[betty boop]

"I used to know a preacher who would challenge people to close their Bibles and open their eyes to what God was doing, right now, all around them. That if there were no Bible, it would be possible to recreate it from simply observing, and participating, in what God is doing, now, in the streets, and in history. Because God is still God, and he is still forging the world."

With all respect to the Unknown Preacher: It seems the human mind, completely unaided, would be able to conceive of a general idea of God. But how could it ever imagine what God is doing at any particular time? The mind and action of God are completely incommensurable with human mind and action. We would have to know something about the nature of God before we could imagine "what God is doing, now, in the streets, and in history." And I think that is precisely what we cannot discover for and by ourselves. When man has tried to do that in the past, the result has been concepts of violent nature gods, or lascivious Olympians, etc. For us to really know anything about the nature of God, He would have had to tell us that Himself -- which is exactly what He has done, in the Holy Scriptures.

[lockeliberty]

With all respect to the Unknown Preacher: It seems the human mind, completely unaided, would be able to conceive of a general idea of God. But how could it ever imagine what God is doing at any particular time? The mind and action of God are completely incommensurable with human mind and action. We would have to know something about the nature of God before we could imagine "what God is doing, now, in the streets, and in history." And I think that is precisely what we cannot discover for and by ourselves.

Yes Betty, I agree, partially. For as Scriptures say,

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even the most ardent atheist knows God through creation but "just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind..." So when you say,

For us to really know anything about the nature of God, He would have had to tell us that Himself.

I would have to disagree. In fact, we know the nature of God, what is more important is that God reveals to us who we are. True knowledge of God is knowing ourselves, firstly. Unspun alluded to that exact "beginning of knowledge." I agree completely with you when you say "that is precisely what we cannot discover for and by ourselves." It seems all we are left with is how is it we come to know ourselves and begin to have a true knowledge of God?