Does God's Trnascendent Nature Prevent Us From Understanding Anything AT All About God?

Gustov Dore's "Celestial Rose" from his great
illustrations Donte's Divine Comedy



this post is from 2012 people keep reading it so...


On the blog article I wrote: "demand for evidence of God unfair and misplaced"
the blog piece itself.

StewPiD MoNkEy had some questions for the comment section:

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Metacroc,
Hello again. Had to have a name change due to copy right laws. But any way, there is a slight problem with your logic. You say, "God is beyond our understanding." In the third paragraph yet later you go on to say, "God wants the search". Which one is it? Since you are bringing up epistemology, this question is directly towards the subject. If your God is "beyond you understanding", then how can u state what he/it wants? The whole concept of being in gods mind directly states that he is non material (how you get to a mind that does not have a brain based in matter is another story). Since by your standards he is non material there is no seperating what he is from that he is. If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable. So to claim to know anything about your God, i. e. He wants u to search, is to claim knowledge of the unknowable. This negates its unknowable status. If its known then your God should be quantifiable. How do you reconcile this glaring contradiction?

Let's break it down:

"God is beyond our understanding." In the third paragraph yet later you go on to say, "God wants the search". Which one is it?

Both. God does not ask us to understand him, he asks us to seek and find him. What we are finding is a personal relationship with the source of our being and our place in being. We can know experimentally things we don't understand intellectually. I don't know that much about how a tv works, how my computer works, even how the lights work, other than the average amount of surface knowledge that most people possess. Yet I use all of these things. In terms of relationship I know and like or love various people who do I don't understand psychologically. Of cousre there is a certain degree of understanding that comes from experiencing the reality of a person or of God. In terms of God experience that is called the "noetic quality" of religious experience. That's not really what is being talked about when we say God is beyond our understanding. noetic qualtiies are part of the sense of hte numinous which is basic aspect of religious experience. That's the sense people get that the experience of the divine imparts some of kind of knowledge. It's not scientific or intellectual knowledge. The sort of thing one gains from the noetic aspects of religoius experience is the intuitive sense that life has meaning and that God loves us.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Since you are bringing up epistemology, this question is directly towards the subject. If your God is "beyond you understanding", then how can u state what he/it wants?

He can tell us. The noetic qulaities also impart a degree of knowledge of this sort. We know form the sense of love that comes with the sense of the numinous that God wants to have a love relationship with us. In addition to this, in the Christian tradition, we believe that Jesus was modeling God's character for us and Jesus tells us this.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

The whole concept of being in gods mind directly states that he is non material (how you get to a mind that does not have a brain based in matter is another story).

Not necessarily. I have things in my mind and I'm material. Yet I accept that God is not material. In fact I suggest that the divide bewteen material and spiritual is illusory. In my view, taking my ques form German philosophers, spirit is mind. In fact while most people focus on the definition of the Greek term for spirit, pnuma, as "wind" or "breath" most overlook the fact that "mind" is also part of the definition. In fact matter breaks down as well. Matter is energy, and mind is energy. There may be a point at which the two meet. We don't really know what energy is. If you look at the things science says about it, energy is made up of sub atomic particles. What are particles? They are not little balls like the models of atoms suggest, they are "charges." So atoms and subatomic particls are made up of little bitty atoms, so to speak. They are all charges and those charges are made up of more charges. If we ask "what is a charge" the answer really in literal is "more charges." Matter is just a different form of energy and it's not all that clear what energy is. If reductinoists are right and mind is just an organized matrix of electrical charge than it seems that mind and energy are really pretty much the same substance. That suggests that matter and spirit meet at a certain conjunction.


StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Since by your standards he is non material there is no seperating what he is from that he is.

That's a tautological statement and it's true of everything.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable.

Conclusion not in evidence. It's also contradicted by any number of empirical instances. For example if I don't know what the submerge part of an ice berg holds that doesn't mean that I don't understand the part that's above water. If I don't know what caused the big bang that doesn't mean I don't undersatnd certain aspects of the expansion. If I don't know some details of a friend's past I can still have a basic understanding of that friend's psychological make up.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

So to claim to know anything about your God, i. e. He wants u to search, is to claim knowledge of the unknowable. This negates its unknowable status. If its known then your God should be quantifiable. How do you reconcile this glaring contradiction?

At this point you are just making a pedantic error. Once its' been explained to you the different senses in which the terms are used (such as "to know" fore example) it should be clear two different senses are involved. The Eastern Orthodox chruch makes the distinction between the unknowable nature of God through conventional means, and the personal or spiritual recourse to experiential knowledge of God. This distinction is preserved in apaphatic theology, the practice of only say what God is not, and that of mystical union where one understands through experience but speaks metahoricallly about it.

