In an article on theology proper for the Reformation21 blog, I previously discussed the various ways God reveals himself to us. Having determined how we can know God, we must now consider what we can know about God. If theology means roughly “words about God”, then what kind of words can we speak? If we seek to know God, then what kind of knowledge can we have?

Orthodox Christians (in the general sense, not the Eastern Orthodox sense) have always confessed that God is to a certain extent unknowable. There are two reasons for this: 1) We are finite creatures with limited intellects. We therefore cannot fully comprehend something infinite. 2) God has not revealed all of himself to us, but only certain things about himself.

What we know about God has a major impact on our lives as Christians and our salvation. If God is the one who lends being and purpose to all that we are, and knowledge of him is necessary for salvation, then it is certainly important to determine exactly what we can know about him. Our knowledge of God (or lack thereof) seeps down into every aspect of our lives. Surely we need to know just what kind of knowledge we can have about God: both its extent and its limits.

What we can know about God saves us. The fact that we cannot know everything about him should help convince us that he is great enough to save.

Describing, not Defining

Theologians in the Reformed tradition have followed the orthodox mainstream in affirming that there are some things about God that cannot be known, and even those that are revealed to us are only a partial reflection of the full glory of God’s being. Consider these words of Gerhardus Vos.

“In what sense do Reformed theologians maintain that God cannot be known? a)​ Insofar as we can have only an incomplete understanding of an infinite being. b) ​Insofar as we cannot give a definition of God but only a description.”[1]

It may seem odd for a theologian to suggest that we cannot define God, but consider that in order to properly define something, you must know it fully. Take as an example one of God’s oddest creations: the platypus. If I were to tell you that the platypus releases milk, you would say, “Ah, a mammal!” If I told you instead that it releases venom, you would say, “Maybe a reptile or amphibian?” And if I told you it possesses a bill and webbed feet, and it also lays eggs, you would say, “That sure sounds like a bird.” These separate pieces of knowledge are not enough to provide a full and distinct definition of the word platypus. Only when we take them all together can we properly define the platypus as a mammal who lays eggs, thus violating one of the usual distinctives of a mammal, which is live birth.

Never mind the platypus. I am making a point about God. We only have partial knowledge of him rather than exhaustive knowledge. That is why we cannot define him but only describe him, as Vos attests. We can say, “God is powerful. God is loving. God is holy.” We have given a description of God, but not a thorough and complete definition. To define something is, in a sense, to contain it: to have the ability to wrap your mind around it. We surely cannot wrap our minds around all that God is.

Moreover, Scripture teaches us that we could have no knowledge of God had he not condescended to reveal himself to us in creation, in his actions in history, in his written Word, in the Son of God, and by the Spirit. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul.

“For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.” (1 Corinthians 2:11-13)

We live in the greatest age of revelation, for we have the completed canon of Scripture and the Spirit of God indwelling us permanently. We look back upon the work of the Son of God made flesh rather than forward as if through a veil. The last things are still veiled from us at this time, but we can see the pattern of history in which the Word (that is, God the Son) has revealed the Father to us by the power of the Spirit. In this work of condescension, the Triune God becomes known to us in a saving manner, most especially through the covenants God has made with man. This is summarized as follows in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

“The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.” (WCF 7.1)[2]

Names of God

One of the primary ways Scripture reveals the character of God to us is by naming him. Think about all the things God is called in Scripture: Elohim, Adonai, Savior, Comforter, Judge, Lion of Judah, Lamb of God. Some names are specific to one person of the Trinity and others describe God in general. We have the personal names—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and symbolic ones, as when the Son of God is called a stone. (e.g. Psalm 118:22, Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11, 1 Peter 2:7)

These names given by the scriptural authors or by the direct words of God to the prophets were not chosen at random or carelessly, but neither do they completely define God. They describe something about him and allow us to catch glimpses of his character. They are not the fullness of God’s essence that cannot be comprehended by man, but they are nonetheless truly spoken of him. As Vos wrote, “God’s names are not empty sounds (like the names of people), but they have meaning and contribute to our knowledge of God.”[3]

Perhaps the most precious name of God that has been revealed to us is what is sometimes referred to as his “covenant name”, YHWH, often transliterated as Yahweh. The name simply means “I am”. It speaks to God’s eternal, unchanging existence, and it therefore assigns him to an entirely different category than creatures. We came into being. There was a time when we did not exist at all, and every day we are slightly different than the day before. No creature can simply say, “I am”—not in the way God does. Only an infinite, immutable (unchanging), eternal being could make such a declaration and have it be true.

“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)

The consideration of this one name of God alone, which is used more than any other in Scripture (every time you see the fully capital “LORD”), tells us several important things: 1) God’s names reveal something true about him, though they don’t allow us to comprehend him fully. 2) God’s names give comfort and certainty to his people by attesting to his character, as was the case with the ancient Israelites. 3) It is God who reveals himself to us in his names, and only he can truly name himself.

