Book I, Chapter ii, Section 1
07.16.09
Let me tell you how I think about this. Knowledge of God means that we understand certain things about Him that are beneficial for us to know; knowing these things also brings glory to Him. Knowledge of God also means, of course, that we actually know and believe that there is a God at all – there can’t be a knowledge of God if there isn’t a religion that believes in Him and loves Him!
Now understand that I’m not talking about the well-refined spiritual knowledge of God – the kind that understands the way in which God redeems sinful humanity through the work of Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and humanity. When I’m talking about “knowledge of God” here, I mean only a very basic knowledge – the kind that truths that would be simple and obvious if our spiritual vision hadn’t been obscured by the sin passed down from generation to generation from Adam and Eve. That generation-to-generation sin – the sin that is the ruin of all humanity – makes it impossible for us, with the help of Jesus Christ, to understand even the simplest things about God, such as God being our Father, or God being the author of salvation from sin.
It’s one thing to believe that God is our Creator, and that He supports us with power, watches over us with wisdom, encourages us with goodness and blessings. It’s another thing entirely to believe that Jesus Christ frees us from our sin and reconciles us with God. But even though those are two different things, they’re the same one God! The God who first reveals Himself in the Bible as the Creator of the world is the same God who later reveals Himself in the Bible as Jesus Christ the Redeemer.
So then, when we talk about “knowledge of God,” we’re talking about a two-part knowledge: The knowledge of God the Creator, and the knowledge of God the Redeemer. Let’s talk for a while about God the Creator. In a later book, I’ll talk about God the Redeemer.
Let’s be clear about something – our minds cannot conceive of God. The closest we come to understanding Him are the times that we’re caught up in worship. Nevertheless, there isn’t any merit in us deciding that, because our minds can’t conceive of Him, the only thing we can do is worship and love Him. We should love and worship Him, but we should do it because that is the fountain of all the goodness in our world, and that we should seek everything – everything! – in Him, and no one else. In other words, we need to believe in our hearts that God not only created the world, but that he continues to watch over and govern the world.