Knowing the Unknowable God

A Post-Script Homily

Phil Aud

May 11, 2026

Sixth Sunday in Easter
All Souls Church, May 10^th, 2026

Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:8-20
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

SPIRITUAL IN EVERY WAY

The Apostle Paul stood in front of the Athenians and said:

“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.”
-Acts 17:22

In every way…very religious, he says. Religion is something that we humans can’t seem to shake. Even those who don’t consider themselves religious are caught up in systems that demand religious action and devotion from their adherents. We may not use the word “God” in our commitments, but they do take on a religious framework. Theologian Kathryn Tanner has a book titled The Spirit of Capitalism. You may already see from the title that she doesn’t treat capitalism merely as a static thing, but something with a spirit. And she writes:

“Capitalism has cultural concomitants—beliefs, values, and norms—that direct conduct, that get people to do willingly what capitalism requires of them by encouraging them to see what they are doing—what they must do to get ahead—as meaningful, valuable, or simply inevitable.”1

Notice those three words – “beliefs, values, and norms.” This is the stuff of religion. Capitalism is held up by a set of beliefs and values, as well as norms, the way that those beliefs and values guide our lives.

To bring it down to the ground, we could talk about shopping. Philosopher James K. A. Smith famously talks about the shopping mall as a religious site. But in so doing, he wants us to know that he is not being cute with his language. He writes:

“I want to adamantly contend that describing the mall as a religious site is not merely a metaphor or an analogy…my goal is to try to make strange what is so familiar to us precisely in order to help us see what is at stake in formative practices that are part of the mall experience.”^⁠2

He goes on to talk about the cash register as the altar where people make their sacrifice, the assistants in the stores as “acolytes and other worship assistants who have helped us navigate our experience,” and the person behind the register as the “priest who presides over the consummating transaction.”3

Smith, who resides in Grand Rapids, wrote this book in 2009. I lived in Grand Rapids from 1999 to 2003. In 1999, the Rivertown Mall opened. This is the main mall in the Grand Rapids area, and I spent a lot of time there in my early 20s. It was a happening place.

Last October, Marisa and I were in the Grand Rapids area. We were both working at a café in the city, which closed earlier than we anticipated. We were to meet some friends for dinner, but had some time to kill. And so, we went to the mall of my youth; the main mall in the city where Smith wrote his famous mall as religious site, and shopping as liturgy. And you know what? It was depressing. Probably 30% of the stores were shut down, and it felt like a ghost town. My nostalgic (and perhaps consumeristic) heart was crushed.

Months later, I was reflecting on this, and it struck me that the religious experience of the mall has not evaporated. Rather, the site has changed. Our religious site is now, largely, a digital site. A website. And this is shaping us to be a particular people. Yuval Noah Harari says that we have entered into what he terms “data religion.”^⁠4 And Norman Wirzba, reflecting on this, writes that we are now promised: “salvation through algorithms and engineers, rather than from priests and gods.”^⁠5

We are in every way very religious. I think it is important to recognize this in our time, for it has consequences on people’s lives.

GOD STANDS OUTSIDE THE WORLD

In engaging with the Athenians, Paul does an interesting thing: he draws attention to the fact that the God he is referencing stands outside the world.

[24] “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. [25] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
-Acts 17:24-25

And then he says this:

[29] “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.
-Acts 17:29

If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you will know that one of the questions I frequently ask us to ponder is: What is God like? A very important theological question. But here, Paul is drawing our attention to what God isn’t like. God made everything in the world, but God is not from this world. God does not live in our temples, and he is not like anything in the universe, “like gold or silver or stone…”. God is different than us. But that is to put it too lightly, because God is not different from us the way that we are different from other creatures, or they are different from us. As Henk Schoot says:

“God differs differently.”^⁠-Henk Schoot6

When we Christians use the word God, we mean nothing less than this. God is Mystery, and our minds cannot even begin to comprehend this God. In this sense, God is unknowable. And this is why it is so dangerous for the Christian faith to be reduced to an intellectual activity. The life of the mind is important and should never be bypassed in our spiritual lives, but neither should it be primary. We do not know God by understanding God.

Still, this unknowable God wants to reveal himself to us; wants us to know him. So how do we know this unknowable God?

HOW DO WE KNOW THE UNKNOWABLE GOD?

This is where things get interesting. On the one hand, Paul says to these people, ‘Look, the God I’m talking about isn’t from this world. Everything — absolutely everything — was made by this God, and is sustained by this same God.’ But God is not like anything in the world, which is why idolatry is so dangerous. This is the reduction of God to something we can craft, mold, grasp, and understand.

