God is God. There are no words to describe or define him adequately. There is no way our minds can comprehend him, no way our natural minds can grasp him. His ways are not our ways. He exists outside the cosmos, i.e., he is transcendent, as the cosmos is merely his creation. He exists in a sense that we cannot understand; it is not any sort of existence that we can understand. For instance, his existence and essence are infinite, and he is self-existent. We can only grasp whatever exists in a temporal sense - that which begins at some point, is created, and ceases to exist (only the human soul does not cease).
But God justs exists. Infinitely. We cannot wrap our minds around that. We can sort of imagine our souls not ceasing to exist, living forever into the future, because we haven't died yet. But can you imagine existing without having ever been born, without ever having a beginning? Of course not; it blows your mind. But that's how God is. We cannot grasp his existence or essence, which are infinite, perfect, holy, entirely beyond our understanding.
For us to claim to really understand God would be like an ant claiming to understand Einstein or quantum mechanics, or a roach claiming to understand chaos theory or Kant. We can only stand in awe and fear before this God who is nothing like us or anything in the cosmos.
We cannot know God by our natural minds. He is so far beyond us, beyond our knowledge and understanding. Thus, God should be irrelevant to us, just as an ant would find a Bach concerto or a quantum physics text irrelevant. And in our natural, unsaved state, we mostly do dismiss him as irrelevant. The only way that we finite creatures could know God would be if God made himself relevant to us, if he revealed himself to us. He made himself relevant, in that he made each of us with a "God shaped vacuum" inside, which only he can fill. And the Unknowable God made himself known to us, revealed himself to us, thru his Word, thru Christ who became one of us, and thru his Spirit, which draws us to Christ. Only by these means can we come to know him, in the sense of having a personal relationship with us. We can thus know him personally, and experience his presence and love, though we can never know him fully, as we are finite and he is infinite. We must recognize how limited we are as humans and as sinners, and can only stand before God in awe, wonder, and fear.
But God justs exists. Infinitely. We cannot wrap our minds around that. We can sort of imagine our souls not ceasing to exist, living forever into the future, because we haven't died yet. But can you imagine existing without having ever been born, without ever having a beginning? Of course not; it blows your mind. But that's how God is. We cannot grasp his existence or essence, which are infinite, perfect, holy, entirely beyond our understanding.
For us to claim to really understand God would be like an ant claiming to understand Einstein or quantum mechanics, or a roach claiming to understand chaos theory or Kant. We can only stand in awe and fear before this God who is nothing like us or anything in the cosmos.
We cannot know God by our natural minds. He is so far beyond us, beyond our knowledge and understanding. Thus, God should be irrelevant to us, just as an ant would find a Bach concerto or a quantum physics text irrelevant. And in our natural, unsaved state, we mostly do dismiss him as irrelevant. The only way that we finite creatures could know God would be if God made himself relevant to us, if he revealed himself to us. He made himself relevant, in that he made each of us with a "God shaped vacuum" inside, which only he can fill. And the Unknowable God made himself known to us, revealed himself to us, thru his Word, thru Christ who became one of us, and thru his Spirit, which draws us to Christ. Only by these means can we come to know him, in the sense of having a personal relationship with us. We can thus know him personally, and experience his presence and love, though we can never know him fully, as we are finite and he is infinite. We must recognize how limited we are as humans and as sinners, and can only stand before God in awe, wonder, and fear.
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