What is the incomprehensibility of God?
Answered from the commentary of Hamilton Smith, An Outline of Sound Words, E. C. Hadley and 6 others
The incomprehensibility of God is that God is infinitely beyond the creature’s understanding: His wisdom, knowledge, judgments, ways, and being cannot be fully searched out or grasped by finite minds. Yet this does not mean that He is wholly unknown, for He has revealed Himself in His Son and by His Spirit, so that we may know what He has made known while still acknowledging how little we comprehend. His ways remain past finding out, and the right response is humble faith and worship, giving glory to Him, from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.
Verses: Psalms 145:3, Isaiah 40:28, Romans 11:33, Romans 11:34, 1 Corinthians 2:10, Job 11:7, Job 11:8, Job 11:9, Job 36:26, Psalms 139:6, Psalms 139:17, Psalms 139:18
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
I remember looking at a busy ant colony on a broiling summer day in Australia. My thoughts ran as follows. The distance between a man and an ant is very great, but after all it is but a finite distance. You can weigh the substance of a man and that of an ant, and you can find out how much heavier a man is than an ant. But can an ant understand what is passing through a man's mind? Can an ant understand the achievements of men? We know it cannot. But the distance between God and man is infinitely greater than that between man and ant. God is the Creator. Man is the creature. The distance between them is infinite. No arithmetic is of any use here. Is it possible that the mind of man can understand and comprehend God? He is "the only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen" (1 Tim. 6:15-16). We may well re-echo the words of Zophar, "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea" (Job 11:7-9).
Who by searching can find out God? Who can understand the mystery of the Godhead? Who can fathom the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God? Far sooner ask an ant to understand the working of the mind of a man, than for a man to fathom the mind of God. In the former case the ant is finite and so is man: in the latter case man is finite and God is infinite. In the former case you can measure the distance; in the latter it is impossible to do so.
And yet the very fact of the Bible containing deep things that are beyond us is satisfying to our souls. How can we understand God, a Being dwelling in awful solitude, dwelling in light unapproachable, uncreated, yet creating all things, unsustained, yet sustaining all things? Could we understand all this God would cease to be God, for He would be no bigger than the measure of a man. How true it is, “The higher mysteries of His fame, The creature’s grasp transcend.”
Man's intelligence cannot understand it. It is folly to reason about Him. We would have to be God to comprehend Him. But it becomes us as His creatures to accept and hold fast in simple faith what He has been pleased to tell us in His Word about His eternal being.
Man's intelligence cannot understand it. It is folly to reason about Him. We would have to be God to comprehend Him. But it becomes us as His creatures to accept and hold fast in simple faith what He has been pleased to tell us in His Word about His eternal being.
On the other hand, any conception we may get of the faith as a whole is never complete and absolute. Being divine it lies beyond the embrace of our finite minds. We may apprehend it, yet can we never comprehend it. It transcends our highest thought just because it is OF GOD.
Thank God, the true believer does know the Lord, but the mystery of His Holy Person remains inscrutable, as beyond the creature's grasp.
Thank God, the true believer does know the Lord, but the mystery of His Holy Person remains inscrutable, as beyond the creature’s grasp.
Yet because He is God, there will be that every where which will remind us in whose presence we stand. No where can we escape from the mystery which attends His presence. Nor would we if we realize this as its meaning. A God always comprehensible by us would be only such an one as ourselves: but magnify man into God you cannot. Still there will be the "light inaccessible, which no man can approach unto." Yet this is light, not darkness, and it makes nothing really dark, as men profess; rather in this light we see light, — the knowledge of God illuminates all other things.
Jattir is an intensive form of the verb jathar, to "exceed, go beyond, excel." We must translate it, "He far excels;" and this would suit exactly the numerical place in which we find it. God goes beyond all knowledge and all thought. "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." And this also is necessary to our conception of God. He would not be that if we could compass Him in our thoughts. But that inscrutability which of necessity belongs to Him, while it affords room for faith, is not and cannot be aught but His perfection. We do not say even any more that He dwells in darkness: He dwelleth in the light inaccessible, One whom no man has seen or can see; not because there is obstruction to the sight, but because there is infinity before it. Hence alone come our difficulties; and therefore the humbler we are the less we have. The Cross presents and removes them; we see what darkness is, and it passes from us; we are "in the light, as God is in the light."
Verses
- Psalms 145:3Great is Jehovah, and exceedingly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.
- Isaiah 40:28Dost thou not know, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not nor tireth? There is no searching of his understanding.
- Romans 11:33–3433O depth of riches both of [the] wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways! 34For who has known [the] mind of [the] Lord, or who has been his counsellor?
- 1 Corinthians 2:10but God has revealed to us by [his] Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
- Job 11:7–97Canst thou by searching find out +God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? 8[It is as] the heights of heaven; what wilt thou do? deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know? 9The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.