That third point was made by Herman Bavinck in his Reformed Dogmatics, which is a highly influential text for modern Reformed theologians. “There is an intimate link between God and his name. According to Scripture, this link too is not accidental or arbitrary but forged by God himself. We do not name God; he names himself,” he notes.[4] “The name of God in Scripture does not describe God as he exists within himself but God in his revelation and multiple relations to his creatures. This name, however, is not arbitrary: God reveals himself in the way he does because he is who he is.”[5]

This will be an important point for us going forward: the distinction between God as he is in himself and God as he is revealed to his creatures. God as he is in himself is a perfect, unchanging essence. He cannot possibly be comprehended by finite minds. We as creatures are bound by time and space, by limitations of intellect and ability. Throughout our history, God has revealed things about himself to us, as with his names. Although these names do not reveal God as he is in himself (for only he can comprehend that), Bavinck explains that in God’s revelation, he does become knowable to us according to the connection we make between the revealed name and its bearer.

“All we can learn about God from his revelation is designated his Name in Scripture…A name is a sign of the person bearing it, a designation referring to some characteristic in which a person reveals himself or herself and becomes knowable. There is a connection between a name and its bearer, and that connection, so far from being arbitrary, is rooted in that bearer.”[6]

Language of Accommodation

Perhaps one of the primary problems of theology has become clear by now: the distance between the Creator and creatures (not in the sense of space, but in terms of a difference of being) is so great that God must accommodate himself to our weaknesses in order to reveal himself to us. Perhaps the most basic way in which this occurs is through God’s adoption of human languages to proclaim his message to mankind. He spoke to Moses in Hebrew and to Belshazzar in Aramaic. God also adopts human ways of speaking and even refers to himself at times as if he had human body parts. And without question, he simplifies infinite concepts so that our limited intellects can comprehend something of the truth.

God’s revelation to us always takes the form of anthropomorphism. Do not be intimated by this word! Anthropomorphism simply means to have a human form. In his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, Richard A. Muller explains that the Greek term anthrōpomorphos (i.e. human form) is “applied to figurative language in Scripture, which seems to predicate human attributes to God.”[7] Keep that in mind as you read the following quote from Bavinck about God’s revelation.

“And inasmuch as the revelation of God in nature and in Scripture is specifically addressed to humanity, it is a human language in which God speaks to us of himself. For that reason the words he employs are human words; for the same reason he manifests himself in human forms. From this it follows that Scripture does not just contain a few scattered anthropomorphisms but is anthropomorphic through and through.”[8]

This is an essential concept to grasp if we are going to properly think about God and assess our knowledge of him. If we do not confess that God and the scriptural authors use anthropomorphic language when speaking of things divine, then we will be forced to confess that God has eyes (e.g. Genesis 6:8), an arm (e.g. Isaiah 53:1), and a back (e.g. Exodus 33:23), even though the incarnate Christ testified that “God is spirit”. (John 4:24) We will be forced to confess that God is truly a mother bird who shelters us under literal wings. (Psalm 36:7) We will have to acknowledge that God repents (as in certain translations of Jeremiah 18:8), as if he had committed sin, made a mistake, or come into possession of new knowledge, when Scripture assures us that, “God is not a man, that He should lie / Nor a son of man, that He should repent…” (Numbers 23:19a)

Consider something else Bavinck had to say on this same topic.

 “There is no fully adequate knowledge of God. We cannot name him as he is within himself. All his names are derived from the world of creatures. But this does not make them untrue, a product of human imagination. Just as there is resemblance between various parts of the world, making comparison between them a possibility, so also there is kinship between God and his creatures, a kinship that warrants the use of creaturely language in speaking of him.”[9]

Bavinck states that there is a “kinship between God and his creatures” which “warrants the use of creaturely language in speaking of him”. The nature of this kinship has been much debated by theologians over the centuries. We must always confess that the Creator and his creatures are two different sorts of beings, with vastly diverse natures, characters, properties, and majesty. Nevertheless, Scripture tells us that man was created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-27) The way we understand the kinship between God and man will also help us to understand the connection between God’s knowledge and our own.

Archetypal vs. Ectypal Knowledge

The primary theological terms we need to keep in mind regarding knowledge about God are archetype and ectype. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an archetype as “the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies.”[10] An ectype is the thing that is produced by the archetype: “a copy from an original: an imitation or reproduction (such as an impression of a seal).”[11]

Franciscus Junius is credited as the first Reformed theologian to develop the concept of two types of theology (best defined here as “knowledge about God”) known as archetypal and ectypal. There was some precedent for Junius’ view among earlier theologians, but his articulation has certainly had the greatest influence on later Reformed and other Protestant figures.

In his A Treatise on True Theology, Junius described archetypal theology as “the wisdom of God Himself” which is “essential and uncreated”. He furthermore wrote that archetypal theology “is the very same thing as unbounded wisdom, which God possesses concerning His own person and all other things, as they have been set in order with respect to Him necessarily, individually, and by an uninterrupted relation among themselves.”[12]

To summarize Junius’ words, archetypal theology or the archetypal knowledge of God is the perfect and boundless knowledge he has of himself and everything that is, which can only be comprehended by himself, for his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Our finite minds simply cannot comprehend the infinity of God, which includes the infinity of his knowledge. God says as much in Scripture.

