Chapter 1: Knowing God
Chapter 1 Knowing God Standing Before His Mystery The heart of theology is mystery. When the Bible speaks of "mystery," it doesn't mean something abstract or mystical like in Roman Catholic tradition, nor something we can fully grasp through scientific study. Rather, it speaks of truths about God that are real, revealed, and yet far beyond human comprehension.
God has made himself known in nature and in the Scriptures, but even that revealed knowledge surpasses our understanding.
Theology, or dogmatics, isn't about figuring out the world alone—it's about knowing God, the eternal and infinite Creator. Everything theology studies—creation, humanity, salvation, Christ—is ultimately about God. All things come from Him, exist through Him, and are for Him (Romans 11:36).
So, theology doesn't begin with us. It begins with God, and it ends with God. That's why theology must always remain focused on who God is and what He has done, both in creation and in redemption.
And this focus does not make theology cold or abstract. On the contrary, the more we learn about God, the more we are moved to worship. Real theology leads to real life, because knowing God is life itself (John 17:3).
That's why thinkers like Augustine said they only wanted to know God and themselves. That's why Calvin began his Institutes with the knowledge of God and self. The aim of human life, as stated in the Genevan Catechism, is to know the God who made us.
But here's the question: How can we even speak about God? He is infinite, and we are finite. He is eternal; we live in time. He is the Creator; we are the created. The distance between us and God seems impossible to cross.
And yet, the Bible insists that God can be known. Scripture never tries to prove God's existence—it assumes it. It also assumes that every human being has a sense of God, placed in us by God himself.
This knowledge doesn't come from our own searching but from God's self-revelation in creation, in history, in miracles, in ordinary and extraordinary ways.
So while God is infinitely beyond us, He has come near. He has revealed himself, so that we might know Him and have eternal life.
The fool may say there is no God, but the evidence of His power and divine nature is all around us (Psalm 19:1–4; Romans 1:19–20).
The whole purpose of God's revelation is that we would know Him— and in knowing Him, find life, joy, and salvation in Jesus Christ.
God: Personal and Present Everywhere Because of God's revelation to us in Scripture, we know that God is personal—He is not a distant force, but a conscious, willing Being.
He is not part of the world like in pantheism, but above it, sovereign over all. This truth is clear throughout the Bible.
At times, though, the way Scripture speaks of God may seem to limit Him, describing Him in human terms or associating Him with specific places. For example, it says God walked in the garden, came down to see the tower of Babel, appeared to Jacob at Bethel, gave the law on Mount Sinai, and dwelled between the cherubim in Jerusalem. Scripture also refers to Him as the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and the God of Israel.
Some modern scholars argue that Israel's early belief in God was very limited—that God was originally seen as a local mountain or fire deity and only later became understood as the one true God. They suggest that belief in one God (monotheism) developed slowly over time. But this theory doesn't hold up under the testimony of Scripture itself.
From the beginning, the Bible presents God not as a local or tribal deity, but as the Creator of all things. When He walks in the garden or comes down to see Babel, it is clear He is coming from heaven, His true dwelling place. When He appears to Jacob in a dream, it's not the place or a stone that is sacred, but God Himself who speaks and promises to be with Jacob wherever he goes.
God's presence on Mount Sinai, or His connection to Israel's land and people, never means He is limited to those places. He comes down, but He is not confined. He is with Joseph in Egypt. He hears the prayer of Elijah in a foreign land. He is praised by Naaman, who learns that the Lord is not just the God of Israel, but the God of the whole earth.
While God chose Israel and made a covenant with them, He was never restricted to Israel's land. His covenantal presence among His people was special, but not exclusive in power or location. The same
God who revealed Himself at Sinai is present everywhere, ruling over
all, drawing near to those whom He calls, and working out His purposes across all nations.
The One True God: Personal, Present, and Supreme In the Old Testament, God's deep relationship with Israel is central.
Because of this, some passages seem to speak of other gods as if they were real. For example, the first commandment says, "You shall have no other gods before me," and some verses mention the Lord as being greater than other gods. Jephthah and David even speak in ways that appear to acknowledge the existence of foreign deities.
