Divine will and human certainty

The idea of an unknowable God creates a philosophical difficulty for obedience. If God cannot be contained in a concept or image, how can a person identify what God requires? The difficulty becomes urgent whenever personal certainty is mistaken for sufficient evidence of a divine command.

Jewish sources distinguish divine incomprehensibility from the possibility of understanding God’s instruction. Tanya chapter 4 affirms that thought cannot encompass God while explaining how divine wisdom and will become accessible through Torah and commandments. Unknowability and obligation coexist.¹⁶

This distinction matters because obedience requires an identifiable demand. Without it, the word can become a flattering description of whatever a person already wishes to do. The person says they have surrendered, but they continue to determine both the instruction and the evidence that supposedly validates it.

The Godward Way’s refusal to make God a mental object can support a discipline of discernment. If an image of God is an event within consciousness, a vivid image does not by itself establish divine authority. The same applies to an emotionally compelling thought. Its compelling character is something experienced; the claim that it comes from God requires a further account.

Deuteronomy 13 provides a biblical example of this distinction. It describes a sign or wonder that occurs, yet rejects the resulting invitation to serve other gods. The remarkable event is insufficient to overturn the prior covenantal demand. The text therefore distinguishes the occurrence of an experience from the authority claimed for its interpretation. Verse numbering differs among Hebrew and English editions.²¹

The philosophical lesson can be stated without turning the passage into a modern procedure. An experience and the explanation attached to it are not the same thing. A person may accurately report a dream, a sense of presence, or an unusual coincidence while misunderstanding what follows from it.

The problem also applies to desire. A desire can become powerful when expressed in sacred language. I may wish to be admired, vindicated, protected, or released from an obligation. Calling that wish a divine leading does not remove its personal history. A Godward discipline needs enough patience to recognize that history without automatically condemning the desire or obeying it.

This is where surrender becomes more demanding than certainty. Certainty can give the self an elevated role: I am the one who knows what God wants. Surrender may require allowing that claim itself to become questionable. The person remains oriented toward God while admitting that their interpretation can fail.

The distinction is epistemic, concerning how something is known. It does not resolve every theological question about divine command and ethics. It prevents one question from being used to evade another. Even a theology that gives God’s will final authority must still ask whether this particular human claim identifies that will correctly.

The practical Jewish answer draws upon revelation, textual study, commandments, and traditions of interpretation. The Godward Way must articulate its own account rather than borrowing the authority of those institutions while setting their content aside.

Pirkei Avot 2:4 expresses the alignment of wills directly. It urges a person to make God’s will their own and to set aside their will before His. The teaching places a demand upon desire rather than requiring the invention of desire’s opposite. What I want becomes available for examination and redirection within a relationship whose authority I have accepted.¹⁷

Recognizing this difference allows a more honest comparison. It leaves room for contemplative affinity without pretending that a shared vocabulary has settled the question of authority. The unknowable Father can remain the direction of intention, while every proposed description of what the Father requires remains a matter to examine carefully.