The particular knowledge at issue here is the knowledge of God.
"Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes, and gives birth to the other."
--- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (first two sentences).
Is knowledge of God -- including saving knowledge -- attained by the exercise of human reason first, or is it a consequence ofa priori knowledge of God's existence?
This is the central issue in modern apologetics. Here the issue is cast in terms of optimism and pessimism regarding the use of human reason and evidence (e.g. evidentialism and 'natural theology'). The optimists in this case are followers of traditional or 'classical' apologetics, following Aquinas and others who developed various rational 'proofs' of God's existence; the pessimists are 'presuppositionalists', who insist that existence of God must be postulated at the outset, by faith. The exaggeration of optimism leads to deism, rationalism and even humanism. The exaggeration of pessimism leads to fideism, which is 'blind faith' or 'faith in faith' in the absence or arguments or evidence. Which side is right? Is there a dialogical solution?