THE writer to the Hebrews laid down as a basic proposition (11:6), "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Too tragically often the faith thus demanded has been founded upon the dogma of inscrutability, and so the inquiring thought has been blinded and to it God has remained shrouded in the unknown and the unknowable.
How blazingly Jesus shredded that veil when he said to the woman at the well of Sychar (John 4:22), "We know what we worship." At a blow he disposed of inscrutability and pointed to the possibility and the necessity of knowledge of God. And he raised faith from blind belief in creeds and dogmas to the understanding of God as Spirit, or to spiritual understanding. When Christ Jesus told the woman at Sychar that God is Spirit and that He is knowable, he in no degree broke her faith, but contrariwise enlarged it, so that she was inspired to say, "Is not this the Christ?"
Now to know God is to comprehend His being and nature: what He is and what He does. Surely, to know God is to know His works, His universe, His man. To the physicists also, who still grope among phenomena and blindly declare cause to be unknown and unknowable, Christ Jesus declares, "God is a Spirit," and, "We know what we worship." True Science can never agree that effects can be observed, yet cause remain unknowable. Inscrutability is dogmatic; it is not Christian or scientific doctrine. Could there be a more shattering blow to the uplifted inquiring heart striving to find the way above a crushing load of woe than the rebuke, "God does not choose to reveal His purpose; you must not seek to find out what He elects to conceal." What a blow to budding faith!
