Our understanding of God

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seagal

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Several threads on this forum on the nature of God reminded me of a quote that I think is attributed to St. Augustine. Paraphrased, it goes something like “If you think you understand the nature of God, that which you understand is not God”. Meaning, we can try and try to wrap our puny human brains around the concept of God and who He is but we will never be able to put a definitive description on Him. As soon as we say “This is God”, we have to know that this is not God, just our flawed understanding.

Does anyone know the actual quote, and is it from St. Augustine?
 
Yes, it is from Augustine: “If you have understood, then this is not God. If you were able to understand, then you understood something else instead of God. If you were able to understand even partially, then you have deceived yourself with your own thoughts.”

This, really, is true of any person. Even husbands and wives do not know each other fully. How much more a Being with a different mode of existence? We know, as Aquinas says, only by way of analogy.
 
Which St Augustine? According to Wikipedia there are three of them.

:confused:
 
cpayne said:
It’s simply called Sermon 52; the quote is from section 16.
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Noooooooooooo!! :eek: I knew Augustine was a prolific writer but hadn’t looked too deep at it all yet. I’ve just finished Confessions and almost City of God and now I find out I just started! Oh well.
 
seagal said:
Several threads on this forum on the nature of God reminded me of a quote that I think is attributed to St. Augustine. Paraphrased, it goes something like “If you think you understand the nature of God, that which you understand is not God”. Meaning, we can try and try to wrap our puny human brains around the concept of God and who He is but we will never be able to put a definitive description on Him. As soon as we say “This is God”, we have to know that this is not God, just our flawed understanding.

Does anyone know the actual quote, and is it from St. Augustine?
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True; but it is also written in the bible that at least some important aspects of his being is known through the things he has made.
While it is certainly true that we cannot comprehend all that God is, we know some of what God must be in respect of his creation. We know what God isn’t. And thus, we can make inductive judgements concerning his being; such as, God is an “uncaused cause”, so far as that means that God cannot be caused. God is perfect, as in, God cannot fail to exist. God has no parts, as in, he is an immaterial being. God is timeless, since he is the root of all time. God is love, since that is the only logical reason that a timeless entity would eternally create a Universe with people in it. So, it seems to me that although we can only ever comprehend a “thin slice of God” (a term used by Peter Kreeft), that slice is at least big enough so that God is not absolutly incomprehensible to us.

Agreed?
 
MindOverMatter said:
True; but it is also written in the bible that at least some important aspects of his being is known through the things he has made.
While it is certainly true that we cannot comprehend all that God is, we know some of what God must be in respect of his creation. We know what God isn’t. And thus, we can make inductive judgements concerning his being; such as, God is an “uncaused cause”, so far as that means that God cannot be caused. God is perfect, as in, God cannot fail to exist. God has no parts, as in, he is an immaterial being. God is timeless, since he is the root of all time. God is love, since that is the only logical reason that a timeless entity would eternally create a Universe with people in it. So, it seems to me that although we can only ever comprehend a “thin slice of God” (a term used by Peter Kreeft), that slice is at least big enough so that God is not absolutly incomprehensible to us.

Agreed?
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Absolutely, but I think we have to make a distinction between what we know and what we understand about what we know.:whacky:
For instance, we know that God is Love, as you said. But then we have to try to understand what exactly “Love” is. We hear people all the time saying if God loves us then why does he let [insert catastrophe of choice] happen? St. Augustine (quote obligingly provided by cpayne - thanks) reminds us that God is way beyond our understanding. It’s only human nature to try to define what we don’t understand, to fit it into some category that makes some kind of sense. We just can’t do that with God.
 
fhansen said:
Noooooooooooo!! :eek: I knew Augustine was a prolific writer but hadn’t looked too deep at it all yet. I’ve just finished Confessions and almost City of God and now I find out I just started! Oh well.
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Not everything he wrote is of equal value. If you want more of Augustine beyond what you’ve read (you’ve read the best, by the way), perhaps “On Free Will” and “On the Trinity” would be good.
 
Of course when we see Jesus we see the Father and as such He revealed much we didn’t know before. Just the concept of God “as father” is revelatory, let alone the qualities of humility and servanthood, to name a few.

But those still remain things we know *about *God and, as with any other being, He must be experienced in order to be known. And certainly love, on the order or scale of Gods’ love, must be experienced in order to be known. And only He can grant that experience so to me the Catholic mystics give us some of the best insights into His nature. But even then the glass we’re looking through becomes only a little less dark-we simply can’t know until He’s ready for us to.

"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1Cor 15:12
 
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