Wait. Aren’t all these posts supposed to be about knowing God? About knowing more about His attributes?

Yes and no.

Amy Gannett in her article “God Unknowable” says this:

“We are knowable. Personality tests can help us to understand ourselves better (hopefully for the purpose of improving ourselves based on God’s way and the Fruit of the Spirit!) – and in turn, we can help others understand us. The people closest to us, especially a spouse or parent for example, may know us quite well. Our strengths, our weaknesses, our flaws. We (will be) knowable, and limited and defined.”

Not so with God. He cannot be explained through a personality test, or boxed in by our finite minds. He has ZERO boundaries. ZERO limitation. He’s not bound by space or time or matter.

God is limitless and infinitely incomprehensible. It’s His ESSENCE we cannot comprehend in all it’s glory. Even when we are with God, in His presence for eternity, the greatness and vastness of WHO HE IS will be limitless. We will keep learning …….for eternity! Mind Blown!

However, He does make Himself known to us through His Word, in language that we can grasp. How? Ultimately through Christ. The God-Man who became restricted by human limitations during his life on earth – was bound by time and space. Christ: God in the flesh! We are able to study, learn and grow in knowledge, both a head knowledge and a heart knowledge that leads us to greater love for God.

Yet, finite, limited humans cannot comprehend the infinite, limitless God. We cannot comprehend His glory, His perfection, His brilliance. He defies comprehensibility.

Moses was a man who had an amazingly intimate relationship with God. Exodus 33:11 says, “The LORD would speak with Moses face to face, just as a man speaks with his friend“. A needed and important point here to be aware of us that this does not mean that Moses actually saw God’s face. We know that no man can see God and live, (Exodus 33:20). But this verse implies a distinct relationship where Moses was in the Presence of God in some manner. And then, in what seems like an ‘out-of-this-world-bold-faced‘ request, knowing how Holy God is, Moses asks God to show him His glory. What was he asking? To see the essence of God. Whoa Moses!!!! Are you crazy??? I like how Matthew Barrett puts it in his book “None Greater“: “He is so glorious, and His glory is so infinite that we would be consumed.” (pg. 18)

Amazingly, God does acquiesce to Moses’ daring ask. God puts Moses in a cleft of a rock and when God – His essence, His glory passes by, He will cover Moses with His hand and then once He has passed by, will remove His hand and Moses will see His back.

As a kid I was always mystified by this. Why just the back? What on earth will that show Moses?

In my studying of this section of Scripture, I learned a few things that now bring everything into a clearer picture. To see God was to die. We would be consumed. If a person should “survive” such a thing, it would only be because of God’s restraint, and because of His provision. In this case, God “protects” Moses by providing a cleft in the rock and using His hand to shield him as He went by. These descriptions show us how “small” Moses was and how “big or great” God is. It’s like the way a mere man could cover a little opening with his hand while walking by. Also, the contrast between seeing God’s face and God’s back is figurative for full and partial revelation. God does not have a physical body = He is spirit. The language being used is anthropomorphic, meaning that God uses human features to explain to Moses how he will experience God’s passing glory. We don’t know exactly what Moses saw and didn’t see, but we do know that God’s essence is beyond the reach of you and me!

God Defies Comprehensibility.

God’s conversation with Isaiah is telling. In chapter 46:5, 9 we read:

“To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?”

In context, God is speaking to Israel’s propensity towards idolatry. The words are stark. In vs 7 “They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place.” It can’t walk, it can’t move on its own, it won’t budge. I think there’s a bit of mocking going on here. Really Israel? And this is followed by God words, in what I would imagine would be loud and bold, “I am God and there is not other; I am God, and there is none like me.” (vs 9).

Throughout Scripture, authors will extol God’s greatness by asking (my paraphrase) ” Who is like God? Who can do what God can do?” See Isaiah 40: 12-14, Job 38- 41 ( those 3 chapters have at least 61 questions by God to Job!! Psalm 104 doesn’t have questions, but the Psalmist sure does give definitive answers to God’s power and might.