However, these expressions do not teach that there are other real gods. Instead, they reflect the language and understanding of the people at the time, and often speak in ways that are meant to connect with others. The broader teaching of Scripture is consistent and clear: there is only one true God. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, not just the God of Israel, but of all nations and all creation.
Throughout both the earliest and later writings of the Old Testament, God is described as supreme—above all so-called gods. While His presence is revealed in specific places like Mount Sinai, Bethel, or Jerusalem, He is never limited to those places. He is the God of all the earth.
Some scholars have claimed that Israel's faith evolved from belief in many spirits or gods, to one national god, and finally to one universal
God. But Scripture itself does not support this. From the beginning, God is presented as a personal being who exists independently, has a will, and is exalted above all creation.
Here are the key truths the Old Testament reveals about God:
1. God is personal and independent He is not part of the world but is above it. He has His own life, knowledge, and will. He is the Creator of everything.
2. God reveals Himself in specific times and places He appeared to people like Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, often through signs, dreams, and angels. These revelations were real, but they were temporary and pointed forward to the fuller, lasting revelation in Jesus Christ.
3. God's presence was shown through outward signs Things like the burning bush, the cloud and fire in the wilderness, or the ark of the covenant signified God's presence— but none of these contained or limited Him. Even Moses, who spoke with God closely, could not see His full glory.
4. God is both near and far Though He revealed Himself in particular ways and places, He was never confined by them. He is always far greater than the symbols through which He makes Himself known.
5. God is infinitely exalted He is beyond time, space, and human understanding. Even when He draws near, He remains the Holy One—unseen, incomprehensible, and full of glory. His name is wonderful. His essence cannot be fully grasped.
6. The New Testament confirms this same God God is still described as invisible and unapproachable. Yet in Jesus Christ, the fullness of God dwells. Through Christ, God lives in His church and in the hearts of those who love Him. This shows that God is both absolute and personal. He is both infinitely high and intimately near.
God's Revelation vs. Human Speculation When we move away from the revelation of God given in Scripture, we see that other religious and philosophical systems fail to hold together two key truths: that God is both personal and absolute.
Scripture reveals God as both—He is near, relational, and speaks; yet He is also infinite, sovereign, and exalted above all. But outside of this revelation, these truths tend to be pulled apart.
In many pagan religions, people knew something of God, but they did not honor Him. Instead, they exchanged His glory for images of created things. On the other hand, some philosophical traditions tried to defend God's greatness by making Him so distant and unknowable that He becomes impersonal and abstract.
For example, in some Eastern philosophies, God is thought of as an unnamed, indescribable mystery—something only known by those who stop trying to know. In Islam, although God is described in very human-like terms in the Qur'an, many Muslim scholars have argued that God has no attributes at all and cannot truly be known.
Greek thinkers like Plato also believed that God was beyond description. Plato said it was extremely difficult even to discover who God is, and if someone did, they would find it impossible to explain.
Others, like the skeptic Protagoras, simply admitted that they couldn't know whether the gods existed at all.
Philo, a Jewish philosopher influenced by Greek thought, tried to combine the Bible with Platonic philosophy. He said that God is far beyond all human qualities and even surpasses things like goodness, knowledge, or beauty. In his view, we can only say that God is—we can't say what He is. Only His name, "I AM" (YHWH), gives us a hint of His essence.
Plotinus took this even further. For him, God was not just above all things—He was beyond even being itself. God was pure, undivided unity—so far beyond thought and language that nothing positive could be said about Him. Not even "being," "life," or "thought" could describe Him. He was utterly beyond all comprehension.
Gnosticism made this separation even more extreme. It taught that the true God was so distant and unknowable that He had no real connection to the world, to Israel, or to Christianity. According to Gnostics, God never truly revealed Himself. Instead, layers of lesser spiritual beings stood between Him and the world. To them, God was only an "eternal silence," completely beyond reach.
God Is Incomprehensible — Yet Truly Known Christian theology begins with a foundational truth: God cannot be fully understood. Whether we look at creation or salvation, God never reveals Himself completely. If He did, we would have to be equal to Him—which we are not. No creature can ever fully grasp who God is. His being, His nature, and His glory are far beyond the limits of our human minds, imagination, or language.
We can know that God is, but not fully what He is.
