How to know God

There are, basically, two ways we can go to know God- or, we can say, to know ourselves.

First, there is the bottom-up approach. We start off from our own selves, and build from there. That’s all very nice except, as the Orientals discovered a long time ago, we don’t even know ourselves well enough to understand anything from that basis. They meditate, and center themselves in themselves, hoping to clear away the distraction and illusion to see more clearly. And they are wise enough to realise what a huge undertaking this is.
In the West we just presume that we are objective enough to barge right ahead on the basis of our “research.” A problem with that is that we don’t have a way of checking the research, or if the sources are right, of knowing the writers well enough to be sure we understand what it is they were actually saying, since much of it dates back hundreds, or thousands, of years.
So, in the end, for all the effort we end up saying either, “Real knowledge is found in not knowing,” or, “We really can’t know anything for sure.” The harder we work at knowing God, the better we understand that we really don’t know what we see in our own mirrors!

Instead of having to  start off with a me-ology and then leap to theology, the good news is that God wants us to know Him. (If He didn’t would we be wondering?) If you’re one of those philosophical types, you’re likely thinking this is about some a priori, circular reasoning idea. Nothing could be farther off. If we see a red-yellowish, waxy, dimpled sphere in a fruitbowl, it is easy enough to say, “that is an orange.” We may not know just how sweet, or dry, or ripe it is, but we know the orange. God shows Himself to us in any number of ways, so that we can know He is there, Since He is there, and He is revealing His existence to us, (and, being God, He already knows about us!) then it follows He is calling us into a relationship with Him. So check it out! He is God, after all, so what do you stand to gain by putting Him off?
To look into this farther, click on  So Many Books? or start reading  Right Here!