GOD IS MORETHAN THAT

Introduction

Several years ago, a well-known Christian school invited R.C Sproul to address the faculty and administration on this question: “What is a Christian college or university?” Upon his arrival, the dean gave him a tour of the campus. During the tour, he noticed an inscription on a set of office doors: “Department of Religion.” When it came time to address the faculty that evening, he mentioned the inscription he had seen, and asked whether the department had always been called by that name. An older faculty member replied that years ago the department had been called the “Department of Theology.” No one could tell him why the department name had been changed.

“Religion” or “theology”—what difference does it make? In the academic world, the study of religion has traditionally come under the broader context of either sociology or anthropology, because religion has to do with the worship practices of human beings in particular environments. Theology, by contrast, is the study of God. There is a big difference between studying human apprehensions of religion and studying the nature and character of God Himself. The first is purely natural in its orientation. The second is supernatural, dealing with what lies above and beyond the things of this world.

After explaining this in his lecture to the faculty, Sproul added that a true Christian college or university is committed to the premise that the ultimate truth is the truth of God, and that He is the foundation and source of all other truth. Everything we learn—economics, philosophy, biology, mathematics—has to be understood in light of the overarching reality of the character of God. That is why, in the Middle Ages, theology was called “the queen of the sciences” and philosophy “her handmaiden.” Today the queen has been deposed from her throne and, in many cases, driven into exile, and a supplanter now reigns. We have replaced theology with religion.1

1 R. C. Sproul, What Can We Know about God?, First edition., vol. 27, The Crucial Questions Series (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust: A Division of Ligonier Ministries, 2017), 1–3.

Herein lies our dilemma

While some are under the religious impression that they really know God; other's believe that they can in no way get to know him. This lesson is purposed and pointed toward both of these mindsets with the bottom line being that we will never, even throughout all eternity, know all there is to know about God.

GOD INCOMPREHENSIBLE

To say that God is incomprehensible is not to say that we can know nothing about God but, rather, that because God is infinite, no creature can ever come to comprehend, understand, grasp, or describe God in a manner that is worthy, adequate, or all-encompassing.

The doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God is the answer to the question “Can we know God?” This doctrine states that the divine nature is such that God cannot be fully known or described, as he is in himself, by any created being. That is, no creaturely language can exhaustively describe the ineffable and no creature can fully grasp the infinite. To understand something is to have knowledge of the causes, the essence and the essential and accidental attributes of that thing. As Thomas Aquinas notes, to understand something is to know it perfectly. However, not only do humans have a limited and imperfect understanding of creatures, ourselves included, but we can possess no more than a partial and imperfect knowledge of the divine essence. Thus God is, for us, incomprehensible.

David Haines, “God’s Incomprehensibility,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

Summary of God’s Incomprehensibility

As Thomas Aquinas so frequently noted, the human intellect’s attempts to know the divine nature, are like a bat trying to see the sun. Due to its nature—the weakness of its own finite abilities, and the effects of sin, the human is incapable of even grasping a limited glimpse of the magnificence of the divine nature and is even further from being able to describe it.

David Haines, “God’s Incomprehensibility,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

CASE STUDY:

GOD BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING

Since it is God we are speaking of, you do not understand it. If you could understand it, it would not be God.

Citation: Augustine, quoted in “Reflections,” Christianity Today (7-31-00)

See Job 9:10-11:

Job 9:10–11 NASB95

10 Who does great things, unfathomable, And wondrous works without number. 11 “Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him.

See Psalm 145:3

Psalm 145:3 NASB95

3 Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable.

See Isaiah 55:8-9

Isaiah 55:8–9 NASB95

8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.

WHAT CAN WE KNOW ABOUT GOD?

The Blessing of Revelation

Lexham Survey of Theology God’s Incomprehensibility

That which we do know of God he has had to reveal through his works, through human nature, through his word, and in the person of the divine Word, his Son.

REVELATION The disclosure of divine secrets, knowledge, or other information from the divine realm to humans.

General Revelation

Divine Revelation

See Mt 11:27

Matthew 11:27 NASB95

27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

See John 1:18

John 1:18 NASB95

18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

See 1 Cor 2:11

1 Corinthians 2:11 NASB95

11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

Conclusion

I submit to you all this afternoon that It is a tragic mistake to think that we have God all figured out. God is more than that..Paul says it best in

Rom 11:33

Romans 11:33 (NASB95)

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

How true this is as we think in terms of the expression of His love for us in Christ Jesus. The song writer Andre Crouch wrote:

I don't know why Jesus loved me

I don't know why He cared

I don't know why He sacrificed His life

Oh, but I'm glad, so glad He did

He left His mighty throne in glory

To bring to us redemption's story

Then He died but He rose again

Oh, but I'm glad, so glad He did