Eastern Orthodox Church. Timothy Ware wrote a fine book, The Orthodox Church that does a good job of introducing Western Christians to the Eastern Church.[1]

Ware explains the great schism and how the gulf between east and west continued to grow. He wants to explain the ways in which the east contributed to the gulf. He says that nothing was so radical as the scholastic “revolution” but he lists as the eastern counterpart the Hesychast controversy (pg2). 14^th century Byzantium. This involved God’s nature and the method of prayer. To explain the controversy he goes back to history of eastern mystical theology, back to Clement of Alexandria (early third century) and Origen (mid 3d). The Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa and also Evagrius, a monk in the Egyptian desert (d399) developed the ideas of Clement and Origen. This entire tradition depended upon an apophatic approach, especially as developed by Clement and Gregory. God is beyond our understanding. We cannot speak accurately about God because we can’t understand God and we don’t know if our experiences of God are so very encompassing or just fragmentary. Therefore, the mystics of the Eastern Church use negative language of God rather than positive. That is to say they concern themselves with what God is not, rather than what God is.[i2] (63)

“The true knowledge and vision of God consists in this—in seeing that he is invisible, because what we seek lies beyond all knowledge, being wholly separated by the darkness of incomprehensibility.” –Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 11, 163 (377A).

The Height of Negative theology is reached in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. (unknown writer lived in Syria toward the end of the fifth century). Saint Maximus the Confessor (662) compassed a commentary on these writings and assured their place in the Eastern Church. [3]

He is also an influence on the west, as Ware points out, as Aquinas quotes him heavily in Summa Theologica. The concept of God as Being itself is ratified by Vatican II and is a major premise of modern Catholic doctrine.[4]

---

[1] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, New York: Penguin books, 1963 (1993 edition).

[2] Ibid. 63

[3] Ibid. quotes John of Damascus from On the Orthodox Faith 1,4 (P.G. Xciv, 800b

[4] Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Thomas A. Carlson Trans. 1991 (original language publication 1982). xxii.

The Wig and the Man: Reflections on a Satment by Keirkegaard, with apology to "Anonymous."

On Christmas Eve a couple of days ago I did a piece called "Christmas and the crucified God." It was received pretty well but it's the third time I ran it. The last time was Christmas 2013. Looking back at it that copy I noticed a comment that was ironic and heart breaking.

This blog, comments, Dec. 13, 2013:

I will admit that having read you for a while now I do get confused about a particular thing - most of your theology seems to be based around a more nebulous, all-encompassing, almost deist view of god (vs the big man in the sky) and metaphysical transitions that are only hinted at in the Bible narrative, which you normally regard as allegory and mythology. Yet at one point or another, you will make a statement that implies a commitment to the Bible as a literal document demanding worship, water baptism, sinner's prayer, etc. If you hit a slow point in your writing next year I would love to see an explanation of how you marry these concepts. For me, if you don't accept that there was a literal ark of every animal on earth riding the flood waters past Everest, I don't understand how you believe that you literally need to be dunked in water and repeat a litany to be metaphysically transformed into a higher form of being.

I really must apologize to this reader, even though he/she will probably never see it. I meant to do a thing on that and on all your comments but my brother died before I could get to it. That was devastating and I forgot. Then Moving beyond that point I got sick and haven't really gotten well to this day (still in rehab),  Although, I've made a lot of progress. I only need to get back to walking now. The root of it all was infection that was resistant to antibiotic, coming through my legs due to Vinous ulcer disease. I'm not really prepared to answer the full comments which were really more about theodicy. I should have pointed you to my theodicy answers on Doxa or religious a priori, I did talk of that on the blog before those comments were made. I want to focus here upon the section quoted above. Recently a friend  on my message board said that I was straddling the fence between the fundamentalism and liberalism.

It is also ironic what this person said about water baptism because I never said any such thing. That person must be from a church of Christ background because they believe in being dunked totally in water and they believe that is necessary to salvation. I certainly do not believe that, nor have I since about 1970. The ironic bit is I was raised in the church of Christ, became an atheist in high school and got saved in 79 at age 23. One of the first things I did when I got saved was to reject the church of Christ teachings, blaming them for my atheism. I don't blame them now but I still don't believe in the necessity of water baptism. I did get baptized again but only as a symbolic link with the traditions not because I thought I was lost without it.

