A friend of mine recently expressed an interest in studying philosophy. However, while researching it, she came across the idea that people who study philosophy tend to lose their belief in God, or that philosophy somehow weakens one's faith. This made her hesitant about pursuing it because she wondered whether it would eventually distance her from God.

This got me thinking about the relationship between philosophy, knowledge and faith.

I told her that faith is trusting God with things you cannot control. But I also wanted her to consider something: have you ever thought about the limitations of human knowledge and understanding?

There's a concept in philosophy that explores the limits of what we can know and understand. I think this is particularly interesting when discussing our understanding of God.

Think about it. We experience the world through our senses. We have eyes to see certain things and ears to hear sounds within particular frequencies. Yet, there are things we aren't aware of, things our bare eyes cannot see and sounds our ears cannot hear. Their existence doesn't depend on whether we can perceive them or not.

We tend to process things and make decisions based on what we can comprehend, often through a familiar lens. So, when something falls outside that understanding, we sometimes become skeptical, uncomfortable or even afraid of it.

But does our inability to understand something mean it doesn't exist?

Consider the relationship between a human and a fish. They are two very different forms of life, with different ways of experiencing and interacting with the world. A fish has its own means of communication, but we cannot expect it to communicate in a way that humans can hear or understand. In the same way, we cannot expect a fish to understand our communication as we do.

I'm not suggesting that God and humans are the same as two different species. I'm simply using the analogy to explain that our limitations in knowledge and ability don't necessarily determine what exists.

I think something similar applies to our relationship with God. What God is cannot be fully comprehended by us as humans. We can understand aspects of His nature, but can we ever claim to understand Him completely? His ways and nature may extend beyond what we can fully access or process through our human understanding.

And this is where I think philosophy comes in.

Tbh, I don't believe that studying philosophy necessarily means distancing ourselves from God or abandoning our faith. I think questioning, reasoning and examining what we believe can actually help us understand our faith better and develop a deeper appreciation of our relationship with God.

Perhaps we shouldn't be so afraid of asking questions. After all, acknowledging that we don't know or understand everything is also part of learning.

If our understanding of the world is limited by our human nature, should we expect to comprehend everything about existence, let alone God?