God uses man's language to [reveal] absolute truth. ... We certainly don't comprehend his truth, but we can make some sense of it, and know even more of it with the heart, and some things even intuitively, not to mention the work of the Spirit of God in us increasing knowledge of him.
Possible tie-in to the original post: How what God says affects how we think.
But this is consistent with what I was saying. I will use myself as an example: Most of the things that I talk about in these forums (involving theology and soteriology) are indeed presented under the assumption that this manner of thinking, these constructions that depend on human language, are altogether valid—but not for anything inherent to this language or because I'm particularly clever, but rather on account of them being what God has revealed (which is why it's crucially important to me that my arguments and views are a product of sound exegesis). I have done precisely the kind of thing you were talking about critically when, for example, I have argued about the meaning of propitiation (e.g., 1 John 2:2). In such cases, I am arguing for the "necessary implications" of that word "as though that implication is valid," and confidently asserting, "That is what that word means!"
Why am I so confident about what this word means and implies? Because it's what God has revealed and preserved in the biblical text, particularly the Koine Greek in the case of propitiation. As the Westminster Confession of Faith asserts, in part, "The New Testament in Greek ... [was] directly inspired by God and [has] been kept uncontaminated throughout time by his special care and providence." There is a reason why these human languages are regarded by the church as authentic and to be its ultimate source of appeal in every religious controversy.
Colloquially, I do comprehend God's truth—obviously, since I believe it and strongly enough to stake my life on it. But maybe you meant that in its technical sense, namely, that we don't (and indeed cannot) grasp his truth exhaustively or circumscribe it fully in our understanding. But then your comment to which I had responded didn't require that technical sense of comprehend.
I am practically certain that nobody posting in these forums is under any illusion that he or she
fully understands the things of God; we seek to
truly understand what he has revealed, even if we can't exhaustively comprehend it—because God's revelation is accommodated to our capacity, including our language. Again, as I said, it may be limited by the perspective and constraints of our mind and language, but surely it's nevertheless true.
But what I wanted to mention in answer to your question is the way that he can say things that we understand 'naturally' that do not imply that the truth is at all earthly or cosmically 'natural'. For example, when Jesus refers to his Father (in Heaven) it is the REAL Father, and not like the fathers here on earth —WE fathers are the ones who are like (take after) HIM, and not the other way around. We should not read him to be claiming as someone recently did here, that Christ was mere offspring related to God. After all, we already know that this temporal 'reality' is a vapor, and will pass like a shadow compared to the solid reality of God's economy. I think that principle parallels this language issue—at least, when he speaks to us absolute Truth, in our language.
You are exactly right. When you say that Christ's reference to his "Father" doesn't imply an earthly truth but the divine reality from which earthly fatherhood derives, you are intuitively operating with the classic Reformed distinction between archetypal and ectypal knowledge. God's self-knowledge (archetypal) is exhaustively adequate to his own being; our knowledge (ectypal) is a finite replica accommodated to the creaturely mode. Consequently, every term God applies to himself in scripture—Father, Judge, Shepherd—is analogical, conveying genuine truth delivered at the scale and limits of creatures. This distinction safeguards the Creator-creature distinction in the noetic realm.
Our knowledge is analogical; it is neither univocal (as if we could know God exactly as he knows himself) nor equivocal (as if our words are meaningless when applied to him), but genuinely true knowledge according to the mode of a creature. Because revelation is analogical, we avoid both anthropomorphism (projecting creaturely limits onto God) and agnosticism (refusing to affirm what God has revealed). And here is an important key: The Son, who alone knows the Father archetypally, mediates ectypal knowledge to us (Matt 11:27).