In explaining my over all outlook I am reminded of a parable Kierkegaard tells. I turn back to SK because is foundational to my understanding of Christian intellectualism. He was about the first modern Christian thinker I read and I discovered him long before I went to seminary. There are two statements the first I can't find don't remember where he said it. The second I will foot note


First he says a native witchdoctor in Africa praying with fetishes who is in his heart reaching out to the true creator is a better Christian than the baptized church going businessman who is in church to make contacts. I think there is a whif of xenophobia if not racism but it was early 19th century. He was Northern European in the mid 19th century.

The second is told as a parable by John Climacus (SK's pseudopigraphal character) in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. [1] The story is retold here by another writer:

It is supposed to have happened in England that a man was assaulted on the highway by a robber disguised with a large wig. He rushes at the traveler, grabs him by the throat, and shouts: Your wallet. He takes the wallet, which he keeps, but he throws away the wig. A poor man comes down the same road, finds the wig, puts it on, and arrives in the next town, where the traveler has already given the alarm. He is recognized, arrested, and identified by the traveler, who swears that he is the man. By chance, the robber is present in the courtroom, sees the mistake, turns to the judge and says, "It seems to me that the traveler is looking more at the wig than at the man" and asks permission to make an experiment. He puts on the wig, grabs the traveler by the throat, and says: Your wallet – and the traveler recognizes the robber and offers to swear to it – but the trouble is that he already has sworn an oath. So it goes with everyone who in one way or another has a "what" and pays no attention to "how"; he swears, he takes an oath, he runs errands, he risks his life and blood, he is executed – all for the wig.[2]

What the heck is he saying? The parable is about a figure SK used several times, the master criminal, Why is he using a thief for the Christian saint or hero? Because the important thing is not the what but the how. What the hell? What and how represent for SK two aspects of Christian life, the outer and the inner. The What is the trappings of the outer display of religiosity; The how is the process of inner reflection and seeking that leads to true knowledge of God. The traveler misses the true identity of the crook because he's only concerned with the outward appearance. This is symbolic of the one who sees herself as a Christian  because she goes to church and takes part in Bible studies. That does not mean one should not do these things but those are not what make us Christians. It is not as matter of outward trappings of faith,

Why is he a master criminal? Because that's the misleading nature of a "what," What is he? A criminal. How does he go about being a criminal? He undoes his crimes and dies for the truth, At that rate is being a criminal important? What was the thief on the cross? A thief. He died for being what he was but how did he do it? By repenting via an expression of faith in Messiah. It's the inner reality of what is going on in the heart that matters.

How does this answer the question "Anonymous" asked me? Look at why the thief was willing to go to jail for the wig? Not because it is important in itself but because it's a vehicle for truth. For that reason it symbolizes something and it is what it symbolizes that is important. I don't regard everything in the Bible as symbolic. I think is a core to the Gospel and we need to find that core and stick to it because that it's all about. The core is about knowing God. All the other things like doctrines are just wigs. But don't forget, the thief died for the wig. It made me angry that Philipse wrote off liberal theology as "making metaphors" as though metaphor equates to "fiction." [3] There is something on the other end of the metaphor that's really there and it is really important.

How do you know what is core? That's another reason to keep the wig. Don't be fooled into thinking the wig is the point but it does symbolize something. There are previous generations who have been down these roads before. There are guides in the tradition. While we don't want to be stuck with the surface trappings we also need to keep the wig, One of the first things I learned about knowing God was the reality of God's presence, Here I refer you to my testimony on Doxa. God started off getting my attention with the reality of his presence, Then one of the most important and productive Bible sturdies I did was on the terms "knowledge" and "knowing" in the New Testament. That reinforces the concept that it's all about the reality of experience of God's presence and not just ideas on paper.

One such example is the passage in first John saying "he who loves knows God for God is love," That term for know is not the word one would use for factual knowledge but for first had knowledge. We know it because we actually experienced it, (ginosko). That raises the question why value the Bible at all? Thebo0ok tells us plainly how to find God. Why trust it? Have to start some where I was blessed in that I had the experience I talk about in that link, because I said calling out to God the one my parents told me about and I got an immediate answer that told me "here is the way." What does the book say>

First of all it says Jesus is the word, not the Bible. The Bible never mentions itself. It says in former times God spoke through the Prophets  but in latter times he spoke through his son, Prophets are the Bible. Jesus' words are in part of the Bible but they are not the book itself. The crucifixion the guy get's killed seems top be a fairly important part of the story. He raises from the dead seems even more important. That must be core. I could see them as just symbolic but since I know from  my experiences that God does stuff why should I take them as only symbolic? Sure the resurrection is symbolic but does that mean it didn't happen? It is a true symbol, A true symbol participates in the thing it symbolizes.

