But Isn’t the Bible Full of Mysteries, Paradoxes, and Unknowable Things?
But Isn’t the Bible Full of Mysteries, Paradoxes, and Unknowable Things?
Perhaps surprisingly, the people I most often hear making statements like these are not unbelievers. They are Christians. I have deliberately placed this article in the “Excuses” section because statements such as “We simply cannot understand these things,” “These things are not meant to be known or understood,” “It is a mystery,” “God’s ways are beyond our ways,” or “The Bible is full of paradoxes” are often just excuses for not digging more deeply into the Word of God. Worse yet, they can sometimes be used by prideful people to discourage others from continuing to study, ask questions, and seek a better understanding of what God has revealed. In the same manner that misery loves company, those who are happy to remain ignorant prefer to be in the company of the ignorant.
Make no mistake about this: God is a God of purpose. He did not accidentally give us His Word. He chose to reveal Himself through it. To suggest that God purposely gave humanity a revelation that is not meant to be known and cannot actually be understood is, when carried to its logical conclusion, nothing less than to suggest that God babbles incoherently. I reject that completely. Neither is God a God of confusion. Paul writes, “For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). While the immediate context concerns order within the church, the principle certainly does not present God as One who communicates without purpose or meaning.
Of course there are things we do not know. There are things God has not revealed, questions Scripture does not answer, and realities concerning an infinite God that finite human beings cannot fully comprehend. Christianity does not require us to pretend otherwise. But there is an enormous difference between saying, “God has not revealed this” and saying, “God revealed this, but He did so in a way that no one can understand.” Scripture itself gives us the distinction: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Notice both sides. There are secret things that belong to God. But there are also things revealed, and those things belong to us. They were revealed for a reason—not merely to be admired from a distance as incomprehensible mysteries, but so that God’s people might know them, understand them, and follow them.
Therefore, do not be discouraged when someone tells you that you are asking questions that cannot be answered simply because the subject is difficult or because they failed to find the answer. Do not allow “It is a mystery” to become the point at which you automatically stop studying. And certainly do not allow another Christian’s unwillingness to dig deeper into Scripture to determine how deeply you are willing to dig.
It is to the glory of God to hide things and the glory of kings to seek them out. Do not let others rob you of God’s intended glory by diminishing the knowledge and understanding of things that God has rewarded you with for seeking out His Word. Let the self-defeating ignorant, who in prideful arrogance say, “I have not found the answer; therefore, the answer does not exist,” stay in their prideful ignorance. See the Popup —> The Pursuit of Truth Requires Perseverance
Instead, be encouraged by God’s own Word and by His promises concerning those who genuinely seek Him. Approach Scripture humbly. Recognize the limits of your own understanding. Be willing to admit when you are wrong. Be willing to say, “I don’t know,” when Scripture does not provide an answer. But when God has spoken, seek diligently to understand what He has said. God did not give us His Word so that we would surrender our pursuit of understanding it. He gave us His Word so that we would hear Him, know Him, believe Him, and obey Him. See the Popup —> Why Does God Conceal Things?