Who Is a Knower of God?

When I was a child, one of the worst insults in our culture was: “a man who doesn’t know God!” Or: “a bastard who has no news of God!”

Perhaps that is the worst curse in existence. Let us see together who is a knower of God, and who is not.

If we take Spinoza’s definition of God, he says that God is everything, and therefore everything is God.

By that definition, a physicist is a knower of God — Einstein was a knower of God, for he uncovered a law of light that is God’s.

A chemist is a knower of God, for he discovers the laws of materials that were established by that same God.

A biologist is a knower of God, for he knows a nature that is the creation of that same God.

By the same definition, a musician is a knower of God, for he creates a beauty that is the beauty of that same God.

A loving mother is a knower of God, for she expresses a tenderness that is the tenderness of that same God.

A baker is a knower of God, for he bakes the very bread that is God’s daily provision.

But the knowing of God has its own stages and degrees.

Perhaps the highest degree of knowing God is the “self-knower.”

A self-knower may have no schooling at all.

A self-knower may be a simple shepherd.

Yet a self-knower holds one of the highest degrees of knowing God, for he knows the most direct theophany of God, the nearest theophany of God.

He knows himself.

The self-knower is absorbed in observation;

absorbed in himself,

and therefore absorbed in God.

The self-knower knows the God within — the nearest God.

The psychologist and the scholar of religion know a God of the mind — a God who is far away.

The philosopher knows a God of logic — a God who is limited.

The self-knower, however, knows himself.

He falls in love with himself.

He simultaneously becomes the beloved of himself.

He himself becomes love.

He becomes God.

The self-knower becomes a mystic,

the self-knower becomes a wayfarer,

the self-knower becomes the Unwritable —

just like God Himself.

The God who is Unwritable!