It is the clear doctrine of the Scriptures that God can be known. Our Lord teaches that eternal life consists in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. The Psalmist says, “In Judah is God known” (Ps. lxxvi. 1). Isaiah predicts, that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord” (Is. xi. 9). Paul says even of the heathen, that they knew God, but did not like to retain that knowledge (Rom. i. 19, 20, 21, 28).
A. State of the Question.
It is, however, important distinctly to understand what is meant when it is said, God can be known.
- This does not mean that we can know all that is true concerning God. There were some among the ancient philosophers who taught that the nature of God can be as fully understood and determined as any other object of knowledge. The modern speculative school teaches the same doctrine. Among the propositions laid down by Spinoza, we find the following: “Cognitio æternæ et infinitæ essentiæ Dei, quam unaquæque idea involvit, est adæquata et perfecta.”1 Hegel says, that God is, only so far as He is known. The sin against the Holy Ghost, according to Hegel, is to deny that He can be known.2 Cousin holds the same doctrine. “God in fact,” he says, “exists to us only in so far as He is known.”3
According to Schelling, God is known in his own nature by direct intuition of the higher reason. He assumes that there is in man a power which transcends the limits of the ordinary consciousness (an Anschauungs Vermögen), which takes immediate cognizance of the Infinite. Hegel says that “Man knows God only so far as God knows Himself in man; this knowledge is God’s self-consciousness, but likewise a knowledge of the same by man, and this knowledge of God by man is the knowledge of man by God.”4 Cousin finds this knowledge in the common consciousness of men. That consciousness includes the knowledge of the Infinite as well as of the finite. We know the one just as we know the other, and we cannot know the one without knowing the other. These philosophers all admit that we could not thus know God unless we were ourselves God. Self-knowledge, with them, is the knowledge of God. Reason in man, according to Cousin, does not belong to his individuality. It is infinite, impersonal, and divine. Our knowledge of God, therefore, is only God knowing Himself. Of course it is in no such sense as this that the Scriptures and the Church teach that God can be known.
God Inconceivable.
- It is not held that God, properly speaking, can be conceived of; that is, we cannot form a mental image of God. “All conception,” says Mr. Mansel,5 “implies imagination.” To have a valid conception of a horse, he adds, we must be able “to combine” the attributes which form “the definition of the animal” into “a representative image.” Conception is defined by Taylor in the same manner, as “the forming or bringing an image or idea into the mind by an effort of the will.” In this sense of the word it must be admitted that the Infinite is not an object of knowledge. We cannot form an image of infinite space, or of infinite duration, or of an infinite whole. To form an image is to limit, to circumscribe. But the infinite is that which is incapable of limitation. It is admitted, therefore, that the infinite God is inconceivable. We can form no representative image of Him in our minds. The word, however, is often, and perhaps commonly, used in a less restricted sense. To conceive is to think. A conception is therefore a thought and not necessarily an image. To say, therefore, that God is conceivable, in common language, is merely to say that He is thinkable. That is, that the thought (or idea) of God involves no contradiction or impossibility. We cannot think of a round square, or that a part is equal to the whole. But we can think that God is infinite and eternal.
God Incomprehensible.
- When it is said that God can be known, it is not meant that He can be comprehended. To comprehend is to have a complete and exhaustive knowledge of an object. It is to understand its nature and its relations. We cannot comprehend force, and specially vital force. We see its effect, but we cannot understand its nature or the mode in which it acts. It would be strange that we should know more of God than of ourselves, or of the most familiar objects of sense. God is past finding out. We cannot understand the Almighty unto perfection. To comprehend is (1.) To know the essence as well as the attributes of an object. (2.) It is to know not some only, but all of its attributes. (3.) To know the relation in which these attributes stand to each other and to the substance to which they belong. (4.) To know the relation in which the object known stands to all other objects. Such knowledge is clearly impossible in a creature, either of itself or of anything out of itself. It is, however, substantially thus that the transcendentalists claim to know God.