Early Christian thinkers recognized this. They often said that even words like "God," "Father," or "Lord" are not full definitions of God but ways we speak about how He relates to us. Some argued that anything we say about God—even the best words we have—only points to what He does, not to what He is in Himself.
Even though God is personal and active, many early theologians emphasized that His inner being is entirely beyond our comprehension. Names and attributes such as "good," "one," or
"creator" help us understand God's power and works—but not His essence. He is not part of creation. He is not made of anything. He has no boundaries. In the words of Athanasius, God "surpasses all being and all human understanding."
This truth appears in the writings of theologians like Augustine, who said that it is easier to say what God is not than to say what He is. We know He is not earth or sky or angel. He is not physical, not limited, not changing. But what He truly is, we cannot fully express. Even our best thoughts fall short: God's reality is greater than our words and greater than our thoughts.
John of Damascus said something similar. We can speak truthfully about God—but only because of what He has revealed to us. We do not know how God exists in Himself. We say He is eternal, unchanging, or invisible—but these are ways of describing what He is not. They do not define His nature.
Later theologians like Pseudo-Dionysius and John Scotus Erigena pushed this even further. They said that God is so far above all things that even "being," "truth," or "goodness" cannot describe Him accurately. In fact, God is sometimes described using the language of "nothingness"—not because He doesn't exist, but because He is so different from anything we know that our words fail entirely. Even the names we give God based on His works in the world don't truly describe His essence.
So, they argued that the best theology isn't just about saying what God is, but also about recognizing what He is not. This "negative theology," which emphasizes what we can't say about God, shows us how infinitely above us He truly is.
Still, even negative theology reaches a limit. In the end, God is greater than all affirmation and all denial. He transcends our best words, whether positive or negative.
Later theologians, especially in the Middle Ages, took a more balanced approach. While they affirmed God's unknowability, they also valued what Scripture tells us positively about God. They taught that our words and concepts describe God only by comparison and analogy. Even so, they held fast to the truth that God's essence remains beyond all human thought and speech. He can be approached, but never fully grasped.
God Cannot Be Fully Known—But He Is Truly Known Christian theology has always taught that God, in His essence, cannot be fully understood. Whether through His creation or His acts of salvation, God reveals Himself truly, but never exhaustively.
His infinite being is far beyond the reach of our human minds. We cannot grasp who He is in His inner nature—only what He has shown us through His works and His Word.
Thomas Aquinas described three ways of knowing God:
1. A direct vision of God's essence (reserved for heaven).
2. Faith-based knowledge through revelation.
3. Reason-based knowledge from observing creation.
But even the clearest revelation does not fully unveil God. We know Him only through the things He has made and the ways He acts toward us. Our best concepts and names for God are drawn from created things and fall short of capturing His full glory.
As time went on, some medieval theologians began to over-explain God's nature through complex systems. They spoke in detailed ways about God's names, attributes, and essence, sometimes forgetting the mystery that surrounds Him. Others, like the philosopher Occam, pushed back, saying that we cannot know anything about God's essence—only that He exists and reveals Himself in limited ways.
Mystics sought a deeper, personal experience of God, claiming that true knowledge of God comes not from reasoning but from a kind of spiritual seeing—a faith that rises above logic. One such thinker,
Nicholas of Cusa, said that the only real knowledge of God is knowing how much we do not know Him.
After the Reformation, Roman Catholic theology returned to Thomas's view and even declared that God is "ineffable," meaning too great to be described in words.
The Reformers agreed. Luther spoke of the "hidden God" whom we cannot know and the "revealed God" whom we meet in Christ.
Even then, Luther insisted that not all of God is revealed in Christ— God remains majestic and mysterious beyond all human reach.
The Reformed tradition especially emphasized that God is utterly unlike anything created. They took seriously the truth that "the finite cannot contain the infinite." Zwingli said our knowledge of God is as limited as an insect trying to understand a human. Calvin warned against trying to define God's essence and urged us instead to focus on what God has revealed about Himself—what we need to know.
Reformed theologians taught that God's names and attributes do not define Him but help us understand how He relates to us. Polanus put it simply: "Whatever is said of God is not God." God is infinite,
and all our language is limited. Our words describe not God's essence, but only what He has revealed for our benefit.
