As soon as we take upon ourselves the task of speaking about God, the question at once arises: How can we?

We are men, and He is the Lord our God. There does not appear to exist such a relationship and connection between Him and us as would enable us to name Him according to truth. There is between Him and us a distance as between the infinite and the finite, as between eternity and time, as between being and becoming, as between the All-in-all and nothingness. However, little we may know of God, even the slightest notion concerning Him represents Him as a being exalted infinitely high above the creature.

Holy Scripture corroborates this as strongly as possible; yet it presents a doctrine concerning God which fully maintains His knowability.

For example, the Bible never makes any attempt to prove the existence of God but assumes this; and it presupposes all along that man has an ineradicable idea of that existence, and that he has a certain knowledge of the being of God: an idea and a knowledge which are not the result of man’s own study and research, but of the fact that God on His part has revealed Himself both in an ordinary and in an extraordinary manner, has manifested Himself in nature and in history, in prophecy and miracle.

Accordingly, in Scripture the knowability of God is never represented as a doubtful matter. The fool may say in his heart, “There is no God” (Ps 14:1); he who opens his eyes receives from every side the testimony of His existence, of His eternal power and Godhead (Is 40:26; Acts 14:17; Rom 1:19-20).

The purpose of God’s revelation according to Scripture is this very thing: that man shall learn to know God, and hence may have life eternal (John 17:3; 20:31).

—Herman Bavinck
The Doctrine of God, 14-15

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