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and metasystemic thinkers can do, with the latter recognizing the logical difficulty of the jump.)
However, a third option is possible for some: climbing down from the one cliff into the fog,
crossing the stream at the bottom, and climbing up to the top of the other side. This is of course
much harder than jumping, not everyone is able to do that kind of rigorous climbing (an
elaborate string of formal argumentation), and there is the possibility that no (formal)
passageway can be found (in this life). But all we know suggests that it should be possible
(since, if both members of the pair are true, God knows the formal solution), and there is every
reason for capable Christian thinkers to work on these problems.
So how shall we answer the title of this chapter, Can God be grasped by our reason? The
answer is, as you might suspect, both yes and no. Yes, God can be surely grasped by our reason
which is able to understand whatever scripture teaches about God and develop a coherent
understanding of each of the "sides" of biblical teaching. However, God cannot be fully grasped
by our reason which may be unable to trace out how both "sides" of biblical teaching about God
are logically related to each other. Tragically, a simplistic use of formal logic may lead human
reason to reject certain revealed features of God which seem contradictory to other revealed
features. God can be better grasped by a wiser, metasystemic reason that uses the LONC with
discernment, holding off on a premature conclusion that a concurrence is a genuine
contradiction, if the evidence demands it, until such a time as the gifted among us provide a
fuller, formal understanding of God that incorporates all the evidence available to us or until God
increases our capacities considerably in the age to come. And yet, the wise lover of God is
content to defer such conclusions indefinitely, if the evidence demands it, since she suspects that
some of the mysteries of an infinite God must necessarily transcend the finite capacities of the