How Do We Know God?- Part 6?

II. SAYING WE CAN KNOW GOD DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE CAN KNOW ANY ONE THING ABOUT HIM EXHAUSTIVELY

At first glance, it might appear that this is a restatement of point one. However, read it again. The key words here are "any one thing". Point one dealt with the collection of everything that we can possibly know about God. Collectively, everything that we know about God yields an important conclusion, namely that we cannot know Him exhaustively due to the fact that all the things we know about Him do not add up to everything. There is still more to know about Him. This includes categories, perhaps, that we do not even have the capacity to mentally or experientially conceive of because we are finite. Point two (stated above) goes a little deeper. It says that even the things we know about Him we cannot know exhaustively.

Let me offer an example that I have offered before. Let's say that I get in my car and head to church with my family. On the way our car hits an ice patch and we spin around a dozen times. Meanwhile, the cars behind us dodge us by swerving around our spinning escapade. Let's also assume that there is oncoming traffic as well passing us as we dizzy ourselves. For sake of illustration, one of the cars that passes us is also on the way to church and they recognize us (though our faces are blurred from the excessive spinning) and witness the whole thing. Our spinning continues as we move off the pavement and come inches from hitting a telephone pole. But suddenly, our car somehow finds its way back on the road and we arrive safely at church. No doubt, the first thing we would naturally tell people would be the experience of providence in God saving our lives. Everything about the incident- the ice, spinning, cars coming, telephone pole-scream out that we should have died. In fact, the only conclusion is that God sovereignly stepped in and contradicted the laws of science in order to spare our lives. We know that, and so does the family that witnessed the whole thing. As they see us in the hall of the church they come up and hug my family and say something like, "It is a providential miracle that you are still alive. There is no way you should have made it here safely!" Let's also say that I stand up during the worship service and offer a praise for God providentially intervening to save my family. Now here's my point. Everyone in the church has heard a ton of sermons on the providence of God. Thus, they know it to be a fact true about God, right? Furthermore, I now appreciate His providence a little more because I have experienced it on a level that I never had before (including my family). In addition, the family that witnessed the whole accident also have a more intimate "knowledge" of God's providence, having seen a miracle before their eyes. Nevertheless, this "knowledge" of God's providence is still not comprehensive, even after all of that! We still do not know everything that there is to know about His providence. Even this particular experience fails to communicate to us an exhaustive knowledge of God's providence. Though we know His providence is real because we read it in Scripture and have now experienced it does not mean we know everything that there is to know about His providence. For instance, we still do not know why God spared our lives. We know that He providentially spared our lives. But we do not know why. Why did He not allow us to die? We could give a number of answers, but none of them could be proven beyond doubt because we simply do not know the mind of God (Dt. 29:29)!

In fact, I am glad that I have not experienced every possible way that His providence could be demonstrated. I would eventually be dead if I experienced every possible avenue of His providence because God could zap me dead in an instant (without car or ice too!).

Thus, we can affirm with full assurance the truth of God's providence, for instance, while at the same time not know everything there is to know about His providence. We know it by fact; we know it by experience. But we cannot truly know it exhaustively. Thus, we do not know God exhaustively.

Here is a quote from the best theologian who ever lived (other than the Apostle Paul):

“…the most suitable order, is not for us to attempt with bold curiosity to penetrate to the investigation of His essence, which we ought more to adore than meticulously to search out, but for us to contemplate Him in His works whereby He renders Himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates Himself” (Calvin, Institutes, 62).

Adoring Rather Than Searching Out,

Andy