The Knowability of God

How do we know God? There are two basic answers that will be considered.

‘…since everything is knowable according as it is actual, God, Who is pure act without any admixture of potentiality, is in Himself supremely knowable….Hence, it must be absolutely granted that the blessed see the essence of God” (St. Thomas Aquinas,ST I, Q12A1)

‘God cannot be seen in His essence by a mere human being, except he be separated from this mortal life’ (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 12, 10)

Here Aquinas connects the shedding of the mortal coil with the ability to see the essence of God, in marked contrast to the Eastern Orthodox tradition:

‘The true purpose of creation is, therefore, not contemplation of divine essence (which is inaccessible), but communion in divine energy, transfiguration, and transparency to divine action in the world” (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 133)

‘The energies are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His energies, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence. His energies come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach. ‘(St. Basil of Caesarea)

The term energies refers, roughly speaking, to God’s workings in creation:

‘An answer to these questions is implied in the writings of St. Paul. I do not wish to suggest that Paul explicitly addressed the divine energeia as a theological topic, but only that he uses the term often enough, and in a sufficient variety of contexts, that we can determine what his answer to these questions would have been. For example, Paul refers to himself as “striving according to Christ’s working (or energy, energeia), which is being made effective (or actualized, energoumen?n) in me” (Col. 1:29). (Taken from http://preachersinstitute.com/2010/12/16/the-concept-of-divine-energies/, which is an excellent discussion on divine energies/essence).

We know of God, then, through His energies, or workings, in creation, while God’s essence remains utterly beyond us. However, God’s energies are not the only way we know of Him; we know of Him also through the revelation of Jesus Christ in history, but for right now I will concentrate on how we know God through His energies. These energies include God’s providence, foreknowledge, love, power, wisdom and the other classical attributes of God – these are some of the ways in which we can know God without knowing His actual essence.

The unknowability of the essence of God goes back to Old Testament themes – God tells Moses in Exodus that no one can see His face and live, and in Elijah’s theophany, God does not speak in the wind, fire or earthquake, but in the stillness that follows. This is a theme that is carried to the New Testament as well – Jesus tells us that ‘no one has seen the Lord (John 1:18), and St. Paul tells us that God is He ‘who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.’ (1 Timothy 6:16) It seems then that the idea of God’s utter unknowability in His essence is indeed a firmly Biblical one.