Is God Knowable?

Miranda and I have been carrying on a philosophical/theological discussion. I thought I would bring it forward on its own post. Anyone interested in this can use the link above to see previous comments.

Here I respond to Miranda's last post. I had claimed that there are certain limits to philosophy in the sense of questions that philosophy probably can't answer and might not even be able to address properly. For example: what is God? Or why does anything exist at all? Miranda says this:

I concede the point about the limits of philosophy, although the study seems somewhat duller when framed in such a way. I prefer the idea of a passionate, limitless search for answers over a series of limited questions, designed to answer only what fits inside certain boundaries. Still, if that really is what philosophy is, then I can't argue its definition away.

I reply that the greatest period in the history of philosophy (Socrates, followed by Plato, followed by Aristotle) was precisely a result of Socrates' decision to limit his questions to those he could get a purchase on. I think the passionate pursuit of the what is questions (What is justice? What is beauty? Etc.) is lustrous enough.

It's not that the largest questions can't conceivably be answered; it is just that the only way philosophy could answer them would be by answering all the limited questions. That would be possible only if the world is complete, self-contained, and fully rational. If, on the other hand, there are powers outside the world that are beyond human intelligibility… .

I can and do take issue with your idea that the biblical religion paints God as unknowable. In fact, it does the opposite. In the New Testament, we have verses such as these:

John 10:13, "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine."

Luke 4:8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."

The term "to know" admits of more than one meaning. For example there is this verse, Gen. 4.1:

And Adam knew [yada] Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

Presumably one cannot know God in the same sense as Adam knew Eve. So how does one know God?

The passage from John uses the Greek term γινώσκω, which can mean understanding but also recognition and acquaintance. I think the shepherd/sheep metaphor provides the right guidance here. Sheep know the shepherd in the sense that they recognize Him and respond to His call. That doesn't mean that sheep have any clue what a shepherd is.

I certainly do not deny that the Biblical God is knowable in the one sense. Human beings can know Him in so far as they can respond to him and have a relationship with Him. That doesn't mean that we can know what He is in the way that we know what a triangle or a rabbit is.

We can know the latter in the sense of intellectual understanding because the one is a characteristic of this world and the latter a thing in this world. We know things in the world in terms of other things in the world. We can know them precisely because they are limited. A triangle has no more nor less than three angles. A rabbit is a mammal, composed of flesh and bone, and in turn of molecules. Our minds can encompass that. Can the human mind encompass God?

I am no Biblical expert either but I hold, with Aquinas and his Jewish counterpart, Maimonides, that the Biblical God is unknowable in that sense. He existed before the world and created the world; therefore is he outside of and beyond the world, however much he intervenes in it. Unlike the things in the world, God has no limits. He is infinite in power, wisdom, compassion, and I dare say, in duration.

The human mind can probably not grasp real infinity. For example: suppose you had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Suppose that every single room is occupied. Now Miranda shows up and wants a room. No problem! The manager just has to ask every guest to move into the next highest numbered room. Since there is always a higher number for every guest, this is possible. Now room number one is free. Can we understand a hotel of which these two things are true: every room is occupied and there are as many free rooms as necessary for any number of new guests? I think not.

God created the world at some moment in time. How long did He wait to do that? Forever, since He has existed forever. But when you wait forever to do something, doesn't that mean you never get around to doing it? Moreover, if God were a knowable thing, then one could set Him beside other knowable things (the Grand Canyon) and say: these two things together are greater than God.  But nothing can be greater than God. 

I do not think that these things are intelligible. To say that they are nonetheless real and true (which I am not denying) is precisely to set limits on the scope of philosophy.

There is a term for the view that the Divine is knowable in the way that worldly things are knowable: paganism. Pagan gods exist in the world, in trees, on inaccessible mountain tops, in the circuit of the night sky. Frequently they get into trouble, because they are limited (if really big and powerful) beings. We have no trouble understanding why Apollo wanted to know Daphne.

By contrast, it is always perilous, and perhaps impious, for human beings to presume to know the mind of God. Therein lie great evils. The prohibition against naming God in the same way that Zeus is named, the prohibition against idolatry, these are, I think, connected with this.

I doubt that we really disagree on any of this, but I thought it worthwhile to lay out my thoughts. Your last comment, quite properly, brings us back down a notch.

I am not sure the idea of a giant bear is so far fetched. If we can observe the Devil's Tower and theorize that it has eroded because we know that other things do, then why can't look at the bears of our time, compare them to the fossils of Ursus spelaeus (the giant, extinct cave bear), and conclude that since bears have, indeed, gotten smaller over time, there may very well have been a giant, tower-scratching bear at some point in time?

