What can be known about God?

yeshuaslavejeff

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yeshuaslavejeff

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W2L

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1 Corinthians 2:11 For who among men knows the thoughts of man ...

1 Corinthians 2:11 For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
You are the only one who knows what is in your own mind, and God's Spirit is the ... In the same way, no one can know the thoughts of God except God's Spirit. ...
We have so much theology, but in the end what do we actually know about Him? Is theology the path God has given us to know Him?
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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We have so much theology, but in the end what do we actually know about Him? Is theology the path God has given us to know Him?
No. Never via theology.

Spiritual Gifts
…7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,…
Berean Study Bible · Download
 
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Hammster

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Tharseo

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Thoughts?
No. Never via theology.

Never get into theology to know the Lord. For knowing the Lord is not about knowledge.

It is kind of contradictory to say not to "know" the Lord by "knowledge". But knowing the Lord is not a theory. It is not like Physics and Chemistry that we can study them in college. A person cannot know God, unless he experiences God in his life.

In fact, knowledge can be a very dangerous thing. It can deceive a person. A person may know that Christ is Lord, yet he thinks that by knowing and accepting this he makes Christ his Lord. In reality he never really cares about it. He thinks and acts like nothing different from Christ not being his Lord. They are what the Bible calls hypocrites.

I am not saying you should not acquire any knowledge, but you should know the Lord by experiencing the truth of the knowledge of God you have in reality.

There are many things you can know from God. The love of God, for example, do you know it? Can you describe what it is, not by Biblical jargons but by your own words? If you are experiencing it, you will know it and can easily describe it, because it is part of your life.
 
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Never get into theology to know the Lord. For knowing the Lord is not about knowledge.

It is kind of contradictory to say not to "know" the Lord by "knowledge". But knowing the Lord is not a theory. It is not like Physics and Chemistry that we can study them in college. A person cannot know God, unless he experiences God in his life.

In fact, knowledge can be a very dangerous thing. It can deceive a person. A person may know that Christ is Lord, yet he thinks that by knowing and accepting this he makes Christ his Lord. In reality he never really cares about it. He thinks and acts like nothing different from Christ not being his Lord. They are what the Bible calls hypocrites.

I am not saying you should not acquire any knowledge, but you should know the Lord by experiencing the truth of the knowledge of God you have in reality.

There are many things you can know from God. The love of God, for example, do you know it? Can you describe what it is, not by Biblical jargons but by your own words? If you are experiencing it, you will know it and can easily describe it, because it is part of your life.
^^^Theology.
 
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What? Did I say something theoretical? I need no one to study my post like anyone study Theology. I want someone to do it.
How did you come to your understanding?
 
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Tharseo

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How did you come to your understanding?

I come to conclusion to say "you are not able to know the Lord via theology" by observing common pitfalls of Christians, by thinking logically with some common sense, and by my own experience in knowing God.

I did not say knowledge is of no use. I say there is no point to study theology when there are so much more things better than pure theories.
 
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Johnny4ChristJesus

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We have so much theology, but in the end what do we actually know about Him? Is theology the path God has given us to know Him?

Wow! That's a loaded double question.

First, let's define theology:

Definition of theology (from websters)

1 : the study of religious faith, practice, and experience especially : the study of God and of God's relation to the world

2a : a theological theory or system (like: Thomist theology a theology of atonement)

b : a distinctive body of theological opinion (like: Catholic theology)

Personally, I think definition #1 and definition #2a are important to the individual believer. Our beliefs about God should be consistent and therefore fit within each other. When we find an inconsistency, it should lead us to investigate what we are falsely believing that isn't true.

For instance, I didn't believe God woke people up (being born again) until He did it to me. My belief system was such that I couldn't have chosen to genuinely believe that God did that, because I had bought the lies I had been told that all born again people were crazy. So, my theology stood in the way of me being a faithful witness to others--and actually my theology then kept me from being a faithful witness to anyone, because I was taught that faith was private and not to be shared in that same "church". But, my mainline church wouldn't have led anyone to Him anyway--it was completely non-intrusive and that is what I and those around me wanted. He was only an add-on like fire or flood insurance, just in case their was a God and hell was really true. But, we were more like a club than a church, except for the name on the door saying "church".

Even as late as 4 years into my walk with the Lord, I still believed the lie that healing evangelists were frauds and that healing and other gifts (like tongues) were not for today. Because I was dating, God used a woman to get me to go to listen to Randy Clark speak. I never would have gone. She asked me multiple times to just go to one service. I said "Okay, I will go, but we aren't giving any money and after this service we don't go any more." It is funny and sad at the same time to admit that I was so obnoxiously against it, because I had been so ingrained with a lie. But that night God broke that lie, not by touching me. But by healing a woman born deaf and mute who was now 30 years old and had been in that same church for 19 years--as testified by the repenting pastor who acknowledged he didn't even want to bring Randy in because he didn't believe healing was for today based on someone he loved not getting healed when he prayed.

At that point I was in seminary. I was blown away. I said: "God, if you do this, I want to do this. We can argue about theology all day long--as I do with my unbelieving professors--but when they see Your power at work, it changes people." And, yet, since then, I have seen that even miracles right in front of them or even done to them don't change some people's theology. Sometimes, people are more attached to their theology than they are to God. So when put in the same position as I was, they choose to believe the lies to maintain fellowship with an unbelieving church.