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord.

‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways

And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

However, Junius also taught that there was a second kind of theology or knowledge about God that is ectypal. This knowledge is “fashioned by God”, “nonessential and created”, and can be thought of “as a certain copy and, rather, shadowy image of the formal, divine, and essential theological image.”[13]

Here I refer you to my previous article, “How Can We Know God?”, where I discussed the biblical concept of the image of God (Greek: eikón). The word ecyptal carries a similar meaning, and when applied to our knowledge, it means that it is a copy or image of the divine knowledge: it is not exactly the same as the divine knowledge. As Junius again wrote about ectypal theology, “But the second theology is that wisdom which the creatures have concerning God according to their own manner, and concerning those things that are oriented toward God through His communication of Himself.”[14]

This contrast between archetypal and ectypal theology or knowledge was later included by Herman Bavinck in his Reformed Dogmatics. He said that our theology—that is, our words about God—“must be called ectypal or analogical, not symbolic.” (I will discuss the theological concept of analogy, and why some theologians may prefer the term ectypal over analogical, in a forthcoming article.) Bavinck further explained that we receive this knowledge through God’s condescension to us.

“Our knowledge of God is always only analogical in character, that is, shaped by analogy to what can be discerned of God in his creatures, having as its object not God himself in his knowable essence, but God in his revelation, his relation to us, in the things that pertain to his nature, in his habitual disposition to his creatures. Accordingly, this knowledge is only a finite image, a faint likeness and creaturely impression of the perfect knowledge that God has of himself.” [15]

While our knowledge about God may only be ectypal, Bavinck assures us this does not imply any falsehood in God’s revelation of himself. This knowledge does not simply consist of “symbols” or “products of the poetic imagination.”[16] Rather, Bavinck writes that “our knowledge of God is nevertheless true, pure, and trustworthy because it has for its foundation God’s self-consciousness, its archetype, and his self-revelation in the cosmos.”[17] Therefore, we may be certain that the knowledge we have is sufficient for our every need, including salvation.

The Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof echoed this theme in his own Systematic Theology.

“All our knowledge of God is derived from His self-revelation in nature and in Scripture. Consequently, our knowledge of God is on the one hand ectypal and analogical, but on the other hand also true and accurate, since it is a copy of the archetypal knowledge which God has of Himself.”[18]

Why is our knowledge only a copy of what God has, so that it must be called ectypal rather than archetypal? Because, according to Berkhof, it “does not possess the same measure of clearness and perfection.”[19] Think about it: we know that God is rightly described as holy, but do we really have a perfect conception of what holy means? After all, everything we have ever experienced has been tainted by sin, including our minds. We can confess that to be holy means to be without sin, but we ourselves have never seen anything completely holy. (There is a sense in which justified believers are already holy, but we still witness each other’s struggles with sin.) We could meditate upon the concept for the length of our natural lives and still not grasp the holiness of God in its entirety. That is why we must affirm that our knowledge of God is ectypal rather than archetypal: it does not match the perfection of the knowledge God has of himself.

At the consummation of the ages, when we ourselves are glorified, we will come to understand things about God that we cannot know at the present time, as the Apostle Paul wrote. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) But even in glory, there are some things we simply will not be able to comprehend, because we will still not be God himself. We will always be finite creatures, while he is the infinite Creator.

Praise God then that he has revealed himself to us in a way we can understand—that he condescended to us, finally taking on a human nature in the incarnation of the Son of God. This is a great mystery and one that saves our souls. Let us confess it together with the Apostle Paul.

“By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)

All scripture references are from The New American Standard Bible (1995 edition), copyright The Lockman Foundation.

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[1] Vos, Gerhardus. Reformed Dogmatics: Theology Proper, trans. and ed. Richard Gaffin, Jr., et al, Kindle version (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), location 84.

[2] The text here is from the official version of the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith used by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which incorporates the American revisions. https://www.opc.org/CF_old/WCF_frames.html

[3] Vos, 106.

[4] Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics,Volume Two – God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 98.

[5] Bavinck, 99.

[6] Bavinck, 97.

[7] Muller, Richard A. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 31.

[8] Bavinck, 99.

[9] Bavinck, 106-7.

[10] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archetype

[11] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ectype

[12] Junius, Franciscus. A Treatise on True Theology with the Life of Franciscus Junius, trans. David C. Noe, Kindle edition (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), location 2700.

[13] Junius, 2700.

[14] Junius, 2700-14.

[15] Bavinck, 110.

[16] Bavinck, 108.

[17] Bavinck, 110.

[18] Berkhof, Louis. Systematic Theology, Kindle edition (Escondido, CA: Ephesians 4 Group, 2017), 17.

[19] Berkhof, 17.