How Can Our Mind Comprehend God?

by Samuel A. Matthews

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33, KJV).

Loved ones, I look down at my feet, squinting closely, to identify the black moving speck as an ant. Though we are both living beings, we are so different that I feel absolutely no identity with the little creature. And what awareness can he possibly have of me?

Can the ant's eyes "see" the hugeness of the human body, beginning at the foot in front of his face and reaching upward fourteen or fifteen hundred times larger than himself—like me, trying to see a body a mile and a half tall?

Can the ant imagine the creative power or the destructive power in these two hands? Can the ant, unable to enter into my thought processes or to understand a word of my speech, have even a remote expectation of "knowing" my thoughts and mind? Can the ant's heart, made of a substance so different from my own, fathom how to even begin to reach out emotionally to me, to love me?

What ridiculous questions! The differences in "kind" create an insurmountable wall between the ant and my being, my mind, my spirit. There can be absolutely no crossing over, from me to him, or from him to me.

Between the infinite Spirit that is God and the ant-sized mortal that is me lies another seemingly insurmountable wall. How can I, in my human smallness, even begin to "see" God, whose presence is everywhere? How can I, with my limited strength, comprehend the power that spoke into existence from nothing the vastness of the universe, with every particle of matter that exists?

How can my mind fathom the mind that conceived the monstrous gaseous stars that burn with an explosiveness and intensity that could engulf my world in one searing breath, and that also conceived the worlds within our cells, too small to be seen without the aid of electron microscopes? Truly, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3).

How can my pathetically small mind, which cannot understand God's language or enter into His thought process, any more than an ant can think my thoughts —how can I fathom God? But we cry out for Him. There is a voice that will not be hushed, crying for His help, for His mercy, for His love. As small as we are, as impossible as it seems for the human spirit even to be aware of the Great Spirit that is God, much less to identify in some mysterious way with His Spirit, we do! Why? Because we were made differently from everything else in creation. In His letter to us, He told us that we were made in His image, that we were made a living soul (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:7)

Yes, we are actually less than ant-sized in comparison to God; our power and abilities are less than ant-sized — but God built into our minds and spirits a likeness to Himself, a bridge to Himself, that enables a breeching of the impossible wall. Incorporated in the "awareness of self' that is uniquely human is an undying awareness also of God. He does not go away, and the human spirit spends its little lifetime either in search of God or in denial of God — but always the God-question is being dealt with.

Not one accountable human has ever passed through this life without wrestling with the question of God in his own life, concluding with an acceptance of Him or a rejection. The fact that there is not another single question which confronts every human, and which every human must answer for himself, is one of the greatest pieces of evidence for the undeniable existence of God.

But even those who reach out to God in longing will never be able to comprehend His mind or to love Him on His level of love — any more than an ant can comprehend human thought or feel human love. Our capacity simply is not sufficient.

Yet God has given us, to the extent of our miniscule ability to accept, a little window into His mind through borrowing the human words He gave us and writing them in His book. He has given us a drop of His love all our hearts can stand — and even with so small a portion sometimes we hurt with the sweetness and the greatness of it.

These are a foretaste of what He has promised, when "...we shall be like Him [our Lord, Jesus Christ] ..." (I John 3:2) and when I shall “…know even as also I am known" (I Corinthians 13:12).