Controlling God?

2/6/17             Shankar           early 20's

He came from halfway around the world, from a culture very different than my own, yet his doubts about God were remarkably similar to what I hear from American skeptics.  Shankar is an international student from Nepal, the mountainous nation that borders India.  Although his parents are Hindu, he has doubts about God's existence because it can't be proven by science.

But what if it could?  What would that say about the Maker of the Universe if He was subject to the very scientific laws He created?  What kind of relationship would we have with God if we could conduct a scientific experiment and cause Him to respond the same way every time like some physical force such as, say, electricity?

Shankar could see that God would not be sovereign if science could control Him.  But then he went on to another assumption - that religion can control God.  "But aren't all religions basically the same, all different paths leading to the same God?" he asked.  His assumption was that we can all control our relationship with God by being a good person within the religion of our choice.  

But just as we can't control God with science, neither can we control God with religion.  So does that mean God is uncontrollable?  Is He therefore also unknowable?

I told Shankar that our knowledge of God can't originate from science or human religion.  It must be revelatory knowledge, God revealing Himself and His attributes to man, making himself knowable.  He gives us all the knowledge of Himself that we need, if not all that we might want.  He has revealed Himself through the pages of scripture and His acts throughout history, especially in the history of Israel, the people of His choosing.  And He has revealed Himself in Jesus, described by Paul as "the image of the invisible God" and by Jesus Himself who said "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father".  And in these revelations we see that God is sovereign and uncontrollable, yes, but not entirely unpredictable.  He is a God who makes and keeps his covenants with people of His choosing.

I don't know what kind of access Shankar had to the truths of God back in Nepal, whether it was just the general knowledge of the Creator given to us by the creation; the moral conscience God gives all descendants of Adam; or if it was also the specific revelation of Jesus in his people and through His holy word.  I do know he has access to that revelation here and now, and my prayer is that he will respond to it.  My hope is that he will then carry that revelation back to Nepal.