Let me try to follow Jesus by responding to this question with another question. Can a fish know the ocean? This question has quite a lot to tell us about the possibilities of knowing God. A fish, even the mighty whale shark (the largest fish), is tiny when compared to any ocean. Yet, within the limits of its senses, a fish does have some knowledge about the ocean that surrounds it.
When we take a fish out of the ocean, it knows something is amiss and so it wants to get back into the ocean. Further, it experiences and knows the ocean’s physical properties such as temperature and depth. Similarly, we can know some facts about God based on what we see and experience around us. Paul expresses this succinctly in Romans 1:20 where he writes:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
The creation screams, “Creator.” When we look at the vastness of space, the beauty of our planet, the mystery of conscience and the nature of love, we are compelled to ask ourselves, who is behind all this. This is the General Revelation where we can sense a creator behind this creation. General Revelation is inadequate. It doesn’t provide us with any facts about God. It tells us that there must be God but nothing more.
The reason we can know God is because He has chosen to reveal himself and how much we can know Him is based on how much He reveals. Thankfully, He has chosen to reveal Himself quite clearly and sufficiently through Jesus Christ and the Bible. This is known as the Special Revelation as it reveals God in much more detail.
John 1:18 states:
“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”
The infinite God is revealed to our finite minds in the person of Jesus Christ, who becomes flesh (like us) and lives among us. This is the beauty of the incarnation of Christ.
L. T. Jeyachandran, a renowned Bible teacher, often describes using the movement of ants. To an ant moving about in a house the world exists in two dimensions. It doesn’t really know where the floor ends and the wall starts, it is all the same for it. If God had to reveal himself to ants he had to do so in a two-dimensional form, his third dimensional existence is beyond the perception of the ants. Similarly in Christ, we get know God in a way we can comprehend. This knowledge isn’t complete but sufficient.
Further God, in his grace, gave us the Bible to help us know Him across the world in various languages and generations. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Through the pages of the Bible, we find God’s fingerprint across history, we discover his attributes and get to know who He is and his attributes.
We do not know everything about God just as a fish doesn’t know everything about the ocean. But it knows enough to survive and thrive, it also knows when that water is amiss. God has revealed himself enough to know and grow in a relationship with him, life without God is like being a fish out of water.
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, wrote of an “infinite abyss” in every person that we are constantly seeking to fill. Imagine the tragedy if we couldn’t know God. In His grace, He has revealed Himself sufficiently for us to fill that abyss. May God help us het to know Him, to love Him, to worship and obey Him.