"Knowing God" - the Problem of Humanity

Well in answering one of my good friend's questions to my post below on Brian McLaren's book and doctrine I basically wrote a long enough answer to put it up as a new post. So here's the context. In the review I wrote:

Bonhoeffer wrote, “it is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ” Thus what we DO know about God is that ultimately God is unknowable. So doctrine is not an end in itself, thus aNKoC is not an end in itself.

Seth has some other good questions which you can read in the post below, but here's the heart of what he's saying:

But I don't get from that quote (and again I don't know the whole context behind the quote from Bonhoeffer) is that God is unknowable. Jesus seems to say the exact opposite. He identifies himself with the Father, and says several times that if you know me, you know the Father; if you see me, you have seen the Father, etc. It seems that God is knowable, but ultimately he is known through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Here's my response:
Well, I want to be careful because there's this strange dialectic I'm trying to walk here (creating a both/and or neither/nor category). In some ways I want to say what you are saying about Jesus, but in a more or differently nuanced way.

First, in regards to JC's words about knowing the Father. Thomas asks Jesus to show them the Father and the way to get where JC is going. I think we can agree that this passage isn't about doctrine (as if Thomas is saying, so is God eternal or everlasting?), knowing God categorically, conceptually, or perceptually. Instead, what Jesus is talking about is "the Way," the life and person that best reflects God on earth (himself). These verses in Jn 14 seem to point more toward relationships, allegiances, and ways of life (or mission) more than doctrinal statements about God.

There are many different ways of "knowing" in the Bible, but I think of the most metaphorical, physical way..."knowing" as sex. This knowing is about something deeper and more personal then concepts. It seems that "knowing" in the Scripture is almost always a deeply human, physical, and relational term as opposed to abstract, categorical.

Second, and ultimately I believe the greater truth is that God is unknowable. What I mean (not sure about Bonhof) is that we cannot use scientific reasoning and the 5 senses to create concepts that tell us "what" God is, God is neither provable or disprovable. We cannot point to God and say, "see God suffers or no God is immutable."

Language about God is tricky, but I don't think our words or categories ever fully satisfy the reality of what God is in his being. It's very important to say, or maybe admit (since there have been many abuses) that what we can know about God is that God is unknowable, un"what"able. But while our language, concepts, and perceptions of God always fall short of his Being that doesn't mean they aren't important. While we cannot say "what" God is, we can say "that" God is...that God is loving, good, infinite, simple, just, faithful, unified, etc. Now do these words describe God metaphysically, ontologically? No, but they do give us categories to understand how God can be the way he is, and relate the way he does (and possibly just as important it helps us understand how we should relate to God and each other).

Since we cannot claim what God is, but only what God is not (Bonhof's Christology) we can speak doctrines without fear of logical incoherence...like the idea that Christ is fully God and fully human (real logical right?). And that bring us back to Bonhoeffer, where he is saying that this way of talking about God (the "that," not "what") allows us to speak logically and coherently about the existence of God while being able to make statements about the incarnation.

I agree that we do know God through Christ, but I cannot say that doctrinally speaking I better understand God's being because of Jesus. Actually, because of Jesus I am a little more confused about God's existence. Did God die on the cross? Does he suffer? 3 and 1, 3 in 1, 3 = 1?

God is knowable, as in we can relate to and be in relationship to God. God is unknowable as in, I cannot point to and make conceptual statements that exactly describe the reality of God's being. Jesus leads us to what is really important, a life giving relationship with God; but after that we are stuck in our limited human categories to think about ways of describing conceptually and perceptually this reality. And that is theology in a nutshell, the aftermath of being swoon by God.

Not an acceptable Christ

It is not that a "Christian culture" must make the name of Jesus Christ acceptable to the world; but the crucified Christ has become the refuge and the justification, the protection and the claim for the higher values and their defenders that have fallen victim to suffering. It is with Christ who is persecuted and who suffers in his Church that justice, truth, humanity, and freedom now seek refuge; it is with the Christ who found no shelter in the world, the Christ who was cast out from the world, the Christ of the crib and of the cross, under whose protection they now seek sanctuary, and who thereby for the first time displays the full extent of his power. The cross of Christ makes both sayings true: "He that is not with me is against me" and "He that is not against us is for us."

-Bonhoeffer, Ethics.