There is something fundamentally strange about the way humanity approaches the concept of God. We argue about “His” existence, debate “His” intentions, attempt to establish “His” characteristics, and construct elaborate systems of belief around what we claim to know about “Him.” Yet, when pressed to explain precisely what God is, let alone why we so often provide a gender that is different from the one we more readily associate with giving birth, we frequently arrive at an answer that seems to transcend the very boundaries of human understanding. Perhaps this is not a coincidence. Perhaps the concept of God, as humanity has constructed it, is inherently beyond our ability to define with any meaningful degree of accuracy or precision. Or perhaps the problem is that we have created a definition so expansive, so abstract, and so resistant to contradiction that it can accommodate virtually any conceivable understanding of existence. God is frequently described as “being” itself, the underl...
Human beings have repeatedly demonstrated that we can construct explanations that are coherent, persuasive, and apparently comprehensive while remaining mistaken about fundamental aspects of reality. Throughout history, ideas once regarded as compelling explanations of the universe - like the idea that planets moved in 'perfect' circles - have been revised or abandoned as our knowledge has advanced. This history should give us reason to question not only the conclusions we draw, but also the confidence with which we draw them. Our understanding of the universe is necessarily limited, not merely by what we have yet to discover, but potentially by limitations in our own cognitive abilities and conceptual frameworks. We cannot even be certain that we can identify all the limits of our knowledge, because our ability to determine the limits of our knowledge is itself constrained by the very knowledge and cognitive abilities whose limits we are trying to determine. Ther...