Is an Inconceivable God Knowable?

By Ajit Krishna Dasa

Recently, I ran into someone who came up with this excuse to ditch his faith in Vaisnava philosophy:

“God is acintya, meaning inconceivable. He transcends logic—as evidenced by His being both impersonal and personal. Therefore it is impossible for us to truly know God. Therefore I’m now an acintya-vedantist!“

My response:

Claiming we can’t know God because He’s acintya (inconceivable) totally misses the mark. In Vaisnavism, sure, God’s full nature is beyond our complete understanding—but think about it: if He’s almighty, He controls exactly how much He reveals about Himself. It’s a logical slip-up to say God is all-powerful but somehow we still can’t know anything about Him, unless He chooses to keep it that way.

God has actually spilled quite a bit about Himself through sacred texts, the wisdom of teachers in a long tradition, and those personal vibes we catch when we dive into practices like bhakti-yoga. Saying God is acintya isn’t about making Him unreachable; it’s about recognizing our human limits while accepting His open invite to connect.

God isn’t playing hide and seek with us; He’s actively on the lookout for a relationship with us. He’s made it clear He wants to be known and loved. So, while we might not grasp His essence completely, He’s totally approachable and knowable. The idea that God being acintya means we can’t know Him at all just doesn’t fly—it sets the stage for a more profound, awe-inspiring kind of connection.

Okay, let’s be a little more philosophical here! Presupposing that God exists, there can logically be two, and only two, reasons as to why we couldn’t know Him:

1) God is not almighty, and thus can’t control what we can know about Him.

If God were not almighty, it would suggest limitations in His abilities, including the extent to which He can reveal Himself to living entities. However, in Vaisnavism, God is understood as the Supreme Being who possesses all powers (sarvashaktiman), including the ability to reveal and conceal Himself as He chooses. Thus, the idea that God might be unknowable due to a lack of ability contradicts the fundamental attributes of God in Vaisnavism, where He is omnipotent and the ultimate controller of all that exists, including knowledge and ignorance.

2) God doesn’t want us to know Him.

The second possibility is that God does not want us to know Him. This aligns with certain theistic interpretations where God’s motives and actions are ultimately driven by His own will. In Vaisnavism, however, it is emphasized that God is not only the source of all creation but is also deeply invested in the well-being of His devotees and desires a loving relationship with them. Scriptures and teachings (e.g., Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam) reveal that God not only wants to be known but actively engages with His devotees through His various manifestations, avatars, and personal interactions. The entire path of bhakti (devotional service) is predicated on the idea that God is knowable through love and devotion.

Thus, even though God’s full essence might be acintya, or beyond what we can fully grasp, we can still get to know plenty about Him that’s essential for our spiritual journey and salvation. Through scriptures, the wisdom passed down by spiritual teachers (guru-parampara), and our own personal spiritual practices, we’ve got a direct line to understanding what matters. This setup allows us to have a close, personal connection with a God who’s both mysteriously beyond us and deeply involved in our lives.

In Vaisnavism, the idea that God is completely unknowable just doesn’t mesh with what we know about His powers and His eagerness to engage with us. The seeming paradox of God being both acintya and knowable isn’t a contradiction—it’s resolved beautifully through divine revelation. God’s in charge of both hiding and showing aspects of Himself, all according to His divine plan. This dance of concealment and revelation is part of what makes the relationship with Him so dynamic and profound.