Cave bears, as far as I know, weren't much larger than existing bears. They were smaller than polar bears. But even if giant bears existed, they could not have been large enough to scratch the sides of Devil's Tower. Bone and muscle can support only so much weight, out of the water. The largest animals today are whales, animals that swim in the ocean and eat massive amounts of really small things. What did Ursus Maximus eat? Giant honeycombs made by giant bees? That's what I mean about things in the world being limited.

The Devil's tower story is entertaining, but it belongs in story land. As an explanation it is ad hoc, conjuring into existence a creature for whom no independent evidence exists. It is not consistent with the world as it presents itself.

Comments

[Miranda]

I find myself without argument and satisfied to have none. What you say makes sense and I am having a Laches moment. "By Zeus, you're right!". Still, I can't resist making one more suggestion. You ask, "What did Ursus Maximus eat? Giant honeycombs made by giant bees?"

Perhaps he ate pieces of Devil's Tower.

[Bill Fleming]

The real question would be "Who is it that would be doing the knowing?" And the answer will perhaps be quite surprising.

[Bill Fleming]

Hence Socrates' classic mandate: "Know thyself."

[Bill Fleming]

Perhaps it's no coincidence that if we go in search of either God or Self, using such tools and knowledge as are currently available, we end up in the same place. No where. The mathematician Kurt Gödel suggests that such a result, as least as far as reason is concerned, is in fact inevitable. There would have to be some other way of "knowing" (beyond those already discussed.) Theologians suggest "surrender", "love," and "forgiveness" as possible starting points.

[BillW]

"greatest period in the history of philosophy (Socrates, followed by Plato, followed by Aristotle)"

The greatest period in western philosophy, perhaps, but eastern philosophers would take a completely different tack on all of this - starting with the idea that anything and everything can be known - quantified - put into neat boxes. They would have little problem with the answer to the question 'can God be known' being simultaneously no and yes.

[Bill Fleming]

BillW yes, correct. And the answers would be almost completely incomprehensible to the Western mind. There are some writers lately who have bridged the gap, but the language is still kind of a problem. Probably due to the extreme rigidity of the collective Western Ego, the lack of comfort with non-linear forms of communication, and the whole "mind/body" dualism problem. ;^)

[BillW]

Bill,

I once asked a friend in China is he were a Buddhist and he answered, "sometimes". At the time I thought it was reflective of a half-hearted commitment to religion. Later I figured out that it was a deadly serious and entirely logical answer for him.

I found the only way I have been able to wrap my mind around eastern philosophy at all was through a math book called "Fuzzy Thinking" by a guy named Bart Kosko. Breaking eastern philosophy down to alternate approaches to geometry and algebra enabled it to at least shallowly penetrate my hopelessly western mind.

[Bill Fleming]

Great story, BillW! Thanks. I'll have to check out "Fuzzy Thinking." Sounds interesting. I just finished one called "Is God a Mathemetician?" by Mario Livio that was quite good as well. And if one wants to dive right into the thick of it, try "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" by Paul Reps and/or enjoy some of these koans: http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html

[KB]

Thanks, Miranda. I know Laches and you, Mam, are not Laches. You are much better than that. But if I have brought us to a moment of insight, I done Socrates' midwife's work. I like the idea that the Devil's Tower was really Devils Food Cake.

BF: I don't think we want to stretch the concept of knowledge too far. I am skeptical that "surrender to God" is a way of knowing God. If fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, as some assert, that indicates wisdom about ourselves and our limits, not wisdom about God.

BW: I think you are altogether correct to say that Eastern Philosophy would take a very different tact on this. I think that is because the word "philosophy" means very different things in eastern and western contexts. For Socrates and the tradition that he exemplifies, philosophy is the search for wisdom (knowledge of the most important things) by the means of trying to ask and answer every possible question. That tradition is unique. Eastern philosophy is a mix of theology and mysticism. Both are intellectually rigorous, but neither is about dialectic.

For those interested in Buddhism, I recommend Stephen Batchelor's 'Buddhism without Beliefs,' and Suzuki Roshi's 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.'

[Bill Fleming]

KB I didn't say "surrender to God." That, as far as I am concerned, is impossible, and fear of God, ridiculous. Surrender of the ego (self construct) on the other hand is an entirely different matter. This is what I meant, and I understand why what I said might have been confusing. It's always the way in discussions like these, isn't it?

[Bill Fleming]

Also, KB, you might be surprised to learn that Eastern Philosophy comes far closer to describing reality, especially as revealed by special and general relativity and quantum theory than does any system of Western thought save perhaps Spinoza and to some degree the phenomenologists. For a brief , but fascinating overview of this see "Einstein and The Buddha — The Parallel Sayings" compiled and edited by Thomas J. McFarlane.
http://www.integralscience.org/einsteinbuddha/