Okay, so it is 2 a.m. again -- oh well! As a good friend of mine once said, I will aim to "exhaust the subject, not the reader."
Knowing God. Very possible, because of how available God has made Himself to humankind -- such as via creation, salvation, and ultimately, glorification with Him forever. But whether here on earth, or in heaven, do you ever ponder how much, quantitatively, we can ever know God?
Take your spouse, your sibling, your child, your parent, your your best friend. What percentage (for lack of a better abstract quantitative concept) of their beliefs, dreams, feelings, personalities, skills, and schedules do you think you know? Fifty percent sounds pretty good. Maybe more, maybe less?
Let's try a quick test. Whether you last saw that person a minute ago or a month ago, where is he or she this instant, what are they doing, and how is their day going? How many times today, and at what intensity, have they prayed or reminisced about anything great or terrible in their past? Maybe you know their biggest fears, sins, talents, and hopes: but do you know the last five times each of those things permeated their minds? Are you aware of the minute they woke up today, the last time they coughed, where they were when they last ran out of breath, when they plan on their next physical activity and what tiny goals they may have about it, which book they want to read next, or the most recent time they felt 100% secure in a close relationship -- possibly even yours?
Ok, I assume your imagined percentage has shrunk...perhaps to five or ten percent? Still, what you know of that person is likely far greater than what most other people know about them, right? So how well we know another person reflects how close we are with them. This goes for how much we know God as well.
Side note: Many of us think we know certain people well even if we are distant or estranged from them. We tend to think that because he or she is "that way" (a claim to knowledge), we want little to do with them. For the sake of argument, I will say we may know certain things about that person, but if the relationship has long been damaged or broken, our knowledge may be less than we think...and far less than the five or ten percent mentioned above.
Onward, then, to how much we can know God.
The math may seem pretty simple in one of two ways. First, we might assume we know a certain percentage of the Bible, as well as a certain amount of any other history and philosophy we can learn about God. These numbers would be difficult to pinpoint. But since Earth physically holds a limited, albeit fluctuating, amount of information about God, a theoretical percentage of knowledge of all that material is possible. Thus, we might conclude that if we can know our best friend at ten percent, maybe we can know God at one percent.
The second formula is simpler: man is finite; God is infinite; therefore our knowledge of Him is infinitely small. This is much closer to what I think. Indeed, I may even have thought it prior to my bathroom inspiration two weeks ago. But now I believe a third, more glorious, option exists as well...
Knowing God. Very possible, because of how available God has made Himself to humankind -- such as via creation, salvation, and ultimately, glorification with Him forever. But whether here on earth, or in heaven, do you ever ponder how much, quantitatively, we can ever know God?
Take your spouse, your sibling, your child, your parent, your your best friend. What percentage (for lack of a better abstract quantitative concept) of their beliefs, dreams, feelings, personalities, skills, and schedules do you think you know? Fifty percent sounds pretty good. Maybe more, maybe less?
Let's try a quick test. Whether you last saw that person a minute ago or a month ago, where is he or she this instant, what are they doing, and how is their day going? How many times today, and at what intensity, have they prayed or reminisced about anything great or terrible in their past? Maybe you know their biggest fears, sins, talents, and hopes: but do you know the last five times each of those things permeated their minds? Are you aware of the minute they woke up today, the last time they coughed, where they were when they last ran out of breath, when they plan on their next physical activity and what tiny goals they may have about it, which book they want to read next, or the most recent time they felt 100% secure in a close relationship -- possibly even yours?
Ok, I assume your imagined percentage has shrunk...perhaps to five or ten percent? Still, what you know of that person is likely far greater than what most other people know about them, right? So how well we know another person reflects how close we are with them. This goes for how much we know God as well.
Side note: Many of us think we know certain people well even if we are distant or estranged from them. We tend to think that because he or she is "that way" (a claim to knowledge), we want little to do with them. For the sake of argument, I will say we may know certain things about that person, but if the relationship has long been damaged or broken, our knowledge may be less than we think...and far less than the five or ten percent mentioned above.
Onward, then, to how much we can know God.
The math may seem pretty simple in one of two ways. First, we might assume we know a certain percentage of the Bible, as well as a certain amount of any other history and philosophy we can learn about God. These numbers would be difficult to pinpoint. But since Earth physically holds a limited, albeit fluctuating, amount of information about God, a theoretical percentage of knowledge of all that material is possible. Thus, we might conclude that if we can know our best friend at ten percent, maybe we can know God at one percent.
The second formula is simpler: man is finite; God is infinite; therefore our knowledge of Him is infinitely small. This is much closer to what I think. Indeed, I may even have thought it prior to my bathroom inspiration two weeks ago. But now I believe a third, more glorious, option exists as well...
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