Knowledge of God Is Not Due To A Process of Reasoning

How have you helped him

who is without power?

How have you saved the arm

that has not strength?

How have you counseled one

who has no wisdom?

And how have you declared

sound advice to many?

To whom have you uttered 

words?

And whose spirit came from

you?

Job 26:2-4

     Many people desire to have and some do believe they have the wisdom and the strength to consider and understand by means of a process of reason that there is or there may not be a God. It is this process of reasoning from where this knowledge comes from and not because it is innate, our constitution. This process of reasoning they consider to be the natural way to deduct anything, especially such a subject as God. Does not science use reason? Is this not a high representation of the natural methodology to consider and come to believe anything? In fact, look at the law of gravity, is this not a phenomenon of the universe and can we not use a process of reason to understand this law, that it does exist. Does not this process of reasoning of its existence give us the ability to assume that there is a first cause for this law of gravity and that we may then assume that the first cause is God? This may be true for those who have minds that are cultivated to this theory of the origin of the idea of God. Yet, it cannot account for the belief of a God, one who existence is believed in the minds of all men, even to those who are the least educated.

     The fact so stated above may cause one to cavil at the suggestion that the process of reasoning pertains especially to the educated and cultivated person. This is not the case for many the process of knowledge leading to the idea and belief in God is simple. There are many things that children and the illiterate persons learn. In fact they can hardly avoid, if they can, leaning, that this learning can be attributed to their constitution. God is so manifested in the world, that His existence is obvious and this knowledge is so natural and suited to what we see and what we need, that it can be generally adopted. Think upon it in this manner: we are surrounded by design, which indicate a designer. We see the effects which suggest a cause, in fact demands a cause, a cause that transcends the natural, this we nominate as God. Furthermore, we have the sense of the infinite which is vague and often void of explanation from the natural and this sense gives a consciousness that there is something greater than this infiniteness. We have within us this distinction of morality and what is perfection giving rise to the idea of something or someone who is moral in character and is the very fact of the case for morality. 

     All this may be true, but it is not an adequate account of the case. The facts speak differently. You see, it does not give us satisfactory reason for the universality and strength of the conviction of the existence of God. Some would be cajoled into thinking this conviction comes by means of faith, but this is not the fact, for we come by this reason from our consciences. We do not reason that there is a God, and it is not by some form of rationalization, a process, even though it is simple knowledge that man, people are brought to this conclusion. The process described above does not account for the origin of our belief in God. All that is done by this process if give the method by which we confirm our beliefs and how our beliefs are developed. For so many little is given that is simple and intuitive at least to those of ordinary minds. What we discover must be expanded, its real contents unfolded. Is this not true of our other senses? Is it not true of our understanding? Then why should it not be true of our religious nature? 

     If we are to believe in the Sovereignty of God we must first understand who is God, how do we know that there is a God, a God who is sovereign over all things. We are not reasoning to come to know God, this has been shown not to be the case. What has been uncovered up to this point is that God is known by the universe itself but this does not give us the answer as to why we have the idea of a God. but as we come to understand ourselves, how we are so constituted, we find that God in His sovereignty did not leave us void as to the knowledge of Him in fact He constituted man so that man could intuitively know that He exists.  He is a Spirit and we cannot see a Spirit and we cannot objectively know Him as we can objectively know that a tree is a tree. But He did not leave us destitute as to Himself. this is the grace of God poured out upon all men and especially to those who have been enabled and drawn to Him. Those who God elected and through that election He is magnified and His glory is known to all men. It is by this free gift of saving grace that we are advanced in our understanding of Him, His Sovereignty, and what He has done for His children: He sent His Son to pay the debt of our sin, a debt we could not pay. It is this knowledge of Him that is so constituted in us, developed by the Holy Spirit that we worship Him, we bow down to His Sovereignty and in obedience to Him we allow Him to manage our circumstances, we leave the consequences to Him.

I am the LORD,

     and there is no other;

There is no God besides me,

     I will gird you, though you,

though you have not known Me,

     That they may know from the

rising of the sun to its setting

     that there is none besides Me.

I am the LORD, and there is no

     other;

                          Isaiah 45:5-6

May Obedience Be Your Hallmark

Richard L. Crumb