One of the things that I often struggle with is the balance between God and knowledge. It always seems that knowledge takes us away from God and our ability to perceive miracles as miracles rather than an affect from a cause. Do you believe that knowledge separates man from God?

That’s a tough question Andrea, particularly as I have always found the idea of God difficult to get my head around. However while I was studying Catholicism I remember learning that Catholics believe there were seven gifts given by the Holy Spirit to man, and one of these was knowledge. I looked it up again (as your question intrigued me!) and the explanation was that knowledge allows man to understand the meaning of God - it is not just "an accumulation of facts” as we might assume the word 'knowledge' to mean. So if God (in the form of the Spirit) gave knowledge to man then I can’t see that it could separate man from God. If anything, it seems it should equip man to know God better. Does that make sense?

Personally I believe that God gave people knowledge. Why he would do it if that separates us from God? It seems contradictory. God created the first man Adam and thought him all the things. Even the angels didn’t know some of the things Adam learnt from God. That’s how it is said in the Quran: “God taught Adam the names, all of them. Then He showed them to the angels and said, "Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful. They said, "Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise." (Al-Baqarah 2:31-32)
There are very good sayings like “Learning is the eye of the mind” or “knowledge is power”. On the contrary ignorance lets people commit sinful deeds without even realizing that. God gave us his word so that we could learn what is right and what is wrong. Distinguishing bad from good helps people live a life that God wants us to. But only if the knowledge is practical. If we say one thing but our life doesn’t show it, and even contradictory to that, then we only pretend to be good. Such people are called hypocrites. They are those who possess the knowledge. They say they agree with it but don’t act on it.
Also some people don’t believe in miracles because they are trying to find a rational scientific explanation to everything. But the truth is that our knowledge is limited. Only God knows everything and we have just a small part of the knowledge. I don’t think that everything can be explained merely from an academic point of view because it is just a small area of our lives. And often when we face many life’s challenges and problems and find a way out, especially out of situation that everyone says is hopeless, then we really grow in our faith and understand there is something more than we can comprehend.

To tell the truth, I think that knowledge does bring us closer to God, but it depends on how we treat it, our attitude. There are many scientists who were always agnostics and when started their research in astronomy or biology, came to the fact that God actually exists, well, at least a supernatural power. So they came to this conclusion through knowledge, by learning and researching though being realist and logical thinkers.
I had once a thought - people are simply afraid of religion, because they fear it will take us back to medieval times and will not allow to learn and discover, or maybe in society there is an idea that who believes in God is not rational and doesn't use logic.

In my view just knowledge itself does not bring us any closer to God at all. If you ask some people: do you believe in God? They say: yes. But they don’t preach what they say! How many of those are there who are reverends in the church, or pastors, or others claiming to belong to Christianity or any other religion and then they go and commit adultery, steal, rape, commit homosexuality or abuse young children! Well looks like they actually have knowledge, probably know the Bible, or Quran, or any other religious book through and through. But does this knowledge make them closer to God if their deeds contradict everything God wants from us? It is interesting that demons do have knowledge of God, but there are on the opposite side! Let’s look in the Book of Luke 4:41, it tells us: “Jesus many times silenced the demons He met. “Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’” It really demonstrates very clearly that dark powers also have the knowledge but this knowledge doesn’t make them any better. I urge everyone: let’s be wise enough and not just have the knowledge but let this knowledge transform our souls, our lives, let the light shine in our lives!

It is interesting topic, but I think that knowledge lead us to God. The more we know the closer we come to God, because when the person is educated man he is more polite and kind. And educated person keeping the commandments of the Bible more, than uneducated and impolite. Contrary, I believe that the more knowledge we have the more God we have.
Maybe there are people who like to live in the dark, but I think the majority still prefer to know what is happening with him and why it is happen, not only rely on the will of God, and miracles can happen even when we have lots of knowledge. It does not necessarily to refuse of knowledge. And one important point: we'll never know enough to explain everything and every miracle in our life. All what is happening around us is a miracle in some case. Still in our lives will always be a place for a miracle. And I think it will always remain a place for miracle in our lives.
I also believe that a person filled with the knowledge becomes more enlightened or something. He becomes a little higher than others, and thus approaches to God.
Then there are different methods of comprehending of God and the world. First one is through books, the second one is through empirical way, and it is possible through meditation and through inner peace. I think in this case, we can helped by our subconscious, because it keeps a large amount of information and if we look there we can find the answer to all questions. As sometimes happens, think long time over some problem and can’t find answer or solution and then forget about this, and the answer pops up himself. I think in this situation it is work of the subconscious. And I think our subconscious have knowledge not only in the form of facts, but also the knowledge about the world and universe, because we are all particles of something bigger. Each of us is a part of the universe, that is way each of us is stored somewhere universal knowledge, and our task is to get them and to understand. And by this we bring closer ourselves to God.
But if you're talking only about the theoretical knowledge and facts, then there is another situation. This knowledge don’t bring us closer to God, they are simply neutral and exist by themselves in our head. But if you you're talking about deeper knowledge, for example about the total structure of the world and understanding of the laws of the universe, then this knowledge certainly bring us closer to God.
And also very important is your attitude to knowledge, because any knowledge can be used for good or for bad and if we use our knowledge for bad of course it will not bring closer us to God, but I think a person who is able to harm will not have access to such knowledge that can destroy something big. It is like a first test. Even when we are took to job, first time we are not gave a difficult task. We are gave an easy task, and then harder, and so on. Also with knowledge. First person gets knowledge harmless, not so important and then deeper, and if it goes well with this knowledge, he opened a more complex and interesting mysteries of the world.
But it is very individual and every people have to live like he feels. This is my opinion and I think that I need to learn something new every day, because it is bring me to God, but may be another people feels that he have not to get knowledge, because it is separate him from God. WE have to listen our heart.