“I don’t know.”
Those words are hard for many of us to say. We don’t like telling our bosses we don’t know something, fearing we will be seen as incompetent. We don’t like answering serious and heavy questions that way. We certainly don’t like to answer questions about our God that way.
In my years as a blaspheming and God-hating atheist, hearing those words in an argument were what I lived for. They rang in my ears as a triumphal announcement that the poor person I was arguing with didn’t have all the answers. I would triumphantly crow some hideous thing about their inability to know pointed to the foolishness of their belief.
They are memories I recall much to my shame.
Why are so many of us uncomfortable saying the words, “I don’t know?” It’s incredibly freeing, I recommend you try it some time. We give voice to the truth that we are not God when we do so. The expectation of full and total knowledge is nothing more than unmasked pride, quivering in its rush to be like God. Yet we will never know everything, now or in Heaven. Omniscience is a divine attribute and as such does not convey to us.
Search Me, O God, And Know My Heart
Psalm 139:1–6 (ESV)
1O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
3You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. There are things we do not know, will not know, and cannot know. There is knowledge we cannot attain, or as the HCSB renders it, we cannot reach. David understands the limits of human understanding of God. Far from this realization leading him to frustration or some God-denying atheism, he is moved to praise.
This is as it should be. Certainly we seek knowledge of God and his word. There is no end of books discussing systematic theology, christology, commentary, philosophy, and a myriad of other subjects. They are not even drops in the ocean of the knowledge of God. They are hardly humidity in the air by comparison.
Your faith is not built on a complete and full understanding of God. Why? Because a complete and full understanding of God is only possible by God. He is transcendent, altogether separate. He created us. How can we fully understand him?
We can’t.
We can understand what he reveals about himself however. He has given us creation which testifies to his glory and power. He has given us the special revelation of his word. The Bible is what God decreed we have in order to know who he is and how he acts. It tells us of his love, justice, wrath, holiness, mercy, and grace. We learn he created all things, upholds all things, and directs all things. Is there a lot we don’t know? Yes!
Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is high, we cannot attain it. This is comforting to me whereas before God saved me it was infuriating. I used to wonder how anyone could believe in God, an unseen God, when now I am comforted by his unseen care. Formerly I marveled that people didn’t trust science to explain the world, now I rest in the God who created the natural world that science strives to explain.
Now when unbelievers ask me things I don’t know, I can comfortably say “I don’t know.” I can admit I am not God. I do not have all the answers. I am comfortable with a God who is not completely knowable, understandable, tamed.
I love to know things. We all do. My ignorance of certain questions about God does not disprove him. He is not beholden to my understanding of him. The quest for knowledge is still brightly lit, only now that lighthouse in the dark ocean of human sin is Christ. He guides me and keeps me from the rocks of shipwrecking my faith. I continue to learn and explore everything I can of him, marveling all the while. By his light I understand truth. He is the source of all truth, and I cannot fully know anything without understanding all things in the light of its Creator.
I don’t know everything, and that’s OK. I’m not supposed to.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
24And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV)
