Theology may seem too complicated in the eyes of the average Christian. Out of intimidation churchgoers will excuse themselves from the study of theology by appealing to mystery. “We cannot know what God is actually like, therefore we don’t need to study God’s nature.” There is an idea circulating throughout the church which states that human beings are limited creatures, God is infinite, therefore, we cannot actually know what God is like. Have you thought this?
In technical terms this idea misunderstands the difference between an entity being incomprehensible and an entity being unknowable. Divine incomprehensibility is the doctrine that we cannot know God exhaustively. This is simply to affirm that while we cannot know everything about God, we can know some things about Him. Conversely, unknowability would be to say that we cannot know anything true about God at all, He is unknowable. The belief in the section above represents unknowability, not incomprehensibility.
In truth, God’s infinity does not at all impair our ability to know at least some things about Him. How can I be so sure? Because He has provided revelation of Himself both in creation and in His Word. To say that God is unknowable is to deny the revelation that He has provided of Himself! We cannot know anything about God unless He has revealed Himself to us; and we have good reason to believe that He has given us an accurate, but limited, knowledge of Himself.
So while there are indeed mysteries in theology, we ought not to be so quick to pawn off the study of God as something entirely beyond our understanding.
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