To skeptics and atheists, unless God can be figured out completely to their satisfaction, and unless religion is logically fool-proof, God is dismissed as a mythical figure conjured up by fearful cavemen who lacked intelligence, information, and insight. However, is it logically possible for man to completely figure out God, or is it that God can be comprehended only to the extent he reveals himself? Similarly, is the Bible required to make sense to man, or is it possible for biblical accounts to defy human logic?
Truth is, God, by definition, cannot be comprehended by man entirely. This is not a cop-out or “God of the gaps” defense. It is, in fact, a totally honest statement about man's limited ability to comprehend both physical and metaphysical worlds.
Hence, just because God doesn't make sense always does not necessarily make God unreal or unreliable. Unfathomable? He is. Unreal? Not even close. Man simply cannot know about God as much as he’d like to know.
What we do know is that there are fundamental and transcending ideas that are absolute, such as mathematical properties, that we accept as building blocks of science without knowing why. So, why is it that we can "trust" math and science built on inexplicable concepts and terms but do not do so when it comes to God? Further, many philosophers have proposed that the existence of mathematical or physical properties point to a being that authored them. Some propose that this being is a complex computer, but that still requires a being that put together the computer. And, this takes us to the enduring question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Also, “Why is the universe knowable to man?” These questions, if considered with an open-mind and honesty, lead the seeker to the Creator of the universe.
It seems quite logical that the True God should be altogether different from us and, thus, incomprehensible. Thus, atheists’ demand to know everything about God is nothing short of hubris. God is not obliged to reveal everything about himself to man. Sure, Bertrand Russell, David Hume, and Christopher Hitchens can shake their fists and insist, “You didn’t give me enough evidence!” but it’s difficult to argue that God must satisfy the curiosity of mere men.
And, even if God did reveal Himself, can we fully comprehend such a being with our limited ability? All we can know is what He reveals to us which we can understand. Can an ant, for example, understand the workings of the internet or why there are rings around Saturn? Can a dog appreciate the artistic beauty of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 or Van Gogh’s Starry Night? This line of thinking shows that, at least in this life, we will never know everything about the universe, let alone the Creator of the universe.
To this, atheists argue that more time for research, experiments, and exploration will enable man to eventually figure out everything and, thus, make God irrelevant. Ah, their faith in science and unwavering commitment to materialistic explanations for everything!
The following statement from Dr. John MacArthur makes a lot of sense: “What is truly reasonable is not what seems reasonable to us. What is truly satisfying may not be what is satisfying to us.” Try as we may, we will never figure God out completely in this life. We can only know that which he reveals to us (and that’s already too much for us to handle). This is the more logical and reasonable position than demanding God for his complete revelation and explanation.
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