Knowing God by J I Packer

Some things really struck me just now as I am reading the preface and Ch 1 of J I Packer's Knowing God. He writes:

In A Preface to Christian Theology, John Mackay illustrates two kinds of interest in Christian things by picturing persons sitting on the high front balcony of a Spanish house watching travelers go by on the road below. The "balconeers" can overhear the travelers' talk and chat with them; they may comment critically on the way that the travelers walk; or they may discuss questions about the road, how it can exist at all or lead anywhere, what might be seen for differnt points along it, and so forth; but they are onlookers, and their problems which, though they have their theoretical angle, are essentially practical-problems of the "which-way-to-go" and "how-to-make-it" type, problems which call not merely for comprehension but for decision and action too.

Balconeers and travelers may think over the same area, yet their problems differ. Thus (for instance) in relation to evil, the balconeer's problem is to find a theoretical explanation of how evil can consist with God's sovereignty and goodness, but the traveler's problem is how to master evil and bring good out of it. Or again, in relation to sin, the balconeer asks whether racial sinfulness and personal perversity are really credible, while the traveler, knowing sin from within, askes what hope there is of deliverence. Or take the problem of the Godhead; while the balconeer is asking how one God can conceivably be three, what sort of unity three could have, and how three who make one can be persons, the traveler wants to know how to show proper honor, love an dtrust toward the three Persons who are now together at work to bring him out of sin to glory. And so we might go on.

I am really struck by the explanation of this. It makes perfect sense to me as a traveler. Balconeers might say, "How do you know that God is even there?" But His children say, "I just know He is!" Even when I struggled as a child with doubting my salvation because of the wickedness I still saw in myself, when I stopped worrying and looked to God, I had no doubt that I knew Him and had sensed his Presence and known His work in my life. The thing is, one can never know this from looking on "from the balcony" so to speak. But those who truely know God, though doubts and fears may assail us from time to time, know that we know.

And then Packer goes on tosay:

My proposal is this. You will know how (John) Bunyan's pilgrim (in Pilgrim's progress), when called back by his wife and children from the journey on which he was setting out, "put his finders in his ears, and ran on crying, Life, Life, Eternal Life." I ask you for the moment to stop your ears to those who tell you there is no road to knowledge about God, and come a little way with me and see. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and anyone who is actually following a recognized road will not be too worried if he hears nontravelers telling each other that no such road exists.