Over time, however, even in Reformed circles, this truth about God's incomprehensibility began to fade in practice. While still affirmed on paper, it had little impact on the way theology was done. Other groups, like the Socinians and Remonstrants, rejected the idea altogether. They were only interested in knowing God's will—not His being—and dismissed deeper reflection on His nature as unnecessary or even distracting.
Later Rationalists assumed God's existence but had little desire to explore His majesty. For them, the important thing was doing God's will, not knowing who God is. They lost the awe and wonder that comes from beholding God's greatness.
The Limits of Human Reason in Knowing God When theology began to lose sight of the truth that God is ultimately beyond our full understanding, philosophy stepped in with a reminder. Rationalism had once been confident—it claimed to prove
God's existence and define His attributes with certainty. But that confidence began to unravel, especially through the work of philosophers like Immanuel Kant.
Kant argued that while we have a natural tendency to think about the soul, the world, and God, we cannot truly know these things in any scientific or objective sense. Our minds are shaped by how we experience the world—not by direct access to unseen realities. So, while the ideas of God and the soul help us organize our thinking, they don't increase our actual knowledge. For Kant, reason alone cannot reach God.
Instead, he said that practical reason—especially our moral sense— allows us to believe in God. We can act as if God exists, and we may even speak of God's attributes like will and intelligence, but these are not truly descriptions of His being. They are useful ideas for ethical living, not statements of fact. According to Kant, God belongs more to morality than to metaphysics. In the end, even when we speak about God, we are left only with words that reflect human ideas, not divine reality.
Fichte, following Kant, allowed for belief in God as a moral necessity and described God using words like "holy" and "eternal."
But he didn't think these helped us know God as He truly is. To him, religious language was symbolic, not literal—just a way of expressing our inner moral need. Such representations weren't wrong, as long as people didn't treat them as objective truth.
Schleiermacher built on this, saying that God is not someone we know through reason or concepts, but the source of our existence, felt in our deepest sense of dependence. God is not the object of knowledge, but the ground of our being—something sensed, not understood.
Over time, this idea—that God cannot be known—grew more popular. Hegel, however, thought differently. He believed human reason could, step by step, rise to a full understanding of truth. For Hegel, philosophy could express God's being as pure thought or "the Idea." He saw logic itself as a kind of theology—the unfolding of the divine.
Some thinkers followed Hegel and tried to refine their concepts of God to get closer to ultimate reality. Others, however, took a darker turn. They concluded that we can never get beyond human ideas
when we talk about God, and so they ended up denying God altogether.
Feuerbach went so far as to say that the idea of God is simply a projection of human nature. According to him, when we speak of God, we're really just speaking about ourselves. All God's attributes— love, justice, wisdom—are borrowed from humanity. Religion, then, is just people worshiping an ideal version of themselves. For Feuerbach and many who followed him, belief in God collapsed into a kind of refined atheism.
Can We Know God? A Modern Challenge As theology drifted away from the mystery of God's incomprehensibility, philosophy stepped in with a different message: maybe we can't know God at all.
Some philosophers rejected outright atheism as too extreme.
Instead, they argued that human knowledge is limited. Since we can only know what we observe with our senses, anything beyond that— like God—should be treated as unknowable. This approach took several forms:
Positivism said we should only trust what we can see, measure, or test.
Agnosticism admitted we simply don't know whether God exists or what He is like.
Abstentionism urged people not to make claims about God at all.
Philosophers like Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and many in Germany rejected metaphysics (the study of ultimate reality). In
the late 1800s, agnosticism became widespread. Only the physical and observable were considered trustworthy; theology was pushed aside as uncertain or unscientific.
Even within the church, theology became timid. It distanced itself from deep reflection on God and began calling itself a "science of religion," focused more on human religious experience than on God
Himself. Although this shift kept some religious vocabulary, it denied real knowledge of God.
Kant, for example, claimed we could not know God through reason.
Our minds shape what we perceive, and we never access the thing itself—only how it appears to us. God, the soul, and the world are helpful ideas, but they are not provable truths. According to Kant, we can act as if they are real, but we can't truly know them.
Fichte took it further. He argued that it's impossible for God to be both absolute and personal. Personality, he said, involves limits— and God, being unlimited, cannot be personal without contradiction.
