How Does Our Knowledge Relate to God’s?

Written by Mark Farnham

On October 11, 2011

Because God has spoken, we can know who he is, something of what he does, even why he does what he does; and we can know that who he is, what he does, and why he does what he does is revealed to us to know as creatures, not as creators. In other words, it is not the case that since we have the truth of Scripture, what we know is identical with what he knows. While it may be that when we believe the truth, “what we believe is one of [God’s] thoughts” (to borrow from Alvin Plantinga, “Divine Knowledge,” 62), I should hasten to add that we believe God’s thoughts after him. We believe them, if we do, as creatures, not as God. God’s thoughts are his alone, and ours are ours, each partaking of the nature of the one whose thoughts they are.

K. Scott Oliphint, Reasons for Faith (P&R, 2006), 176.

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2 Comments

  1. Richard L. Lindberg

    As Van Til says, our knowledge is analogical. We never know as exhaustively as God does.

    Reply
    • Mark Farnham

      It’s amazing to me how many theological problems arise and how defenseless Christianity becomes in the face of unbelieving philosophy when we fail to maintian the analogical nature of language central in our thinking!

      Reply

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