God reminds us that He is THE CREATOR, not the created. Isaiah 40: 28: “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth, He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding.“(CSB). Or as the ESV puts it: “His understanding is unsearchable.“

What does unsearchable mean other than that He is incomprehensible? Barrett says, “It’s not only true that God is incomparable, but He is also incomprehensible. His power, His knowledge, His presence, and His wisdom are inexhaustible and unfathomable. No one ever has known, and no one ever will know, the depths of His essence, the scope of His might, or the height of His glory. He is, in a word, infinite.” (pg 22).

I’ve learned to appreciate the ancient church fathers, and Barrett quotes both Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

Augustine: “We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not GOD you comprehend. Let it be a pious confession of ignorance rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To attain some slight knowledge of God is a great blessing; to comprehend Him, however, is totally impossible.”

Aquinas: “No created mind can attain the perfect sort of understanding of God’s essence that is intrinsically possible. The infinite cannot be contained in the finite. God exists infinitely and nothing finite can grasp Him infinitely. It is impossible for a created mind to understand God infinitely; it is impossible therefore, to comprehend Him.”

Wow. Can anyone express God’s incomprehensibility more succinctly?

Those statements also tell us that God’s essence – His Glory – is indescribable to its fullest. We try. After all, the words we use to talk about His attributes give us the ability to grasp a small, minute part of God. Just read this nice and slow: God’s essence is so infinite, supreme, glorious, that it’s majesty, beauty and perfection transcend our feeble human words. (Barrett, pg 23).

Have you ever sat somewhere and just meditated on God’s Holiness, His Glory, His Majesty? Ever tried to “see” it in your mind? I’ve tried – and I can’t see a thing! The closest I’ve ever come to a sense of feeling God’s majesty in a state of awe was when I was standing at the top of Whistler Mountain. I couldn’t help but break out in “How Great Thou Art”! (quietly though 🙂 )

God’s incomprehensibility should lead us to a posture of humility and worship. After all, He IS God and there is no other. BUT we have been given minds that are made to seek to understand to our capacity. We desire knowledge, and this is a God given thing.

However, the question to ask is – Is the knowledge you’re seeking after for your own glory? Or, is it to seek to understand God Himself? It’s the approach of faith seeking understanding that is required. As Anselm said “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.”

As we seek to understand our incomprehensible God, we also start to realize that the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know. It’s kinda like when we’re teenagers, we truly do think we know it all, or at least we know better than mom and dad! But as we grow and mature into our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, we start to see just how little we actually know. Quite humbling! At 49 years of age, I will probably look back at this in 10 years and think “you thought you knew, eh?”

Realizing how much we don’t know is a good thing for us mere mortals. God’s incomprehensibility protects the Christian from thinking that we CAN know God’s very essence – or as in Latin – “per essentiam”. It keeps us from thinking that we can attain comprehensive knowledge of God. Which would actually be the sin of idolatry and of arrogance.

As I wrote earlier about trying to meditate on God’s Glory, Augustine says this: “We are aware that our thoughts are quite inadequate to their object, and incapable of grasping Him as He is.” Yet, this must not dissuade us from seeking to know Him! Augustine told how every time he sat down to write about God, he’d end up on his knees in prayer. Why? He knew he could never exhaust the mystery of our incomprehensible God! Not only that, but in our mere finite ways of trying to describe God – our attempts are tainted by our own weaknesses and sins.

So? What now? Seek to know God. Seek to understand Him more through His Word and His creation. If we know anything about our awesome God – it’s because He has chosen to make it known! What a gift!! What an amazing reason to plumb the depths of Scripture. But in all your seeking to understand, always remember: God is inexhaustibly infinitely incomprehensible and we will never be able to know Him as He TRULY is. What we do know? ~ leads us to greater praise and rejoicing!