HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND GOD?

In the following quote, the author's point is

that God is known most deeply not by mastering ideas about Him,

but by living in fellowship with Him.

Theology has its place, but living communion with God is the source from which true theology should grow.

"We believe this is Mr. Mansel's first, and perhaps deepest, mistake. Seeing that we have no complete theory of God, he concludes that we have no real knowledge of Him.

Yet the simplest facts of life teach otherwise.

Do we possess a complete theory of any human being? Certainly not.

Yet our relationship with others is far more than a collection of ideas about them.

Indeed, rigid, "fixed ideas" about people often reveal a narrow mind.

Mr. Mansel makes the same mistake about God.

He treats our ideas of God as though they reveal Him,

when they often conceal Him.

We have no shortage of notions about God,

but genuine experience tears through these hardened concepts.

When we come to Him with a loving heart and an awakened conscience, many of our fixed ideas dissolve like mist before the morning sun.

To know God is not merely to possess ideas about Him,

but to live in direct communion with Him.

This is precisely where knowledge is deepest,

though complete explanation is impossible.

We know the mystery of personality, and we know love and hatred,

yet no theory can fully explain them.

So it is with God. We know Him better than we know ourselves,

yet cannot construct a complete theory of Him

because we stand beneath Him, not above Him.

We can recognize Him, trust Him, and learn from Him,

but never fully comprehend Him.

It is therefore a mistake to suppose that true knowledge depends on constructing a philosophical or theological system.

Our deepest knowledge comes through shared life and experience; complete theories belong only to

the simplest and most abstract sciences."