The Incomprehensible One

That a proper theology is God-centered is without question.  It follows then that much of our study must be focused on God, His attributes, His plan, His story, etc.  Basically, we must study God.  The mistake many make is that they study issues first, and let those studies inform their view of God.  Whereas the appropriate approach would be to study the character of God, and let that inform our view on issues. 

But we must understand, when studying God, that there is a certain incomprehensibility to Him.  That’s not at all to say that God is altogether unknowable.  On the contrary, we believe Christianity to be an essentially revealed religion.  We believe that God has revealed enough of Himself that we are able to understand His plan of redemption and enter into fellowship with Him. 

We must acknowledge, however, that there is a great distance between the Creator and His creation.  Our mortality cannot match His transcendence.  John Calvin said it this way: “Finitum non capax infinitum.”  Or, “The finite cannot grasp (or contain) the infinite.”  Because God is infinite, bound by neither time, space, or any other restraint, and we are bound by all of them and decidedly finite, our knowledge of God cannot be comprehensive and complete.  There is much we do not know about God, and are incapable of knowing about God. 

This should not lead us to any form of skepticism though.  We do apprehend God.  In the early days of the church, the gnostics perpetuated the heresy of gnosticism, which taught that man could have no knowledge of God from rational or sensory sources.  They taught that only the “Gnositikoi,” or “those in the know,” were privy to knowing God in any way.  Thus, since the gnostics claimed a level of superior knowledge, they sought to undercut the teaching of the apostles.

But it got worse.  Building upon gnosticism was neo-Platonism, a sort of modification and rebirth of the earlier Platonic philosophy.  The neo-Platonists wanted to restore Greek philosophy to supremacy.  Neo-Platonism insisted that God was essentially unknowable.  Man could sort of know vagaries about God, but not really understand anything concrete about God. 

Our theology must reject these ideas.  We understand that while God is certainly not “unknowable,” there are things we do not know about God, given His infinite nature.  There are things God has revealed to us.  These things we are obviously capable of knowing.  Other things, He has not revealed, and thus we cannot know.  Consider the words of Luther:

“…a distinction must be observed when the knowledge or, more precisely speaking, the subject of the Divine Being is under discussion.  The dispute must be about either the hidden God or the revealed God.  No faith in, no knowledge and no understanding of, God, insofar as He is not revealed, are possible…. What is above us is none of our business.  For thoughts of this kind, which want to search out something more sublime, above, and outside that which has been revealed about God, are thoroughly diabolical.  We accomplish nothing by them except to hurl ourselves into destruction, because they propose an object to us that defies investigation, to wit, the unrevealed God.  Let God rather keep His decrees and mysteries in hiding.”

Calvin seems to agree.  He says:

“His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.”

The key for us, then, is to focus our theology, doctrine, and practice on God as He has revealed Himself in His Word.  Deuteronomy 29:29 says “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” 

We must truly embrace the Scripture as our insight into the Incomprehensible One.  How humbled we should be to worship such a God.  How amazing is His infinite greatness.  How unparalleled is His character.  How limitless is His power.  How undeserved is His all-sufficient grace. 

~ by Matt on December 31, 2007.