John 5 provides a narrative of a conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leadership on Sabbath day activities. It is interesting that Jesus does not attempt to quote scripture to justify his behavior. Neither, does he build a strong logical argument using jointly believed assumptions. In verse 19, he simply states,

The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

Jesus here argues that he has gained tacit knowledge from His Father. Jesus was claiming that his extensive, ongoing, personal contact with God the Father in whom He had full trust and from whom He had been given many opportunities to practice Godhood justified healing on the Sabbath. In fact, Jesus may have been healing on the Sabbath to teach his followers truths that he knew but could not explain.¹

Michael Polanyi explains tacit knowledge as;

Tacit knowledge incorporates so much embedded learning that its rules may be impossible to separate, thus it is almost impossible to reproduce in a document or database. That is, tacit knowledge commonly cannot be spoken but rather demonstrated and imitated (Personal Knowledge: Polanyi, 1966).

Puusa and Eerikainen provide additional insight;

Tacit knowledge is also called artistry that expresses itself in occupational know how of an expert. It develops as a result of a long practice. It is shown as a skillful, intuitive-like action and it is completely dependent on its holder. (Is Tacit Knowledge Really Tacit?: Puusa and Eerikaenen, 2010)

We need Jesus because a list of commandments seems to be impossible to explain everything needed for God’s children to know how to return to live with Him. Jesus is providing us with the chance to learn the tacit knowledge that He gained in the presence of the Father.

1 John 4:7-11 is another attempt to explain how we may learn from the Father. Notice the effort to demonstrate that knowing God is so much more than a bucket of facts. I see these verses teaching tacit knowledge.

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Then in verse 12, we have a great message. Under the metaphor of ‘knowing is seeing,’ John helps us understand that no man can know enough facts to come to God. Knowledge as facts will not bring us into the presence of God. Tacit knowledge, the knowledge that God is love and can only be known through experience.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

This concept is born out in the greek word for see used in 1 John 4:12 as compared to the Greek word translated to see in John 5:19. The see of John 5:19 is about careful attention (read bird watcher) while the see of 1 John 4:12 is a more general see (read I saw a bird as a factual statement).

Seeing as becoming (understanding tacit knowledge)

Walter Van Herck explains Michael Polanyi’s tacit knowledge using the analogy of a stick as a guide.

Another example. Someone who tries to find his way in complete darkness for the first time with a stick, feels the impact of the stick in his palm and fingers and hasn’t got the least idea what the stick is touching. Only after a lot of practice is this sensation in the palm of the hand transformed into a feeling for what the point of the exploring stick is touching. So, in the beginning of this learning process our attention is focused on the sensations in our hand. At the end of this process our attention has shifted to the objects the stick touches. We feel - or see, if you like - the slippery rock, the furry dog, the threshold … The sensations in our hand and precisely how they tell us something about the objects we meet, however, remain tacit. We decode, as it were, tacitly the sensations in our hand into three dimensional objects.

In this way the stick becomes something from which our attention proceeds, and not something which attracts our attention. “we incorporate it in our body - or extend our body to include it - so that we come to dwell in it”. (The Tacit Dimension)

I like this explanation as an example of how we can become one with the Father. I think this concept is what Christ is implying in John 17:20-23 when he explains how we can all be one. We come to dwell in each other in such a way that God can feel through us, and we can feel through God.

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Tacit Knowledge of Us

It is the knowledge spiral between explicit knowledge (speakable facts) and tacit knowledge (careful observation in time) that brings about new understood relationships and creations. God may have known all the explicit knowledge about us before we came to earth. However, it is in our lived physical relationship that both God and us grow in the type of knowledge that comes from deep experience - tacit knowledge.

This post is part of a series on wisdom. The next in this series is What is wisdom?.

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