Exploring the Character of God: The incomprehensibility of God

How far can human comprehension stretch to understand God? We acknowledge our human constraints, yet remain grateful for the knowledge gifted to us. Discover how God intentionally discloses Himself to humanity through scripture, historical events, dreams, visions, and the pivotal role of Jesus Christ. In this episode, we grapple with the counterbalance of God's general and personal revelation through Jesus Christ, and the awe-inspiring concept of God's infinite being. This isn't a limitation, but rather an invitation to a deeper understanding of the God. Join us, and let's unravel this together.

References
Allison, G. R. (2018) 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology
Grudem, W (2020) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine 2nd Edition

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Chapters

• 0:01 Exploring the Attributes of God
• 4:46 Exploring the Incomprehensibility of God

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we learn how to live for Christ and our daily lives.

Speaker 1: 0:08

I am Dawn, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Over the last couple of months, we have been exploring the attributes of God and learning about who God is and his character can help us navigate life. As a believer, I think a little bit better. I know, I have found in my own life that when I have a better, when I have a better understanding of God, my level of trust and dependency in him is more secure. I have less anxiety and fear because I know that God exists and, as a child of his, I have nothing to fear or worry about. But that's not to say that I never had times of fear and anxiety. But when I do have those feelings, they dispel quickly because I know who's in control and I can I know I can fully trust him. So in this final episode about the attributes of God, we're going to explore the incomprehensibility of God, alright, so before we dive into looking at the incomprehensibility of God, we should lay a foundation that we can have the knowledge of God as finite humans. For us to know God, he has revealed himself to us so that we can know about him. He got actively seeks to make himself known to us as a people and as human beings. He has revealed himself to us so that in some capacity that we can know him, even though we will never fully, you know, fully understand him. Romans 1 9 says and this is an ESV for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. So God has revealed himself to us. When we believe that there is a God is because he has given us this knowledge, and we see that in Romans 119. So whether we choose to accept or deny this doesn't change the fact that there is a God. So if you refuse that, you can know God with know that there is a God, you know agnosticism are that you deny that God exists with his atheism. In some way you have to know about God in order to not believe of him or not know if he believes. So God's self-revelation is unfolded progressively, as is recorded in the Old and New Testament. So Christians believe and we can see throughout scripture, through the life and teachings of Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit. God has revealed his nature and character and his plan for humanity in scripture, and this revelation is can be seen as a gift to those who seek to know God in his will.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Greg Allison, in his book 50 core truths of the Christian faith a guide to understanding and teaching theology. He says there are two facts about the nobility of God One, god's free decision to make himself known through general and special revelation and two, the God given capacity of human beings, as image bearers of God, to know him. So Greg Allison gives a detailed definition of general and special revelation. So I'm just going to read what he says here. He says general revelation is God's closer of himself to all people at all times and in all places. It comes through creation, conscious and God's providential care and an innate sense of God with which all people are wired. The recipients of general revelation know that God exists, some of divine attributes and basic principles of his moral law.

Speaker 1: 4:46

And then he goes on to say the Bible witnesses to five modes of special revelation, which is God's communication to particular people whom he has chosen. So first mode is One scripture leads to faith in Christ for salvation and equips believers for every good work to historical events. So, for example, exodus, where God manifested power, righteousness and wrath. Three dreams and visions, for example, you know Abraham and Joseph. Internal communication, by which God reveals his will. Four, direct divine speech. This is, for example, it could be like God's communication with Moses, which you know, god gave Moses, like his commandments and his promise All right.

Speaker 1: 5:39

The fifth mode is incarnation, which is through Jesus Christ. He became a man, revealed his words and works of the nature of God. So we can see that this revelation, special revelation, demonstrate that God reveals himself to us, naturally, general revelation, and then personally, through special revelation. So to understand the natural revelation we must learn about the personal revelation through Jesus Christ. So Jesus tells us in Matthew 11, 27, All things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. So our capacity as created beings, humans, is limited. But we can be grateful that what we know about God, the scripture tells us so things like God is love First. John 4, 8 says but anyone who does not love does not know God. For God is love, then God is light. First, john 1, 5 says this is the message we hear from Jesus. Now I'll declare to you that God is light and there is no darkness in him. We know that God is righteous and just.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Romans 3, 23 says For everyone has sinned, we are far and short of God's glory, yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in the sight. He did this through Jesus Christ when he freed us from the debt of sin. Oh, and I also read 23 to 26. And then this part of the verse talks about God's righteousness and his justice and it goes on to say For God presented Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shared his blood, disacrified shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and included them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Speaker 1: 8:25

So, while we can know God, we don't possess a comprehensive or exhaustive knowledge of God. God has made it enough for us with our finite human capacity, even though we think we need to know more about God. God has given us enough for us to handle. Psalms 145, 1-3 says I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and great we to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.