I think part of the reason Philipse just wrote off the metaphorizers is because postmodern theology has forgotten the core that Tillich and Pannenberg and the great liberals of the 20th century were into. Instead of wigs they have black shirts but it's the same thing, Philipse doesn't see a core because those guys don't have one. My core is Jesus.





Sources


[1] Kierkegaard's Writings, XII, Volume II:Concluding Unscientific Post Pcript to Philosophical Fragments. Preinceton NJ: Preceton University Press translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H Hong Princeton U P 1992, 610

[2] Sara Katrine Jandrup, The Master Thief Alias S. Kierkegaard, And His Robbery Of The Truth,

Fredriksberg, Denmark. M. A., Roskilde Universitets Center, PDF URL:

http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/025.%20THE%20MASTER%20THIEF.pdf  (accessed 12/26/2015)

[3] Herman Philipse, God In The Age of Science, Oxford, London: Oxford University Press, 2012, 3

see my review
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2015/11/review-of-herman-philipses-god-in-age.html

Does God's Trnascendent Nature Prevent Us From Understanding Anything AT All About God?

On the blog article I wrote: "demand for evidence of God unfair and misplaced"
the blog piece itself.

StewPiD MoNkEy had some questions for the comment section:

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Metacroc,
Hello again. Had to have a name change due to copy right laws. But any way, there is a slight problem with your logic. You say, "God is beyond our understanding." In the third paragraph yet later you go on to say, "God wants the search". Which one is it? Since you are bringing up epistemology, this question is directly towards the subject. If your God is "beyond you understanding", then how can u state what he/it wants? The whole concept of being in gods mind directly states that he is non material (how you get to a mind that does not have a brain based in matter is another story). Since by your standards he is non material there is no seperating what he is from that he is. If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable. So to claim to know anything about your God, i. e. He wants u to search, is to claim knowledge of the unknowable. This negates its unknowable status. If its known then your God should be quantifiable. How do you reconcile this glaring contradiction?

Let's break it down:

"God is beyond our understanding." In the third paragraph yet later you go on to say, "God wants the search". Which one is it?

Both. God does not ask us to understand him, he asks us to seek and find him. What we are finding is a personal relationship with the source of our being and our place in being. We can know experimentally things we don't understand intellectually. I don't know that much about how a tv works, how my computer works, even how the lights work, other than the average amount of surface knowledge that most people possess. Yet I use all of these things. In terms of relationship I know and like or love various people who do I don't understand psychologically. Of cousre there is a certain degree of understanding that comes from experiencing the reality of a person or of God. In terms of God experience that is called the "noetic quality" of religious experience. That's not really what is being talked about when we say God is beyond our understanding. noetic qualtiies are part of the sense of hte numinous which is basic aspect of religious experience. That's the sense people get that the experience of the divine imparts some of kind of knowledge. It's not scientific or intellectual knowledge. The sort of thing one gains from the noetic aspects of religoius experience is the intuitive sense that life has meaning and that God loves us.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Since you are bringing up epistemology, this question is directly towards the subject. If your God is "beyond you understanding", then how can u state what he/it wants?

He can tell us. The noetic qulaities also impart a degree of knowledge of this sort. We know form the sense of love that comes with the sense of the numinous that God wants to have a love relationship with us. In addition to this, in the Christian tradition, we believe that Jesus was modeling God's character for us and Jesus tells us this.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

The whole concept of being in gods mind directly states that he is non material (how you get to a mind that does not have a brain based in matter is another story).

Not necessarily. I have things in my mind and I'm material. Yet I accept that God is not material. In fact I suggest that the divide bewteen material and spiritual is illusory. In my view, taking my ques form German philosophers, spirit is mind. In fact while most people focus on the definition of the Greek term for spirit, pnuma, as "wind" or "breath" most overlook the fact that "mind" is also part of the definition. In fact matter breaks down as well. Matter is energy, and mind is energy. There may be a point at which the two meet. We don't really know what energy is. If you look at the things science says about it, energy is made up of sub atomic particles. What are particles? They are not little balls like the models of atoms suggest, they are "charges." So atoms and subatomic particls are made up of little bitty atoms, so to speak. They are all charges and those charges are made up of more charges. If we ask "what is a charge" the answer really in literal is "more charges." Matter is just a different form of energy and it's not all that clear what energy is. If reductinoists are right and mind is just an organized matrix of electrical charge than it seems that mind and energy are really pretty much the same substance. That suggests that matter and spirit meet at a certain conjunction.


StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Since by your standards he is non material there is no seperating what he is from that he is.

That's a tautological statement and it's true of everything.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable.

Conclusion not in evidence. It's also contradicted by any number of empirical instances. For example if I don't know what the submerge part of an ice berg holds that doesn't mean that I don't understand the part that's above water. If I don't know what caused the big bang that doesn't mean I don't undersatnd certain aspects of the expansion. If I don't know some details of a friend's past I can still have a basic understanding of that friend's psychological make up.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

So to claim to know anything about your God, i. e. He wants u to search, is to claim knowledge of the unknowable. This negates its unknowable status. If its known then your God should be quantifiable. How do you reconcile this glaring contradiction?

At this point you are just making a pedantic error. Once its' been explained to you the different senses in which the terms are used (such as "to know" fore example) it should be clear two different senses are involved. The Eastern Orthodox chruch makes the distinction between the unknowable nature of God through conventional means, and the personal or spiritual recourse to experiential knowledge of God. This distinction is preserved in apaphatic theology, the practice of only say what God is not, and that of mystical union where one understands through experience but speaks metahoricallly about it.

Eastern Orthodox Church. Timothy Ware wrote a fine book, The Orthodox Church that does a good job of introducing Western Christians to the Eastern Church.[1]

Ware explains the great schism and how the gulf between east and west continued to grow. He wants to explain the ways in which the east contributed to the gulf. He says that nothing was so radical as the scholastic “revolution” but he lists as the eastern counterpart the Hesychast controversy (pg2). 14^th century Byzantium. This involved God’s nature and the method of prayer. To explain the controversy he goes back to history of eastern mystical theology, back to Clement of Alexandria (early third century) and Origen (mid 3d). The Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa and also Evagrius, a monk in the Egyptian desert (d399) developed the ideas of Clement and Origen. This entire tradition depended upon an apophatic approach, especially as developed by Clement and Gregory. God is beyond our understanding. We cannot speak accurately about God because we can’t understand God and we don’t know if our experiences of God are so very encompassing or just fragmentary. Therefore, the mystics of the Eastern Church use negative language of God rather than positive. That is to say they concern themselves with what God is not, rather than what God is.[i2] (63)

“The true knowledge and vision of God consists in this—in seeing that he is invisible, because what we seek lies beyond all knowledge, being wholly separated by the darkness of incomprehensibility.” –Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 11, 163 (377A).

The Height of Negative theology is reached in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. (unknown writer lived in Syria toward the end of the fifth century). Saint Maximus the Confessor (662) compassed a commentary on these writings and assured their place in the Eastern Church. [3]

He is also an influence on the west, as Ware points out, as Aquinas quotes him heavily in Summa Theologica. The concept of God as Being itself is ratified by Vatican II and is a major premise of modern Catholic doctrine.[4]

---

[1] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, New York: Penguin books, 1963 (1993 edition).

[2] Ibid. 63

[3] Ibid. quotes John of Damascus from On the Orthodox Faith 1,4 (P.G. Xciv, 800b

[4] Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Thomas A. Carlson Trans. 1991 (original language publication 1982). xxii.

Prayer 4 (final): "Abide in Me."

The attention to answered prayer and unanswered prayer is always so focused on "getting stuff" I have said this several times in the three previous sections. I stated last time I wanted to use this last one to talk about the other aspects of prayer, which is really backwards. The major point of prayer is not getting stuff and the petition type of prayer is a small segment of the whole phenomena of prayer which is complex and immense.This top still, even though not about answered prayer or "getting stuff" still runs up against the concepts and problems of faiht and other faiths because we have the problem of having faith to believe that prayer is doing something, even if it is just being near God, and we have the point about other faiths because those other guys are getting up close and personal with their concepts of God too.

One other issue must be addressed as well, that is the link between prayer and mystical expedience. Prayer is the major aspect of knowing God. Prayer is the Major way to know God! Prayer is the key to faith. Time spent in prayer is gold in the religious life becuase the exent to which one will be able to hand fast in the crisis and to hold to that which we know is true even when things look totally hopeless and we think God has abandoned us, it's all related to the time we spend in prayer. Shallow prayer life equals shallow faith. It's not related to getting things. The extent to which one is a staring lion fighting Christians is not about the number of answers one got to prayer, but the time spend feeling God's presence, and expressing love for God and receiving voe form God. These are the true maturity and faith building aspects.The key to all of that is not number of answers, but time spent on your knees in the private prayer life. That is what does it, that's what make nurture spiritual life, period.What about the other guys, the guys in other faiths who spend their time with their concept of God?

