1. Michael Horton wrote (2011, 23):
At the same time, doxology challenges our intellectual pride and curbs our thirst for speculation. Sound doctrine fuels worship, not sectarian strife. When the apostle Paul reaches the threshold of God's majesty in these doxologies I have cited, he no longer asks and answers questions but worships the God who eludes comprehension.
2. When someone asks "Do you comprehend?" they usually mean "Do you understand?"
In many situations, "comprehend" is used as a synonym for "understand".
But in theology, "comprehend" is a technical word.
In theology, "comprehend" means understanding fully and exhaustively.
To comprehend God is to understand or know God fully and exhaustively.
Knowledge presupposes understanding.
The doctrine of the Incomprehensibility of God is the denial that God can be comprehended.
It is *not* the claim that God cannot be understand or known.
It is the claim that God cannot be known fully or exhaustively.
However, the doctrine leaves open the possibility that we can have partial knowledge of God: we can know some truths about God.
In his chapter "The Knowability of God", Louis Berkhof ([1938] 1979, 29) has a section titled "God Incomprehensible but yet Knowable".
The doctrine of the Knowability of God is the claim the God can be known.
Combining the doctrines of the Knowability and Incomprehensibility of God, we have the claim that God can be known but not exhaustively:
(a) We can know some truths about God.
(b) We cannot know all truths about God.
(c) We can know some, but not all, truths about God.
The doctrine of the Incomprehensibility of God is not the skeptical claim that that God cannot be understand or known at all.
3. Michael Horton continues to write (2011, 23):
The better theologians in history have evidenced a similar submission to mystery. For example, at numerous points in his Institutes, John Calvin summarizes his interpretation of a scriptural teaching and then exhorts us to adore the mystery rather than attempt to grasp it. Centuries before, Anselm of Canterbury wrote even his deepest theological investigations in the form prayer, such as this famous one: "I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand."
4. I do not submit to mystery, but I do submit to God my Sovereign Creator, the Father of my Lord Jesus Christ.
I do not know if Horton understand the irony of referring to Calvin to the effect "to adore the mystery rather than attempt to grasp it" and then quoting Anselm to the effect that "I long to understand in some degree thy truth".
For to understand is to grasp the meaning of truth with the intellect.
References:
Berkhof, Louis. [1938] 1979. Systematic Theology, Fourth Revised and Enlarged Edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Horton, Michael. 2011. The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.
End.
