Article April 4, 1994 Issue

Is God knowable?

Maybe knowing God isn't an intellectual search. Maybe it has more to do with recognizing love and its all-powerful source.

William A. Gough

"To The Unknown God ." The Bible records that Paul saw this inscription on an altar in Athens (see Acts 17:23). Although this encounter occurred almost two thousand years ago, the question of knowing and understanding God is something mankind still struggles with. Many yearn to understand and feel the presence and comfort of a power greater than themselves. Like many others, though, I used to avoid thinking about these matters. I was afraid my worst fear would be confirmed: I would find that we live a godless existence devoid of any ultimate purpose. Eventually I discovered this was not the case and that a search to understand God reaps many rewards.

Perhaps the search for God has become too sophisticated, too intellectual. Maybe the evidence of God's realness is staring us in the face, and we are missing the obvious. I recall, for example, observing a woman with her grandchild. As she looked at him, her face radiated love, completely enveloping him. Noticing I was watching, she looked at me in the same way. I felt enveloped in love. I was in awe of a love that seemed much more than the response of a pleasant person. I instinctively felt this love must have a deeper source.

In fact, in the Bible, John states, "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (I John 4:16). God is knowable as divine Love, as the source of all love, of all good. We can expand this to recognize God as the origin of all we find inherently of value—all that expresses the nature of good, such as honesty, integrity, humility, joy, intelligence.

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