HKB
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Often appears with: the nature and attributes of God · reason and the intellect · scripture and its interpretation · religious persecution and toleration · providence and divine governance · prayer and worship · language, naming, and meaning · justice as a virtue · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · time and eternity · stars and infinity · sin, guilt, and repentance
Usually: argument (7) · crisis of belief (5) · detachment (4) · skepticism (4) · exhortation (3) · reflection (2) · confronting death (2) · curiosity (2) · list or catalogue (1) · indignation (1)
“And since an angel is immaterial, he is a subsisting form; and, consequently, he is actually intelligible. Hence it follows that he understands himself by his form, which is his substance.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“The Christian religion consists in two points. It is of equal concern to men to know them, and it is equally dangerous to be ignorant to them.” Blaise Pascal, Pascal's Pensées · insight
“O atoms of a day! O my companions in infinite littleness, born like me to suffer everything and to be ignorant of everything, are there enough madmen among you to believe that they know all these things?” Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary · insight
“To know what God as spirit is—to apprehend this accurately and distinctly in thoughts—requires careful and thorough speculation. It includes, in its fore-front, the propositions: God is God only so far as he knows himself: his self-knowledge is, further, his self-consciousness in man, and man’s knowledge of God, which proceeds to man’s self-knowledge in God.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind · insight
He argues that human faculties are suited for moral science, since we can know God’s existence, our duty, and our eternal stakes, while natural sciences cannot reach deeper internal essences.
12. In the study of Nature we must beware of Hypotheses and wrong Principles. I would not, therefore, be thought to disesteem or dissuade the study of NATURE. I readily agree the contemplation of his works gives us occasion to admire, revere, and glorify their Author: and, if rightly directed, may be of greater benefit to mankind than the monuments of exemplary charity that have at so great charge been raised by the…
He supports the account of divine names by replying that they signify God imperfectly like creatures, by using an etymology example (“stone”), and by stressing that we cannot know God’s essence as it is in itself.
but rather, on the contrary, He causes goodness in things because He is good; according to what Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 32), "Because He is good, we are." Reply Obj. 1: Damascene says that these names do not signify what God is, forasmuch as by none of these names is perfectly expressed what He is; but each one signifies Him in an imperfect manner, even as creatures represent Him imperfectly. Reply Obj…
Aquinas begins Question 56 on angelic knowledge of immaterial things, framing three questions: whether an angel knows itself, another angel, and God by its natural principles.
OF THE ANGEL'S KNOWLEDGE OF IMMATERIAL THINGS (In Three Articles) We now inquire into the knowledge of the angels with regard to the objects known by them. We shall treat of their knowledge, first, of immaterial things, secondly of things material. Under the first heading there are three points of inquiry: (1) Does an angel know himself? (2) Does one angel know another? (3) Does the angel know God by his own natu…
In Q. 89 Art. 2’s replies and Q. 89 Art. 3, Aquinas says final happiness is knowledge of God by grace, and that separated souls know all natural things only in a general and confused way through received species.
things; nor is this way of knowledge unnatural, for God is the author of the influx of both of the light of grace and of the light of nature. _______________________ SECOND ARTICLE [I, Q. 89, Art. 2] Whether the Separated Soul Understands Separate Substances? Objection 1: It would seem that the separated soul does not understand separate substances. For the soul is more perfect when joined to the body than when ex…
Hegel claims that revealed religion requires divine self-revelation, rejecting the idea that humans cannot know God; he argues God’s self-knowledge in humans requires careful speculative thinking, not mere faith pictures.
Sub-Section B. Revealed Religion(172). § 564. It lies essentially in the notion of religion,—the religion i.e. whose content is absolute mind—that it be *revealed*, and, what is more, revealed *by God*. Knowledge (the principle by which the substance is mind) is a self-determining principle, as infinite self-realising form,—it therefore is manifestation out and out. The spirit is only spirit in so far as it is for t…
Calvin defines true knowledge of God as reverent awareness meant to produce piety, not just belief in God’s existence, and contrasts natural Creator-knowledge with redemption in Christ.
By the knowledge of God, I intend not merely a notion that there is such a Being, but also an acquaintance with whatever we ought to know concerning Him, conducing to his glory and our benefit. For we cannot with propriety say, there is any knowledge of God where there is no religion or piety. I have no reference here to that species of knowledge by which men, lost and condemned in themselves, apprehend God the Redee…
Calvin transitions to idolatry and the true knowledge of God, stating that Scripture aligns with God’s portrayal in creation and aims the reader toward how God governs heaven and earth.
Exclusive Opposition Of The True God To All The Fictitious Deities Of The Heathen. But, since we have shown that the knowledge of God, which is otherwise exhibited without obscurity in the structure of the world, and in all the creatures, is yet more familiarly and clearly unfolded in the word, it will be useful to examine, whether the representation, which the Lord gives us of himself in the Scripture, agrees with …
Pascal lays out the “fundamentals” of Christianity: true religion requires knowing God and knowing human corruption, and it is equally dangerous to be ignorant of either without the Redeemer.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 555 ... Men blaspheme what they do not know. The Christian religion consists in two points. It is of equal concern to men to know them, and it is equally dangerous to be ignorant to them. And it is equally of God's mercy that He has given indications of both. And yet they take occasion to conclude that one of these points does not exist, from that which should have caused…
He asks whether eternal beings like stars and light were created or ordered by a sovereign intelligence, and confesses he cannot even define time, calling for God to teach him.
towards its centre. Light seems penetrable, and matter is impenetrable. Is this light matter? is it not matter? with what innumerable properties can it be endowed? I am ignorant thereof. Is this substance which is so brilliant, so swift and so unknown, are these other substances which roll in the immensity of space, eternal as they seem infinite? I have no idea. Has a necessary being, of sovereign intelligence, crea…
He says all people know God’s eternal nature in some way, then explains how disputes arise from misapplying names and misunderstanding meanings; he also argues that the mind has no absolute free will, only deterministic volitions.
bodies (II. xvi. Cor. i. and II. xvii.) as actually existing; therefore (II. xlv. and xlvi.) it has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God. Q.E.D. *****Note--Hence we see, that the infinite essence and the eternity of God are known to all. Now as all things are in God, and are conceived through God, we can from this knowledge infer many things, which we may adequately know, and we may fo…