I see religious tradition as vehicle for loading the experience of God into cultural constructs and giving meaning to that which is beyond words. Certainly I embrace the Nicene creed, and I do believe that Jesus is the incarnate logos. I also believe what Paul said about God working in all cultures (Acts 17:21-29), and God placing the moral law upon the heart of all people…”their may excuse them…” (Romans 2:15). In my view the purpose of apologetics is to demonstrate the human need to know God. The basis of exclusivity in Christian tradition is not the sort of exclusivity that derides other traditions. I realize it has been so construed in the past but it need not be. It is merely the sort of exclusivity that focuses upon the efficacy of Christ in redeeption and the value that offers to the world. I am not arguing that the following is the only way to reconcile the seemingly universal nature of mystical consciousness with Christianity. It’s the way I do it. It has to do with my own theological understanding. I am not saying it’s the only possible understanding.

The Phenomenological aspects of mystical consciousness are found in the Christian tradition. The idea of “knowing Christ” the personal relationship with God all contains the elements that James incorporates into the “knowledge about” and “knowledge-by-acquaintance.” In the New Testament this is expressed in the use of different Greek words for knowledge. The words that are used when the author speaks of “knowing Christ” invariably refer to personal knowledge, personal experience, first hand knowledge of something one experiences for one’s self. One example of such as term is epiginosko. There are other Greek words that pertain to book learning and knowledge about a subject that one leanrs second hand. These words are never used to describe the relationship between believers and God or Christ.

Anotehr such word is the term first used in Pauline literature, referring to proto Gnostic groups, and it was the Orthodox Church’s term, Glnosko (1097 Strong’s) for example means: Definition

1. to learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of perceive, feel
1. to become known
2. to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of
1. to understand
2. to know
3. Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman
4. to become acquainted with, to know [i]

Used in Hebrews:

Heb 3:10 "Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart; And they did not know My ways'; Heb 8:11 "And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' For ALL SHALL KNOW Me, From the least to the greatest of them.” In that passage we see clearly the idea of first hand knowledge through personal experience. One does not have to be taught what one experiences first hand. It’s. “They will all know me,” means they will all first hand personal knowledge of me. This means being a Christian turns upon personal experience of God at some level. That doesn’t mean having mystical experiences saves one. We all experience God at the subliminal level but being “saved” is a matter of recognition of what we have experienced already, the thing that draws us to Christ.

1. Like the similar and related word epiginosko. (1921 Strong’s). to become thoroughly acquainted with, to know thoroughly
1. to know accurately, know well
2. to know
1. to recognise
1. by sight, hearing, of certain signs, to perceive who a person is
2. to know i.e. to perceive
3. to know i.e. to find out, ascertain
4. to know i.e. to understand

Used 1Co 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1Co 14:37 If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. 1Co 16:18 For they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men. [ii]

The idea that we know “in part” might possibly include the understanding that we experience God at a subliminal level beyond words and have to encode that into cultural constructs.

The term for the knowledge used of Gnostics, Gnosis is contrasted in that even though it bears the notion of perfection knowledge, it deals more with the understanding of rules and facts, of knowing ideas and doesn’t seem to bear the idea of the personal face to face knowledge.

Definition

1. knowledge signifies in general intelligence, understanding
1. the general knowledge of Christian religion
2. the deeper more perfect and enlarged knowledge of this religion, such as belongs to the more advanced
3. esp. of things lawful and unlawful for Christians
4. moral wisdom, such as is seen in right living [iii]

Another word for Knowledge that could be used for knowing Christ, but is not, a word that carries the implication of factual knowledge is isemi, which means generally just “to know.”

eb 12:17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

Another factually based word for knowing is suneidon:

Definition

1. to see (have seen) together with others
2. to see (have seen) in one's mind with one's self
1. to understand, perceive, comprehend,
3. to know with another
4. to know in one's mind or with one's self, to be conscience of

1Co 4:4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.

Used: Eph 3:19 “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” That seems to contrast the kind of knowledge known from the heart and from experiencing God with general knowledge, including book learning.

The terms used in the NT that deal with knowing Christ are terms that relate to first hand personal knowledge, knowledge-by-acquaintance. The term Ginosko, used throughout 1 John, implies an intimate experiential level of personal knowledge.

