Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Justin Martyr says that men referred to Yahweh as "the completely hidden One."
The building of an altar to an unknown god indicated that the people of Athens desired to know God.
In his oration Paul said to the Athenians, “I found also an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” In intellectual consciousness what does this altar indicate? The dedication of an altar to the unknown God is an admission of ignorance, but it is often boasted of as indicative of tolerance and religious generosity. The broad-minded man with a devotional turn of mind points to his altar to the unknown God and says, “Although we know nothing about your omnipresent, spiritual God, this altar shows that we are not narrow; that we welcome all concepts of God.”
“An Unknown God,” thereby avoiding all cause for offense. At the same time, he awakened in his listeners a desire to know something of the real God, which their idol typified
The character of God as Absolute Being cannot be comprehended by the intellect. The Truth, therefore, makes a total denial of all beliefs about God of a temporal character. God does not require anything at our hands, being the source of all. Even personality is not recognized by the Divine Mind; he knows only unity and oneness in all men and all nations.
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