One of those “aha!” connections you can’t unsee, summarized in five ways:

1. God’s secrets are the wellspring of his self-revelation.

2. God’s incomprehensibility is the foundation of our knowledge.

3. God’s exclusive knowledge of himself is the ground of our sharing in the knowledge of who he is.

4. The “unapproachable light” in which God dwells, “whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16), is the very source of our illumination.

5. That God cannot be known except by revealing himself is the basis of our confidence and assurance.

A helpful analogy from Matthew Barrett:

“Like the sun you cannot look at God without going blind. And yet, we cannot see anything apart from the sun illuminating our way.”

More from Anselm:

“Truly, Lord, this is the inaccessible light in which You dwell. For truly there is nothing else which can penetrate through it so that it might discover You there. Truly I do not see this light since it is too much for me; and yet whatever I see I see through it, just as an eye that is weak sees what it sees by the light of the sun which it cannot look at in the sun itself. . . . O supreme and inaccessible light.” (Proslogion)

Moses:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Jesus:

“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27)

Scott Swain:

“The knowledge, love, and beatitude of the blessed Trinity is unapproachably high and holy (1 Tim 6:16), hidden not because it is dark or arcane but because it is supremely luminous, supremely lovely—surpassing what human eyes can see or human hearts can imagine.”

Or as David simply puts it:

“In your light do we see light.” (Psalm 36:9)

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See also:

• “If you can comprehend it, it isn’t God.” (Augustine)