Monday, October 27, 2008

The Knowledge of the Holy- Chapter 2

The title of chapter 2, "God Incomprehensible," is enough to deeply challenge a soul to know more of God and cause that same soul to realize God can never be fully known. The fact that God cannot be fully known does not mean that we throw up our hands and say, "Well, then, I am not even going to try." No, it should cause us to desire Him more intimately than ever before. It is a wonder that He would create us and then reveal Himself to us. Our lives should be devoted to knowing Him and making Him known to others.

Truly, what else matters?

Excerpts from chapter 2:
  • In Thy Presence silence best becomes us, but love inflames our hearts and constrains us to speak.
  • ...God is not like anything; that is, He is not exactly like anything or anbody. We learn by using what we already know as a bridge over which we pass to the unknown. It is not possible for the mind to crash suddenly past the familiar into the totally unfamiliar.
  • When the Scripture states that man was made in the image of God, we dare not add to that statement an idea from our own head and make it mean "in the exact image." To do so is to make man a replica of God, and that is to lose the unicity of God and end with no God at all.
  • ...whatever we visualize God to be, He is not, for we have constructed our image out of that which He has made and what He has made is not God.
  • If all this sounds strange to modern ears, it is only because we have for a full half century [the book was written in 1961] taken God for granted.
  • If what we conceive God to be He is not, how then shall we think of Him? If He is indeed incomprehensible, as the Creed declares Him to be, and unapproachable, as Paul says He is, how can we Christians satisfy our longing after Him?
  • The yearning to know What cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source.
  • "What is God like? If by that question we mean "What is God like in Himself?" there is no answer. If we mean "What has God disclosed about Himself that the reverent reason can comprehend" there is, I believe, and answer both full and satisfying.

So, praise Him that He chose to reveal parts of Himself to us. And spend the rest of your life knowing Him and making Him known. It's the only thing that lasts.

No comments: