Knowing God: The Presuppositions of Theology
Study in Systematic Theology, specifically focusing on our knowledge of God.
1. Is God knowable?
Yes, Scripture teaches this: “that we may know the One who is true” (1 John 5:20), although it also reminds us of the limited character of our knowledge (Matt 11:25).
2. In what sense do Reformed theologians maintain that God cannot be known?
a) Insofar as we can have only an incomplete understanding of an infinite being.
b) Insofar as we cannot give a definition of God but only a description.
3. On what ground do others deny God’s knowability?
On the ground that God is All-Being. They have a pantheistic view of God. Now, knowing presumes that the object known is not all there is, since it always remains distinct from the subject doing the knowing. Making God the object of knowledge, one reasons, is equivalent to saying that He is not all there is, that He is limited.
4. What response is to be made against this view?
a) The objection that this view presents stems entirely from a philosophical view of God, as if He were All-Being. This view is wrong. V 1, p 2 God is certainly infinite, but God is not the All. There are things that exist, whose existence is not identical with God.
b) It is certainly true that we cannot make a visible representation of God because He is a purely spiritual being. But we also cannot do that of our own soul. Yet we believe that we know it.
c) It is also true that we do not have an in-depth and comprehensive knowledge of God. All our knowledge, even with regard to created things, is in part. This is even truer of God. We only know Him insofar as He reveals Himself, that is, has turned His being outwardly for us. God alone possesses ideal knowledge of Himself and of the whole world, since He pervades everything with His omniscience.
d) That we are able to know God truly rests on the fact that God has made us in His own image, thus an impression of Himself, albeit from the greatest distance. Because we ourselves are spirit, possess a mind, will, etc., we know what it means when in His Word God ascribes these things to Himself.
I. Dissonant Dramas: Paradigms for Knowing God and the World
Dissonant Dramas: Paradigms for Knowing God and the World
For reasons explored later in the chapter, the object shifted in the modern era (with notable exceptions) from God and his works to humanity and its morality, spirituality, and experience. Science came to refer narrowly to the empirical sciences, and religion could only be a legitimate discipline only to the extent that it was studied as a natural phenomenon of culture. As a consequence, theology has become largely a subdiscipline of psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, or history of religions, even in universities with a Christian past. As we will see, theologians themselves pioneered this turn to the self in the hope of making Christianity more relevant and acceptable in our world.
A. Dissonant Dramas: The Nature of Reality (Metaphysics)
If one begins with a story of the cosmos in which the divine is somehow buried within us, a sacred spark or soul trapped in a body, space, and time, then the ultimate source of reality is not outside of us but inside. God does not enter into the times and spaces that he has created; rather, all of reality emanates from this divine principle of unity like rays from the sun.
To be sure, there has been a revival of deism and atheism in our culture, but these are largely modern (Enlightenment) heresies. In our postmodern environment, radical mysticism seems more pervasive. Turning inward for divine inspiration, many today say that they are “spiritual but not religious.” Some writers today p 41 are announcing a shift in western culture from the Age of Belief to the Age of the Spirit. A revival of pantheistic and panentheistic worldviews (much like the ancient heresy of Gnosticism) is evident in academic as well as more popular circles.
WORLDVIEW PARADIGMS
Pantheism
All is divine.
Panentheism
All is within divinity; the divine and worldly principles are mutually dependent.
Deism
God created the world but does not intervene miraculously within it.
Atheism
God does not exist.
In sharp contrast, the biblical narrative tells the story of the triune God who created all of reality (visible and invisible) out of nothing for his own glory, the creation of humankind in his image and covenant, the transgression of that covenant, and the surprising announcement of his gracious promise to send a Savior. The “scarlet thread” of the promised Redeemer runs through every book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation: Jesus Christ is the unifying center of God’s saving revelation
In both paradigms, nothing strange or unfamiliar is allowed to disrupt the sovereignty of the self, which is often identified as autonomy. As different as these paradigms are in many ways, they are co-conspirators in the suppression of the knowledge of God and his relationship with creatures.
It is, therefore, the Protestant rather than the Romanist who may be expected to challenge the wisdom of the world. It is the genius of Protestantism to make the God of the Scriptures the final reference point of all predication. In Protestantism man is really taken to be the creature of God. Man is not thought of as participant with God in some principle of being that is above and exemplified in both. Protestantism does, in contrast with Romanism, make the Creator-creature distinction basic in its thought.
Of course, the reason why the one type of apologetics does and the other does not wish to make the Creator-creature distinction basic at the outset of all predication is to be found in the differing conceptions of sin. The natural man does not want to make the Creator-Creature distinction basic in his thought. The sinner does not want to recognize the fact that he is a creature of God, as such responsible to God, and because of his sin under the judgment of God.
II. A Covenant Account of “Meeting a Stranger”
This means that the only legitimate ontological distinction is between the uncreated God and the created world, not between spiritual and material realms. Ontological difference—the strangeness that makes us stand in awe of God’s majesty—is good.
Second, God is a stranger in a negative sense. Whereas the ontological difference is a good gift of our creation, ethical difference came about as a result of the fall, when Adam transgressed the original covenant. In this sense, God is not only qualitatively different from us but morally opposed to us.
This model assumes that God and the world are distinct—Creator and creation. The world is dependent on God, but God is independent of the world. Precisely because the world is dependent at every moment on the word of the triune p 42 God, nothing in history or nature is ultimately self-caused. God is sovereign over and within every time and place. God is never “trespassing” on his own property and never “transgresses” natural laws, as if these stood above him. God is indeed a stranger, but one who has condescended to meet us in our own creaturely space, which we have in the first place because it is his gift.
Where the pagan worldviews locate evil somewhere in the essence of created, material, plural, finite, and embodied existence as such, the biblical worldview identifies evil with a historical violation of God’s loving will and command by free creatures who demanded an autonomous existence that did not belong to them.
Epistemology: Knowing God
III. Epistemology: Knowing God
The Source of Theology: Revelation
Scripture as Covenant Canon
The Bible and the Church: From Scripture to System
Discussion Questions
1. Compare and contrast the three ontological paradigms explored in this chapter. Which is more consistent with a biblical worldview and why?
2. How does panentheism differ from pantheism?
3. How is Plato’s epistemology an application of his ontology?
4. Discuss the importance of Kant’s approach to the question of knowing God, especially as it influenced later thinkers. Can you recall conversations you have had with people who assume (perhaps unwittingly) Kant’s approach?
5. What is the significance of the archetypal-ectypal distinction, as well as the doctrine of analogy, in Christian epistemology?