Knowing God is. (Part 1 of 4)

A principle confession of faith is our acknowledgment of God. i.e. God exists (Isaiah 45:22). Not only does He exist, but He is ultimately in control of all creation. The first focus of any theology then has to be the doctrine of God. Doctrine, in this instance, means: The exploration of the reality of the God whom we have come to know in Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:9; cf. Hebrews 1:1-3).

Hebrews 11:6 is the foundational Scripture to our discussion. For, when all is said and done, one must believe that He is God and that He does, in fact, exist. Our entire lives and the way we interact with the world is premised on the fact that we have come to know the only true God. As Christians we believe that we know, personally, the God who chooses to be known by His creatures (Genesis 3:8; John 14:23).

This position of faith is not isolated to each one of us as individuals, but it has marked the people of faith for generations and we are thus linked with the faith community that spans the generations (Hebrews 12:1).

Although our faith in God is based on personal experience and faith, our position is not universally shared. So, in pursuit of an apologetic position, it is necessary to consider the possibility of faith. To do so we will focus on two questions that are very much in vogue in our day:

1) Is there a God?
2) Can humans know God?

God's existence is foundational to the faith of the Christian community. It is this claim of the existence of God that is under attack from many quarters. Questioning the existence of God is nothing new (Psalm 14:1, 53:1). Here we must sound a cautionary note, the atheism of the ancient Near East cannot be equated with its intellectual counterpart of modern western philosophy. The latter was not an option in the ancient world. The atheism mentioned by the Psalmist did not focus on the intellectual, but on the practical and the moral, i.e. the fool lived as if there was no God. The Scriptures do not acknowledge the existence of atheism.

Having said that, they do recognize a wilfull and thus culpable suppressing of the knowledge of God (Romans 1:18). In the first-century Christians were considered atheists as they rejected the Roman pantheon (I Corinthians 8:5&6). As noted above, the modern intellectual scepticism was not the issue but rather the conflicts that existed between rival tribal gods. So the question of the existence of God focussed on which god was the most worthy of worship. The 'spiritual' climate of the ancient Near East was marked by the worship of many gods. The relative strength of this variety of deities was measured by world events. The mightier the god the mightier the works that were evident.

Knowing this adds insight into the Exodus account of the ten plagues (Exodus 7ff). Each of the plagues clearly displayed to all the superiority of Yahweh over the gods of Egypt. If that were not enough, Israel's Red Sea deliverance was a further sign of Yahweh's power (Exodus 15:11-16). A similar act at the River Jordan struck fear into the watching Canaanites (Joshua 5:1). A further 'comparative' act took place at Mount Carmel involving the prophet Elijah (I Kings 18).

One mighty act above all others stood out to the ancients and that was the granting of victory in battle. Such military clashes were so much more than a feat or arms, they were a clash between rival deities (cf. II Kings 18:32-35). Subsequent military reversals for Israel and Judah were explained by the prophets: Such defeats were not evidence of Yahweh's weakness as compared with the other deities, but rather His exercise of judgement upon their sin.

The Old Testament prophets were united in their mission to proclaim Yahweh as the true God. It was for this reason that they relentlessly spoke out against idolatry in the land (E.G. Isaiah 44:9-17; Ezekiel 6:1-14). They were eventually successful as the remnant of Judah that returned from Babylon were committed monotheists.

The issue of Yahweh appearing, as it were, as Judah's God posed a problem of its own: Was He Judah's alone, or was He for the whole of humanity. This problem was only able to raise its head as Israel had so clearly failed to be Yahweh's representative to the surrounding nations, a task for which they were chosen (Exodus 19:4-6; Isaiah 43:12). This issue was not resolved until the advent of the New Testament, but a post-exilic prophet did look forward to that time albeit through apocalyptic symbolism (Zechariah 14:16). 

The early Church inherited the debate as was highlighted in Acts 15. Paul built upon the fact established by the Jerusalem Council by writing that the idols were nothing (I Corinthians 8:4-7) or even demonic (I Corinthians 10:18-22). So, the Body of Christ affirmed that Yahweh was indeed the one and only universal God. He, the God of the patriarchs, was the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. As such, He alone was worthy of universal worship. The question then has evolved from which tribal god is stronger, and thus worthy of worship, to the intellectual question concerning the very existence of God.

As Christianity spread west it encountered Greek philosophy. It found that the great philosophers embraced a type of monotheism, for they did acknowledge a creator God beyond the pantheon of gods that the common people worshipped. The immediate question that would have arisen among the philosophers was the nature of relationship between the God of the Christians and the 'First Cause' of the world that the Greek philosophers acknowledged. Paul obviously recognized this situation in his encounter upon Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-34).