My point in all this is what we think about God (our theology) should be ever evolving as we are taken from glory to glory (experience). I have shown theology as keeping us from Truth; but it can also be proven, through Scripture and experience, that sound theology will keep us from departing to deception. We can be over-willing to let our experience drive our theology to the extent that we end up outside the faith, participating in witchcraft and other ungodly things. There have been men used powerfully by God who mistook God's use of them to mean something it didn't and they ended up shipwrecked! We can also let our lack of experience drive our theology, so that because "we don't get something when we asked, it must not be for today" logic rules too much of the professing church. We can be over-willing to let our (false) theology drive our experience where we reject something that is happening right in front of our eyes and actually say it is of the devil (and what a tragedy that would be, based on what Jesus said about blaspheming the Holy Spirit). Or we can be over-willing to let our theology change based on ungodly experience or wrong personal perception about our experience. An example is that some "teachers" who warn everyone to be careful who you let lay hands on you. They say they had an experience where someone laid hands on them and then they felt lust or other thoughts. So, they decided that somehow they were made into the scapegoat with the laying on of hands. That is just not Scriptural in the New Testament and it breeds distrust and lack of love in the body of Christ. The caution in Scripture is to "be careful who you lay hands on" (for ministry appointment purposes), if one reads the rest of the chapter of that epistle.

So theology about God is important, as is experience with God. You can't have one or the other, only. You need both to come alive in you. But, what I can agree with is that theology without experience is worthless. If I had to choose one over the other, I'll take experience with God over theology about God any and every day.
 
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I come to conclusion to say "you are not able to know the Lord via theology" by observing common pitfalls of Christians, by thinking logically with some common sense, and by my own experience in knowing God.

I did not say knowledge is of no use. I say there is no point to study theology when there are so much more things better than pure theories.
What better things?
 
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Tharseo

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What better things?

I am really worried, for if you do not know anything better than theology, you have built your faith on your knowledge of Christ, but not on the Living God who lives in us.

I will use theology to speak against theology, if you have valued theology so much.

1 Corinthians 8:1: "Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." This "knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up."

1 Corinthians 13:2: "And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."

Knowledge, and also theology, are never the focus in the Bible. On the other hand, the "knowledge" of God that the Bible described, is never theories.

Proverbs 6:32: "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul."

Does a person commit adultery because he does not understand that it is bad? No. It is because even he knows it is against the law, he did not act according to it. That is why I say knowing the theory means nothing when you do not think and act according to it.

I would rather have the knowledge of only one verse and live by it, than to have the knowledge of the entire Bible and treat them as theories like Physics.
 
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I am really worried, for if you do not know anything better than theology, you have built your faith on your knowledge of Christ, but not on the Living God who lives in us.

I will use theology to speak against theology, if you have valued theology so much.

1 Corinthians 8:1: "Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." This "knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up."

1 Corinthians 13:2: "And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."

Knowledge, and also theology, are never the focus in the Bible. On the other hand, the "knowledge" of God that the Bible described, is never theories.

Proverbs 6:32: "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul."

Does a person commit adultery because he does not understand that it is bad? No. It is because even he knows it is against the law, he did not act according to it. That is why I say knowing the theory means nothing when you do not think and act according to it.

I would rather have the knowledge of only one verse and live by it, than to have the knowledge of the entire Bible and treat them as theories like Physics.
^^^^Still theology.
 
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The longer I'm a Christian, the more I find God to be unknowable, in the sense that …(Isaiah 55: 8-9 - NIV) “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

No doubt He reveals Himself through Scripture, through Christ, through the Holy Spirit, our experiences, specific things He might want to tell us or have us do, but when it comes to really knowing God, He's the complete Other.

For a start, before He even made this universe, He had to imagine it from beginning to end, with no previous experience to start with, and that includes everything in it, right down to the incredible biological machinery which forms the non-spiritual part of life in this universe.

Then He had to build it on a mathematical basis so it would all hold together. At the same time He was also having a bun fight with the devil and his servants, whom God also created. And between the two, create a plan which would take into account the rebellion of both the fallen spiritual powers and this world, yet still somehow work towards His desired end, which include His own intrusion into the world in the form of Christ, who would then allow His creature, Man, to push Him out of the world on a cross.

For example a few years ago there was a lot of noise about chaos theory. You know, as you stand on a beach, every wave that comes towards you and then recedes has some sort of similarity but is also different. I'm reminded of this when I occasionally walk on a foot bridge over a creek which was close to where I grew up (which was rebuilt after floods in 2011).

When I look down at the sand and gravel of the creek bed, it seems to follow almost the same contours it did when I left that home over 40 years ago. This is despite the floods, the daily ebb and flow of the estuarine tides, the rebuilding of the bridge, and all the other chaotic factors which impinge on the water flow. Despite all the seeming chaos, it doesn't seem to change much, but continues with a certain stability, despite the fact the water molecules which flow past today, will quite possibly not flow past again.

Somehow He has contrived to instill order into chaos, and keep it there.

The mind that designed all that is also monitoring a universe, with all that entails, watching over heaven and hell, and reading and watching the thoughts, words and actions (and inactions) of over 7 billion people, while working towards some sort of hidden plan, and He is the only one who really knows what the plan is about.

"What can be known about God?"

Not much.
 
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