What can you know for sure?

Tapestry by Annika Ekdahl
Dalsland's Museum May 1, 2011
(photo: Eva Dickson)

Do you believe in a God? An almighty God? 

If you do, then the almighty God is great. Greater than you, greater than I, greater than any human being, and even greater than the world as we know it. 

If you believe in an almighty God, the God will speak its will.

We human beings will try to understand.

If you believe in an almighty God, you cannot claim to know all about the God’s will. An almighty God is infinite and a human being is finite.

Because you are finite you are smaller than an almighty God, and you must allow that God and his will are greater. And no finite being can know all about the infinite. 

If any of us should claim full knowledge of the will of God, that’s the sacrilege of thinking oneself greater than God.

If you should make believe that you know the exact meaning of God’s will, then you have put yourself in God’s place.

If you should make believe that your knowledge of God’s will is the only valid knowledge of God’s will, then, in fact, you are making yourself greater than God. 

To know one’s smallness is to admit that all one’s best knowledge is a sketch, a try.

The wisdom of this knowledge is to allow others to seek their relation to the power of the universe.

Do I believe in an almighty God?

I don’t.

However, I know that there is a power within me that is greater than myself.

I know that there is a power within me that is the source of all my strength.

To know my smallness in relation to this power is to know the incompleteness of my understanding.

If you are a Bishop or Pope, a theologist, an Imam, a Rabbi your wisdom is to know that you are a human being and that as a human, your knowledge of your God’s will is never complete.

If you are a secular scientist or philosopher your wisdom is to know that your knowledge of the world and the universe is never complete. 

It is a source for sadness when anybody claims that his or her way to knowledge should be the only way.

It is a source of joy for all of us humans to know that our knowledge of the world and the universe is never complete.

text copyright © David Dickson

For illustration go to this link (Richard Bowman, artist, painter, Kansas City, MO, USA)