1Jo 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 1Jo 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1Jo 2:5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. 1Jo 2:13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. 1Jo 2:14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 1Jo 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. 1Jo 2:29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. 1Jo 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 1Jo 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. 1Jo 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1Jo 3:19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. 1Jo 3:20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. 1Jo 3:24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us. 1Jo 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 1Jo 4:6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 1Jo 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1Jo 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 1Jo 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 1Jo 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1Jo 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 1Jo 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

The nature of what it means to “know God” or “know Christ” in the Christian religion is this personal level of experiential knowledge.[iv]

Traditions

Mystical experience is inter-subjective (subjective but experiences in very similar ways by more than one mind). As has been documented by several researchers, the same commonalities come up over and over again. All mystical experiences have characteristics of undifferentiated unity, sense of presence, feeling of bliss, noetic aspects, ineffable nature, and so forth.

The Voyle stud is one of the studies on mystical experience that talk about and use in my soon to be released book, The Trace of God. The study demonstrates that the mature end of Christianity is found in those who have mystical experiences.

From the Voyle Study:

The contemporary interest in the empirical research of mysticism can be traced to Stace’s (Stace, 1960) demarcation of the phenomenological characteristics of mystical experiences (Hood, 1975). In Stace’s conceptualization, mystical experiences had five characteristics (Hood, 1985, p.176):


1. The mystical experience is noetic. The person having the experience perceives it as a valid source of knowledge and not just a subjective experience.

2. The mystical experience is ineffable, it cannot simply be described in words.

3. The mystical experience is holy. While this is the religious aspect of the experience it is not necessarily expressed in any particular theological terms.

4. The mystical experience is profound yet enjoyable and characterized by positive affect.

5. The mystical experience is paradoxical. It defies logic. Further analysis of reported mystical experiences suggest that the one essential feature of mysticism is an experience of unity (Hood, 1985). The experience of unity involves a process of ego loss and is generally expressed in one of three ways (Hood, 1 976a). The ego is absorbed into that which transcends it, or an inward process by which the ego gains pure awareness of self, or a combination of the two.[v]

Voyle demonstrates that the mystical end of the church is the mature end. That is to say, those who experience mystical consciousness represent a much more mature form of Christianity than do those who do not. He basis this upon his study in which he compares the two groups for depth of understanding and commitment.

Does the universality of religious experience invalidate religious truth?

Atheists often argue this point. They will say “they can’t all be right because they are all so different. So how can you establish that one is right and all the others wrong? I say, sarcastically, “you mean aside from the fact that God manifested as Jesus and rose from the dead? I don’t know.” I say that sarcastically because I know it wont meaning a thing to them. They do have a good point. We can be parochial and say, “well of course my tradition is the true one and all the others are damned.” But that has some obvious drawbacks.

Religious traditions are communities of discourse, their function is to create vocabularies in which one can receive guidance form those who have gone before, and make one’s own contribution to the conversation. Thus the experiences of God are filtered through cultural constructs and the meaningful nature of those constructs is relative to the various communities in which they take place. It is perfectly plausible that there is one truth behind all religious traditions. It is possible to maintain this position as a Christian, and to remain a Bible believing evangelical who seeks to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.. In fact, the Bible teaches that very thing. Paul comes up on Mars Hill he tells the Greek philosophers “you are worshipping the right God, ‘the unknown god’ you just don’t know enough about him.” He did not tell them “O you pagans are going to hell.” Other Christians, more conservative in their understanding, have told me that he was just using that as a trick. I can’t believe that Paul was just a con man who tried to trick people. If he said it had to believe it. This is just my personal way of rationalizing this problem. I’m not saying this is the only valid Christian outlook, but I think it is a valid Christian outlook. "All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." From a human perspective, relatively speaking from one human to another there are, of course, well meaning people. There are good people all around us, from a human perspective. Relative to the Divine however, no one is good, no one is capable of meriting salvation. We all have our sins; we all have our human frailties. We are all caught up in "height" (our ability through the image of God in which we were created to move beyond our human finitude and seek the good) and "depth" (our nature burdened in the sinful wickedness to human deceit). These are Augustinian terms and they basically mean that we are, good and bad, saint and sinner. God knows the heart, He Knows what we truly seek. God is merciful and is able to forgive our trespasses. But, if we are really well meaning toward God we will seek the truth. If we are seeking the truth than God will make it plan to us.

abide in me

"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you."
~ John 15:7 ~

This is one of those passages that atheist get up set about and start saying "he will not! He will not! just shut your eyes real tight and ask for a candy bar and he wont give you one." They start blathering about amputees. They can only think in terms of a big man in the sky and getting material things because that's surface level they can only relate to the surface level. When we look at the context of this passage, we see that it begins with a discussion about the vine and branches. Christ is the vine and we are branches. Any branch that doesn't bear fruit is pruned(1-3). this probalby doesn't mean kicked out of the Kingdom but chastised, disciplined, pruning is not destruction but cutting back to help the growth process. The tells that we must abide in him for us to bear fruit. So he's not cutting immature Christians out, he's disciplining us so we grow better, we grow better the more rooted in him we are.

