well as to the Christian Scripture. It offers critically needed “epistemological therapy” in response to the pervasive, damaging, hampering, presumptions that people, churches, and institutions in Western culture continue to bring to efforts to know, formal or informal, religious or professional. The book’s innovative approach-- an unfolding journey and conversation together--itself subverts standard epistemological presumptions of timeless linearity. While it offers a sustained and sophisticated philosophical argument, Loving to Know’s texts and textures interweave loosely to effect therapeutic epistemic transformation in the reader.

Read an Excerpt

Click on the page link on the left.

How to use the book

Loving to Know contains sixteen chapters and eight randomly interspersed “textures.” It would work well for a semester-long (14-16 week) seminar study or discussion.

Loving to Know is the central text of my Geneva College 300-level course entitled, Christian Understanding of Life. “This course helps students develop a vibrant vision of knowing, being, and doing, by forming students in the tradition of “covenant epistemology.” Covenant epistemology is a fresh approach to knowing that overcomes fundamental dualisms which thwart our life, work and Christian discipleship, which takes as its paradigm the person’s redemptive encounter with Christ. The course’s central outcome will be the student’s personal Christian understanding of life project, in which she/he addresses these foci: theological and philosophical foundations, personal identity, interpersonal relationships, Christian practice and church, personal calling, learning and education, cultural engagement, community and world care, and work.” The course involves students in a personally designed project and group work as they develop a personal stance working from the covenant epistemology vision. 

Loving to Know is not meant to be a fast read. “Epistemological therapy,” a gradual reshaping of one’s epistemic “default,” takes time. 

Consider using Loving to Know for a core course in a seminary curriculum.

Loving to Know Picture Book

Here is a powerpoint I made to accompany my Spring 2010 Robinson Lectures at Erskine Seminary. It is a little like the picture book version of Loving to Know.

Publisher's Endorsements

“Nobody acquainted with philosophical epistemology would associate it with eloquence or passion. So Loving to Know is extraordinary, because this is epistemology presented with both eloquence and passion, addressed to the person ‘on the street’ but at the same raising issues that professional philosophers should take account of. In a most creative way, Professor Meeks takes Michael Polanyi's epistemology, which she perceptively and lucidly summarizes, into new terrain. She argues that to come to know as we ought to come to know is to keep covenant. It is to be faithful both to the known and to oneself, the knower. So take and read. And when you do, you will learn that how the book came about is itself an example of the theory, as is the innovative structure of the discussion. The formation and presentation of the theory display the theory.”

—Nicholas Wolterstorff
Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology
Yale University

“Esther Meek has given a good gift in Loving to Know, continuing her lifelong reflections on a more human and truthful understanding of knowledge. Drawing on the best of scholarship, she is her own scholar too, offering a unique vision of a covenant epistemology, a way of knowing that is deeply personal and responsible, because it is profoundly relational. A book for every one of us, as we take up the most perennial of human questions, viz. what will we do with what we know?”

—Steven Garber,
Director 
The Washington Institute

“This book is a tour de force of clarity, depth, and compelling wisdom. Esther Meek argues that we become what we love and that if we love truth then we must love to engage in the interpersonal dialogue of seeing the world well through the prism of another's heart. Her premise is lived out through dialogue with a range of authors that makes my head spin. She seizes their wisdom and yet pursues it further to the person of Christ than any I have read. This is an epistemologically therapeutic embrace of how to live well in the world of divergent thought that nevertheless longs to reveal Jesus as the center of all true wisdom. It is a breathtaking and beautiful labor.”

—Dan B. Allender
Professor of Counseling Psychology and Founding President
Mars Hill Graduate School

"Loving to Know is a marvelous follow-up to Meek's Longing to Know. Like her earlier work, this is clearly the work of a masterful, compassionate teacher inviting a wide audience to reflect on the nature of knowledge. Here is epistemology for the people, so to speak. In the process, through a rich set of conversation partners, Meek puts her own stamp on a Reformed epistemology that makes love and covenant central to our account of knowing. An excellent achievement."

—James K.A. Smith
Professor of Philosophy
Calvin College

Your comments

Here's a review by Dr. Clair Davis, Church Historian at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas.

"Wanted to express my thanks for your new book - what a masterpiece! You really have written something special. I will be facilitating a learning party at the little neighborhood church I am a part of and we will be purchasing 15 copies or so." Paul Sparks, Tacoma,Washington

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