Ah, so you didn't mean to say God could not be comprehended (which is what you said), you meant to say that not everything about God could be comprehended.
Okaaaay...yeah, I guess you're right. That is what I meant. My semantic error...
How do you know this if you can't comprehend them? It's like saying a drawing of a square on a sheet of paper could understand what it couldn't comprehend about a basketball. And where is this list? You sound pretty sure about what is and what isn't comprehendable, so what book of the BIble is this in, or is this speculation on your/others part?
You're trying to pin down matters of faith to scientific analysis. Can't be done. A person can see a mountain in front of him, yet not know the exact minerals of which the mountain is composed. And if he does know what the minerals are, he may not understand the complexities of molecular structure in those minerals. And if he does understand that molecular structure, he may not know the quantum implications within the atoms that make up those molecules. And...
There are different levels of understanding. Some people might only understand that the mountain exists. Others might be able to take a good shot at defining the quantum characteristics of the subatomic particles that make up the molecules that make up the minerals that make up the mountain. There could be other characteristics about the mountain that would elude even this latter individual. But the fact that no one could explain everything about the mountain would not change the fact that the mountain exists.
My point was, simply, that there are aspects of God that are beyond the comprehension of any human. Some people might understand little more than that God exists. Some individuals - foolish ones, in my opinion - might actually deny dogmatically that God exists, speaking as they do from their lofty position as earthly humans, which clearly qualifies them to know everything about the universe. Some might come to know God quite personally and intimately, albeit subjectively. Others might become repositories of theological information. All of these people know of God - even the ones who deny His existence are aware of Him (though they may consider Him a concept rather than a reality). But none of them can understand everything about Him fully. Our finite minds cannot fully grasp the infinite.
Don't you feel you're falling victim to the old ineffable routine? To subscribe anything inexplicable, illogical, contradictory, or equivalently inconvenient to being beyond human comprehension?
Has the "old ineffable routine," as you call it, been disproven? Are you really pompous enough to believe that there is nothing that is beyond human comprehension?
your definition has nothing to do with the one normally accepted for differentiating cults from religions
That's because I didn't offer it as a definition. I was merely making an observation about the fact that cultists feel the need to "have all the answers". Really, it was slightly off-topic, based on SYN's question about 'putting God in a box'. That's a phrase I've used many times to describe the way the cults teach about God. They have answers for everything. They resolve all the great theological debates with a stroke of the pen.
At the risk of escalating this discussion, I'll give an example. The Bible teaches us that God is omniscient, all-knowing. We are told that He knows "the end from the beginning". Logically, that must mean that He knows whether each of us, as individuals, will ultimately be saved or lost. However, we are also told that we have free will whether to have a relationship with God or not, and thus our salvation (or lack thereof) rests in our own decision. How can this be? Theologians have debated this for centuries. They call it an "antinomy," or seeming contradiction, of the Christian faith. There are differing schools of thought on the subject within Christianity, even within denominations. But most Christians simply accept on faith that both are true. God does know all things, and we do have free will.
Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, resolve this difficult topic easily. They simply state that God does not know all things. They say that He can know whatever he wants, but chooses not to know some things, such as the ultimate destiny of individuals. It's a simple answer, but unfortunately not one in harmony with the Bible, which tells us, not that God can know all things, but that He does. There are other problems with the doctrine from the standpoint that it leads to numerous other unreasonable conclusions, and these have been expressed by Dwayne Magnani of Witness, Inc. in a book and tape, both called The Heavenly Weatherman. I'm not going to go into detail about that here; the book and tape can be ordered at http://www.witnessinc.com/index.html if you're interested.
Cults tend to be that way. There can't be any mysteries, anything beyond their understanding. They have to have all the answers, and will twist doctrine in whatever way they need to in order to have them. It doesn't matter whether the answers are right or wrong, scriptural or not. That was really the only point I was trying to make in my original comment.
If a scientist tried to make you believe in the polar nature of water molecules, based on what was said in a book written by someone years ago, and could not prove this by experiment, you would probably deride the belief.
Have you done or observed such an experiment personally, or do you take it on faith from what you have read or been taught? How much of what you consider "knowledge" have you gained through personal experience, and how much is taken on faith? The vast majority of what we "know" is taken on faith, from what our parents taught us, from what we learned in school, form what we have read, etc. If your knowledge were limited to what you personally had experienced, you would have little of it indeed.
The Christian's relationship with God is based on faith, as well. You want evidence? There's a whole universe around you that came from somewhere. Sure, you can argue that the existence of the universe doesn't prove the existence of the Christian God. But it implies something as a First Cause. Christians claim to know, through personal - and, yes, subjective - experience with God, what that Cause is. Science simply doesn't know, doesn't even have a plausible theory. Yet many scientists will dogmatically deny the possibility of God's existence because they can't put Him in a box and experiment on Him. How absurd! I'm reminded of the Soviet cosmonaut decades ago who said that there couldn't be a God because he didn't see Him while he was in space. As if he had conquered the universe because he flew around the earth once!
Play fair.
I try to. But I certainly don't limit myself by believing that all knowledge of the universe is available to us puny humans living on a dust speck in the spiral arm of a rather ordinary galaxy. And faith and subjective experience do, I believe, have their place in the discovery of reality.