For Fichte, the moral structure of the universe is all religion really needs. A personal God isn't necessary—and is even dangerous to true morality.
This line of thought became common. People believed that you must either:
Lower God to human terms, making Him a bigger version of us (a limited, personal being), or Remove all creaturely language from our idea of God, leaving behind only a cold, abstract principle—something that inspires no worship and brings no comfort.
The result was a tension that felt unsolvable. We were left to choose between two unsatisfying options:
1. A God who is too much like us to be truly divine.
2. A God so abstract and distant that He can't be known, loved, or trusted.
This struggle—between God's greatness and His closeness—is not new. Christian theology has long wrestled with how to speak of God without making Him either unknowable or too familiar. But modern thought turned this tension into a dead-end. It declared that if we think about God at all, we must either bring Him down to our level or strip Him of all meaning.
So the argument goes: our minds are too tied to time, space, and physical reality. We cannot lift ourselves to know anything truly spiritual or eternal. The very act of thinking involves making distinctions and definitions—and to do that to God would make Him limited, which contradicts His nature as absolute.
This way of thinking leads people to conclude that God cannot be known at all. We either invent a God in our image, or we imagine an impersonal force that leaves us cold and disconnected from true faith.
The Mystery of an Infinite, Personal God The Bible and the historic church clearly affirm a vital truth: God is far beyond our comprehension. We are human—limited, dependent, finite—and He is the infinite, eternal Lord. No name can fully capture His essence. No definition can contain Him. He cannot be compared to anything in creation. He is unique, holy, and beyond
measure. We can know about Him because He reveals Himself, but we cannot grasp Him completely.
Throughout history, some thinkers have claimed that we can know God fully—like we might know a triangle or a mathematical formula.
But Christian theology has always pushed back, warning against the pride of trying to contain God in human concepts.
As Augustine said: "If you understand Him, it is not God you understand." The mystery of God is not a flaw in our faith but part of its glory. The more we realize how high and holy God is, the more we are moved to worship. And though we cannot comprehend Him, we can know Him truly—because He chooses to make Himself known.
This kind of knowledge is unique. It's positive in that we know God is real, alive, and not like created things. But it's also negative in that we can't define Him using the categories we use for creatures.
So, it's analogical—we speak about God using comparisons drawn from our world, always aware they fall short of capturing His essence.
To some, this sounds like a contradiction. How can the infinite be revealed in the finite? How can the eternal enter time? But Christian theology calls this not a contradiction, but a mystery—something too deep for our minds, but not nonsense. Just because we cannot explain it fully doesn't mean it's false.
Pantheism, which says that everything is God or that God is everything, confuses mystery with absurdity. It wrongly assumes that if God is absolute, He must be undefined and impersonal. But being infinite doesn't mean being vague or abstract. God is not a blurry force or the sum of all things. He is personal—He knows, wills, loves, and acts.
Some philosophers have insisted that if God is personal, He must be limited like us. But this misunderstands personality. In God, personality is not a weakness—it is the fullest and highest expression of being. God's self-awareness and self-determination are infinite.
His personality doesn't depend on anything outside Himself.
Even so, we must admit that the word "personality," like all our language about God, falls short. The early church used it cautiously to describe the Trinity, not because it was a perfect term, but because it was the best available. Yet the weakness of our words does not invalidate the truth they point to.
If we are not allowed to speak about God at all, then religion disappears. If God cannot be known, He cannot be loved, worshiped, or trusted. And this is the dead-end of agnosticism: it reduces God to silence and removes Him from the world. In doing so, it strips life of meaning, purpose, and hope.
If God cannot reveal Himself, then we cannot know Him. But if He has revealed Himself, then we can truly know something about Him
—not everything, but enough. Enough to worship. Enough to live by.
Enough to rejoice in.
Agnosticism ends up contradicting itself. If God is completely unknowable, how can agnostics say anything about Him at all? But they do. They call Him "infinite," "the source of all things,"
"unchanging," "moral," and so on. In trying to say they know nothing of God, they say quite a lot.
Christian theology offers a better path: we know God as far as He makes Himself known, and no further. This knowledge is limited by our finiteness, but it is real and true. As Basil said, "The