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Home > Resources > What Shall We Choose? Knowing God: What Can We Know? by Thom Smith
The Christian Faith claims that believers can know God. Jesus, at a crucial point, John 17:3, describes "eternal life" as "that they may know you, the only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Paul describes the troubled Galatians as those "who have come to know God, or rather, to be known by Him" Gal. 4:9. Christian faith is a knowing faith; it knows God through Jesus Christ. But, what can we know of God? What is the substance of our claim "We know God"? We can know any person only to the degree that they reveal or disclose themselves to us. If I wish to know you and you are repelled by me for some reason, my knowledge of you will be superficial at best, your name, where you live, work, etc. But, if you trust me enough to disclose information about yourself to me, I can arrive at a kind of knowledge of you. If this trust continues, I may come to know you very well, even intimately. It all depends on your willingness to be known. And... my desire to know. The Bible tells us that God wills to be known. And because of this, he has revealed, disclosed Himself for our knowledge. He has made this disclosure in two ways. God has revealed himself in the creation. "The heavens declare the glory of God" Psalm 19, and "that which may be known about him is plain, because he has made it plain...For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities...have been clearly seen" Romans 1. The ever expanding universe in all its intricacies and marvels reveals God. God has disclosed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. "No one has seen God at any time, the unique and only Son of God has disclosed him" John 1:18. The Christian view of knowing God is not that we can arrive a true knowledge simply by compiling a list of traits about God that we find in nature or the Bible. This is like my trying to know you without your personal interaction in the process. No, I come to know God by examining his self-disclosure in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God Wanting to be Known. To aid and enable us in this process, God has given us the Biblical narratives and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus. In the narratives , culminating in the great narrative of the life and work of Jesus, I come to see what God says about Himself. The Holy Spirit serves these narratives and me by persuading me of their integrity and of their relevance to me personally. Without this service I will never come to know God, I will not even care whether I do or not. So when Christians claim to know God they are not (or should not be) boasting. Our claim that we know God is a realization that we have received a wonderful grace or gift. Just as I have been graced or gifted to know my friends: my knowledge of them is the result of their gift of self-revealment. But, while the Christian claim is that we know God, it is not a claim of infallible or comprehensive knowledge. This I hope to talk about in a future post. |