Speaker 1: 9:13

So as believers, we have to acknowledge that God's nature is inherently mysterious and beyond our full human capacity. We have finite minds and as human beings we're never going to grasp the infinite depths of who God is. So this concept is illustrated in Scripture when it says that God's ways are described as higher than human race and his thoughts are higher than human thoughts. You can find that in Isaiah 55-9. So Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology says because God is infinite and we are finite or limited, we can never fully understand God. And this is since God is said to be incomprehensible. It is not true to say that God is unable to be understood, but it is true to say that he can't be understood fully or exhaustively, he says it is also true that we can never fully understand any single thing about God. He says when we have true knowledge of God from Scripture. He says we have true knowledge of God from Scripture even though we do not have exhaustive knowledge. So again, as finite humans, we are often limited also by our language as humans, because it's inadequate. Sometimes we don't have the words to fully describe and define God fully because we don't have language to describe God. So words can often fall short to encapsulate the attributes and nature of God.

Speaker 1: 11:03

So when theologians and believers speak about God's love, wisdom or power, we do so with awareness that these concepts only scratch the bare minimum or surface of his infinite being. And then we also have to remember that we have to utilize faith in some of the unseen and unknowable aspects about God. We have to have trust in God even though we won't fully grasp or be able to fully explain all that he is. So faith has to be balanced with reason. We are to use our God-given intellect to explore and try to understand the nature of God. So kind of think of God's incomprehensibility as a tree with branches that stretch far and wide and its roots that delve into the deep of the ground and the earth, and the roots reach into hidden depths of the earth. So when we think about God's ways, they reach far beyond our reach and our understanding. So we have to remember that when we look at God's incomprehensibility, it's a testament to the greatness and awesomeness of God.

Speaker 1: 12:37

So the mystery of God is something that we should embrace, so not as a limitation but as an invitation to explore and deepen our understanding of the things that we can know about God. So, rather than viewing God's incomprehensibility as a barrier, like I said, we should treat it as an invitation to seek God in all of his mystery, to deepen our faith in our personal relationship with him. So we, as believers, we should try to embrace the mystery of God because we know who he is. We can find comfort and assurance in the things that we do know about him. We do know about his love, his grace, his wisdom, and then there's so many other things that we know about him. And then also, when we think about the comprehensibility of God, it should bring us to a place of humility as believers, reminding us that we are finite beings. We're not going to fully Understand the finite God. It should lead us to having a deep reverence and worst of God being all up, being in all of his holiness and greatness, and that we will never fully grasp his wisdom, his love is, it's gonna be, you know, beyond our capacity to grasp. Grasp.

Speaker 1: 14:07

So in Christianity, in Christianity, knowing general knowing God is not, it shouldn't be merely a intellectual pursuit, but it should be a personal and relational journey. We believe and have faith in Jesus Christ and because of Jesus, we have a, we have the ability to have a direct and personal relationship with God, and this relationship involves prayer, worship and our continual pursuit and striving to Be a be it to God in his will. So this is like an ongoing connection that we have to maintain with God, that we can learn to be more, More like him, into, pursue and seek him. All right, so to. So, to wrap up this episode, let's there's some things that we should remember that the nobility of God is is complex and multifaceted. It's going to involve our faith, a personal relationship, revelation, recognition of our limitations as humans and our understanding and while, like, full comprehension of God is going to remain a mystery, we should, we should engage in a lifelong journey to know and grow closer to God through faith and an ongoing pursuit of his truth that he's revealed to us. So we have to remember that the pursuit of knowledge it's it's not static, it's not going to be a static end point, but it's going to be like a dynamic journey as we change and grow to learn more about God. So we also need to remember that the incomprehensibility of God it shouldn't cause us to be frustrated or confused, but it should be like a well-sprung Of wonder and humility. So you know, this is this God we're talking about the, the infinite, the eternal God, the creator of all things, the Lord of everything and everyone.

Speaker 1: 16:32

So I pray that this series on Exploring the attributes of God has been helpful to you. I know it's been helpful to me over the past year that we're talking about, I know, as a follower of Christ, you know my life has not been easy and you know God didn't promise an easy life to me. But I do know that the more about the character of the sovereign God in creative universe, even though I I don't understand him fully or exhaustively, I do. I do know this, the God of all things, exhaustively. I do. I do know this because that he is always good and he's always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.