"We degrade God too much, ascribing to Him our ideas, in vexation at being unable to understand Him. But, again, if it's impossible to understand Him, I repeat it's hard to have to answer for what it is not given to man to understand."
Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel, The Idiot
I often find myself a part of conversations that turn to the identity of God. We try and try to explain God's actions or seeming inactions. We try to figure him out. In so doing, we subject him to our flawed, human rubric. We put words in His mouth and motives in his heart. Granted, the Bible does tell us things that we know about God, but as soon as we start extrapolating and expanding on what is in the Bible we find ourselves treading (I say drowning) in murky, dangerous water.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we should avoid learning about God. It's just that there is a HUGE difference between learning about God and theorizing about God. I am a huge theorizer. I love theories, but some things are not to be theorized. God is not a human concept we are entitled to define and explain as we wish with full liberty. God is described in the Bible. God is present in our lives. God is.
We learn about God by seeking the truth about God. We prayerfully read the Bible to see who God is. We ask questions and get answers based on Scriptures.
We theorize about God when we make claims as to who we think God is, who we think God should be and how we think he should handle situations. In attempting to understand things that don't make sense to us in this life, we delve into discussions about God's identity. For example, there is the "Why do bad things happen to good people?" question. Answers to this question often speculate as to why God allows or causes such things. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes of righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve (Ecc. 8:14). He goes on to say that no man can understand everything that goes on under the sun. If we cannot even understand what goes on under the sun, how do we expect to be able to understand God's role therein?
The time and energy spent trying to accomplish the impossible is time and energy that can be spent on learning about God. And spending time with Him. Loving God and being loved by God. I fear that we get too caught up in the intellectual debates about things as opposed to real, irrefutable truth. Who God is, not who we think He is or who we think He should be, should be the focus of our discussions on Him.
