Some theists and religious pluralists claim that God is wholly other; so transcendent as to be incomprehensible to finite minds. They assert that nothing can be known about God – He is ineffable. No propositions we humans can formulate about Him can be true.
This perspective is fundamentally flawed. Not only is it self-refuting and contradictory, to say no human concept of God can be true of God (since the concept of ineffability is a human concept), it also results in absurdities. For example, if there can be no true propositions about God, then the proposition “God exists” cannot be a true proposition. But surely this is absurd. The ineffability of a being, X, depends on the existence of X. If God is a real entity, then at the very least the proposition “God exists” must be a true proposition about God.
If God’s transcendence means there is no congruence between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of man, so that whatever we know God does not know and vice versa, that would mean if we know the proposition “God exists,” God Himself cannot know it. But surely any conscious being must be aware of its own existence, and thus it is false that our thoughts can never match God’s thoughts. Indeed, as Christopher Neiswonger once noted, if we can’t know God’s thoughts, then we can’t know anything at all because God knows everything!
While humans cannot know every truth about God, this does not mean we cannot know any truths about God. Indeed, on the Christian worldview, God is not wholly other, purely transcendent, and absolutely silent. We are made in His image, He is immanent, and He has revealed Himself to mankind, communicating to us many truths about Him. While we cannot comprehend the depths of these truths, they can be known and apprehended.
January 19, 2010 at 4:12 pm
You need to read Mr. Barth, he gives a much better lesson in both proper philosophy and biblical, but somewhat dialectical theology.
Note the St. Paul’s text of 1 Cor. 4:1!
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January 19, 2010 at 4:32 pm
I’m not sure what to make of your comments. Maybe you could elaborate.
Jason
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January 19, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Yes, Karl Barth would be a good read for your given subjects. We have talked once before, and we will get really nowhere ourselves. As I am a Trinitarian like Barth, really an even more somewhat creedal Anglican. And of course you are Monarchianist. Of which the Church in the Ecumenical Creeds considered heretical.
But enjoy Karl Barth I hope? And just the freedom of the blog. In other places there is little to no religious freedom.
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January 27, 2010 at 5:39 pm
As somewhat of a “theolosipher” myself I do appreciate your presupposition. This is where faith must begin. Contrarily, faith cannot begin if God is transcendent. If God created us in His image (and that is the truth of the matter), then retracted from us, then He is a liar according to the Scriptures because a relationship with Him would then be impossible. Such is the theology of Islam and many other cult religions.
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January 27, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Not sure what a “theolosipher” is? Theology is simply the study and doctrine of God. And as God is transcendent he is also immanent. And both the terms are relative to the created world; God is transcendent “to it” and immanent “in it.” Furthermore, they are intimately related to each other, for they both arise out of the fact that the world is God’s creation. And from creation follows all Judeo-Christian theology. But finally that God “became” man, to bring both together, in the Incarnation is indeed part of the very continued “mysteries/”mystery” of God”. (1 Cor. 4:1 / 1 Tim. 3:16)
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January 27, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Uhhh..yes Irish..Just a bit of tongue-in-cheek takeoff of the author’s blog title. Sorry if the unpolished jargon was offensive in any way. Forgive the crude ramblings of a self educated theologian.
Indeed the mystery of God is not utterly comprehensible to the human mind; however the simplicity of the Gospel is the truth of relationship theology. God is transcendent in that He is superior to Creation, agreed.
However, He has not made Himself untouchable or unreachable as Kant supposed.
As the author noted, “Just because we can’t know everything about God, doesn’t mean we can’t know anything about Him.”(Paraphrase)
(2 Cor. 11:3)
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October 19, 2015 at 7:44 pm
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October 25, 2015 at 5:39 pm
irishanglican:
Your comment is not so simple as it seems: If God created us in His image (and that is the truth of the matter), then retracted from us, then He is a liar according to the Scriptures………..Now first of all you must necessarily use the term …IF…but then after that….God created us in His image (and that is the truth of the matter),…..there is no truth in that matter; that is a matter pf belief.
So you cannot have a conclusion based on a false premise or at the very least an unprovable premise and expect the conclusion to be correct.
YOUr logic FAILs../
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