home
Shri Datta Swami

Posted on: 15 Sep 2020

               

How could Jesus have said that He knew God, when God is unknowable and unimaginable?

[Shri Anil asked: My question is related to John 17:25-26, where Jesus says: “Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. 26 I have made You known to them (disciples), and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them.”

Swami, in this verse, Jesus say that He knows Father (God). In what sense is it said, when God is unimaginable and even the Son of God (the soul-component in the Human incarnation) also cannot know the unimaginable God? We have learnt from Your knowledge that God always remains unimaginable to everybody and that only His existence is known to us. In the light of this knowledge of Yours, is it that Jesus is only trying to impress that He possesses the true infinite knowledge of God by saying so, instead of claiming to know the unimaginable God who is unknowable for any soul and whose existence alone can be known by anybody? I believe Jesus spoke the above verses by assuming the Dvaita-state (based on then existing circumstances) in which the soul (Son of God, Jesus) and God (Father of Heaven) are considered to be separate. Or was He in the Advaita state, in which He is God Himself, so that the statement in Veda “God alone knows God”, applies to Him. I want to know if my point of view here is correct or not? Please correct me if I am wrong in my interpretations through Your knowledge.]

Swami replied: Here, the word Father referred by Jesus means the Father of heaven or the first Energetic Incarnation and not the unimaginable God. The unimaginable God alone can know Himself. No soul can know Him because He is beyond the concept of space. The Father of heaven is the first energetic form with which the unimaginable God has merged forever and hence, there is no trace of difference between the unimaginable God and the Father of heaven. The only difference is that the non-mediated unimaginable God is hidden whereas, the Father of heaven is clearly perceived by souls, as the mediated God. Except for this one difference, both are exactly one and the same. This one difference does not really make any difference. The unimaginable God becomes imaginable and visible through the medium.

Keywords:

| Shri Datta Swami | How could Jesus have said that He knew God, when God is unknowable and unimaginable? |

 
 whatsnewContactSearch