But we do well to note how Paul begins his speech. He says,

“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. [23] For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
-Acts 17:22-23

On the one hand, Paul, throughout his speech, is pointing to the fact that God stands above the world. We can’t understand this God, and whenever we think we can, we can be certain we have created an idol. And yet, this unknowable God is not unknown to us. In fact, the God who stands outside of the world and outside of all created things has, from the beginning, been close to us. Look at what Paul says:

[26] From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. [27] God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. [28] ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
-Acts 17:26-28

God is not an idea – God is Mystery. And yet, this God who exists outside of the world longs for us to know him intimately. But we know this God in a particular way, and that is not by understanding God, but by being intimately connected to Him as our source. Look at what Jesus says in today’s Gospel:

[15] “If you love me, keep my commands. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— [17] the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
-John 14:15-17

Notice what is going on here. Jesus says the world cannot accept the Spirit. Why? “Because it neither sees him nor knows him.” And yet, look at what Jesus says next:

But you know him! How? Not through unshakable arguments or intellectual certainty. Rather, you know him because he lives with you and is in you. Look at this language:

On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
-John 14:20

We know God not by grasping God, understanding God, or bringing God into some manageable realm. We know God by being brought by God, into the very life of God. This is how we know Him – by responding to his Love which is forever drawing us near.

I COULDN’T THINK MY WAY OUT OF THIS

Earlier in this homily, I mentioned the Philosopher James K. A. Smith (the guy who wrote about the mall as a religious site). I’ve read a lot of his work through the years, and I just finished his most recent book titled Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing. I’ve been writing for some time on this very topic, and so I was eager to read his work.

I was moved by his writing about his own journey in the introduction. “When I answered the call to be a philosopher twenty-five years ago,” he said, “I imagined the world’s problems amounted to a failure of analysis.” He continued, “If only we could think more carefully, the truth would come out. Good arguments would save us. Grasping the world’s puzzles and problems with conceptual clarity would yield enlightenment, even a kind of salvation.”^⁠7

But then Smith entered his 40s and something changed.

What’s happening to me?, I wondered. Nothing in my external circumstances, I thought, should engender sadness or disappointment. To the contrary. My wife was devoted and forgiving; we had built a beautiful family and home; I enjoyed professional success and privilege. But why am I sobbing in the middle of the afternoon? Why am I either an angry monster or a lethargic shell? Why do my wife and children feel a million miles away, and why do I keep pushing them even further? I didn’t understand, and that in itself was an affront to my philosophical confidence.^⁠8

And then he writes this:

“I couldn’t think my way out of this.”9

There in the dark night, Smith didn’t find new answers or certainties. Rather, over time, he found he had to let go of such things. And the truth is, none of us can think our way out of these places. But in his letting go, he came awake, more and more, to the God who was already there. In his letting go, he realized that he was held. That he was loved.

And so are you.

And so am I.

IN EVERY WAY SPIRITUAL

We live amongst a people who are deeply religious in every way. But oftentimes, they don’t know it. The reason why it’s important to understand this is that the religious commitments that things like capitalism demand end up hurting people. But I wonder if instead of merely trying to unveil or correct this unseen religious devotion, we also lean into the other things people are encountering but don’t yet have a name for.

I’ve mentioned Dale Allison Jr.’s book, Encountering Mystery, here before. One of the things that struck me when I read this book was his affirmation of people’s claim to be spiritual but not religious. So many times, Christians roll their eyes at such a claim. But I wonder if our response shouldn’t be something like this:

I can see that you are spiritual in every way.

Allison writes:

The phrase ‘spiritual but not religious’ is everywhere these days…
I know churchgoers who dismiss such folk as ‘New Agers.’ But to dismiss is not to understand.
What happens when someone unattracted to or alienated from organized religion—perhaps for understandable reasons—is nonetheless overcome by transcendent bliss, or meets God in an NDE [near-death experience], or beholds an angel, or enters via mystical rapture some world beyond this one? There are many such people. That they are spiritual but not religious makes perfect sense. Indeed, what else could they be?^⁠10

This, it strikes me, is what Paul is doing. He’s not trying to argue against the things that people are intuiting, but is leaning in.

Our mission is not to go around and teach everyone to think like us. It is certainly not to go around and try to get people to behave like us. It is rather, first, to understand, through the heart, that the God who stands outside of the world is drawing us into the Love that is God. We are being brought into the life of the Trinity, sisters and brothers. Oh mystery of mysteries! To open ourselves up to this is to know God. This is life.

But this same God is drawing people from all over the world to himself, for “he is not far from any of us.” Rather than dismiss what people intuit, perhaps we should learn to listen, acknowledge, and, when appropriate, speak the word “God.”

May we, sisters and brothers, learn to let go and open up our hearts to an encounter with the living God (or better, in the letting go, have our hearts opened by God). And may we bear faithful witness to Jesus when others find the love of God opening their hearts, too.

Indeed, he is not far from any one of us.

Amen.

Theomagination

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