John 15: 5-17

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

He moves from talking about horticulture to love, he winds up saying they are not his servants but his friends. So he's showing us that through this abiding we move from the formal to the intimate from merely obeying God to really knowing God. One might argue that what he means by abide is not prayer but living, or obeying. He does speak of keeping commands. That's true and I'm not saying it means only prayer.He's talking about a total way of life. Abide in Christ means follow Jesus, do what he says, keep his commandments, think like he does, but it not limited to the surface of just obeying commands. Abiding is also prayer, the personal knowledge that is stated in the meaning of those Greek terms. The experience of God's presence comes through prayer. Prayer has to be integrated into your life in such a way it's not some boring routine that you make room for on Tuesday and Sunday morning, it's not some ritual that set aside two hours for each day. It's an integral part of the way of life. You are praying in the shower praying in the car, praying while slinging hash and so on. I also combine meditation with prayer. I think of them as going together. Mediate on God's presence is a very helpful way to abide in God. The discourse ends with "this is my command, love each other." So it's a lived practice. Prayer is not just conversing and talking and say words, any more than it is asking for things. It's "abiding" "com munition" and living the communion. Actually loving is an expression of that communion. Paul Tells us Romans 5:1 love is poured into our hearts through the holy spirit. So love itself is actually God's love flowing through us, and that is made possible by prayer and communion and mediating on God's presence and abiding in God.


A fine book in the vast body of mystical writigns in the Christian tradition is a short nice little text called The Practice of the Presence of God. by Brother Lawrence (1614-1691). He was just a monk,in France. That's really all he did other than writing this one simple little book. Yet the book has become a spiritual classic. Basically he gave his life to dish washing sense he was undercoated. that's about all he did. That is to say, all the did other than prayer. He developed a reputation by the end of his life as someone what an expert, a mystic and whose prayers were answered. That's another aspect that atheists are always overlooking. The passage above does not say "just ask and there it is, boda bing, boda boom." It says "abide in me." It's a way of life. Even getting answers to prayers is the result of abiding, it's not some automatic thing. It's an outgrowth of process of living by faith. This little monk was known for feeling God's presence. he was extremely happy washing dishes because the prayed while he washed dishes. He felts the ceiling open and heaven descend and the kitchen became the thrown room of God.

Christian Classics
Ethereal Library

Yet despite, or perhaps because of, his somewhat lowly position, his character attracted many to him. He was known for his profound peace and many came to seek spiritual guidance from him. The wisdom that he passed on to them, in conversations and in letters, would later become the basis for the book, The Practice of the Presence of God. This work was compiled after Brother Lawrence died by one of those whom he inspired, Father Joseph de Beaufort, later vicar general to the Archbishop of Paris. It became popular among Catholics and Protestants alike, with John Wesley and A. W. Tozer being among those who recommended it.

A lot of the imagery is squeamish, weepy, and doesn't communicate in this age. Yet the overall effect and tone of the book is hopeful and loving, not fearful or condemning at all. His God was love, and he uses the concept of being born again and born again imagery of nature even 500 years before it was popular to do so.

In the deep of winter, Herman looked at a barren tree, stripped of leaves and fruit, waiting silently and patiently for the sure hope of summer abundance. Gazing at the tree, Herman grasped for the first time the extravagance of God's grace and the unfailing sovereignty of divine providence. Like the tree, he himself was seemingly dead, but God had life waiting for him, and the turn of seasons would bring fullness. At that moment, he said, that leafless tree "first flashed in upon my soul the fact of God," and a love for God that never after ceased to burn. Sometime later, an injury forced his retirement from the army, and after a stint as a footman, he sought a place where he could suffer for his failures. He thus entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Paris as Brother Lawrence.(Ibid)

print your own copy (20 pages) here.

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[i] from on line resource “crosswalk” Greek Lexicons. that means basically Strong's concordance.

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] all the material relating to Greek terms unless otherwise noted is from Cross walk

[v] Robert J. Voyle. “The Impact of Mystical Experiences on Christian Maturity.” originally published in pdf format: http://www.voyle.com/impact.pdf.
google html version here: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:avred7zleAEJ
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