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The Knowledge of God

Essays on god, christ, and church, by dr. michael allen.

The Knowledge of God  turns to consider the knowledge of God revealed in the Word of God, with several essays addressing the doctrine of God, then the person of Christ, and finally the miracle of the church.

Michael Allen shows the exegetical shape of historical and dogmatic reasoning as well as the significance of thinking about these topics in their interrelationships with a range of other Christian themes, not least the doctrine of the living and true God. In each of these topics, the theme of the promise and nature of God’s presence (whether in his own life or then in the economy of the incarnation and of the church) proves to be a unifying thread. The gospel is shown to be rooted backward in God’s own life and to have consequence forward for the ongoing life of Christ displayed in his church.

This volume explores what it means to learn of and come to know God, who has life in himself and then shares his life with us in the coming of his Son and the ongoing presence amidst his body, the church of Christ.

These chapters exhibit a Reformed theological self-understanding amply catholic enough for Christians of many confessions and traditions to find themselves implicated and interested in. Michael Allen asserts the definite orientation of his overall systematic project more clearly here than in any of his previous works.

In this welcome collection of essays, Michael Allen brings his knowledge, insight, and erudition to bear on a range of dogmatic topics at the very centre of the Christian faith – God, Jesus Christ, and the church. The result is a series of soundings that offer biblically grounded, traditionally informed, and constructively poised wisdom to provoke and resource theological reflection today. Readers will find themselves not only informed and challenged, but also encouraged by this splendid volume.

Reformed Theological Seminary is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies

Knowledge of God’s existence summary notes

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This topic is about what is the right basis for Christian belief in God? Most Theologians agree that faith is a vital pillar of Christian belief. Some theologians (tends to be Catholic natural theologians) claim that reason can also support faith in God. Protestants tend to disagree.

Natural theology – knowledge about God can be gained through the power of the human mind.

Revealed theology – knowledge about God can be gained through faith. 

Pretty much all theologians agree with revealed theology. 

The debate is between those who also subscribe to natural theology, and the Fideists – theologians who argue that only revealed theology is valid – knowledge about God can only be gained through faith.

Aquinas’ natural theology (+Brunner)

• Reason is a gift from God, resulting from being made in his image.
• God designed our reason with the power to know of his existence (teleological & cosmological arguments) and his morality (natural law ethics).
• Aquinas’ argument for natural theology:
• Aquinas thought that original sin couldn’t have completely destroyed our ability to reason. 
• We have reason due to being made in the image of God, and that’s what distinguished us from the animals according to Genesis. If original sin had completely corrupted us and totally destroyed our ability to reason, then we would just be like animals. But we aren’t – we are still morally responsible and have some reasoning ability left, and that is capable of knowing God’s existence and morality.
• Karl Barth – rejected natural theology as placing a dangerous overreliance on human reason.
• Reason is corrupted by original sin. Original sin might not have totally destroyed reason, but it does make it unreliable. 
• “The finite has no capacity for the infinite”.
• Our finite minds have no – zero – capacity to understand God’s infinite nature.
• So, we should not use reason to know God.
• If we make a mistake when trying to use reason to know God, then we will gain a false view of God and could end up worshipping the wrong thing – perhaps even worshipping something earthly – which is idolatry. This is dangerous as it can lead to the worship of human things like nations, fatherlands, and that he argued contributed to Nazism.
• Barth concluded we should solely rely on faith in the Bible.
• Barth’s argument is unsuccessful because Aquinas isn’t saying reason can grasp God’s infinite being, however – he’s just arguing that it can support faith through giving us inductive evidence in support of God’s existence.
• Aquinas just says there must be some unmoved mover and whatever that is ‘that thing we call God’.
• Similarly, with natural law, reason isn’t grasping God’s infinite eternal law – just the lesser natural law within our nature.
• Through reason we can also know that God has a quality of love/power/knowledge which is analogous to ours yet proportionally greater than our own.
• Aquinas’ approach is successful because he takes care not to claim too much about God based on reason.
• Reason may sometimes indeed be corrupted, but that doesn’t mean it will always be corrupted. Sometimes, with God’s grace, human reason is capable of knowing something about God.

Calvin’s revealed theology & Calvin’s sensus divinitatis

• Humans are all born with an innate ability to sense God’s existence.
• He points out that even tribes remote from civilisation have some idea of a higher power.
• This is a variety of natural theology – because it is knowing God through the power of the human mind. 
• It’s very different to Aquinas’ style, however – since it does not involve or require reason.
• As a protestant, Calvin, like Luther and Barth, was sceptical about the ability of reason to know God.
• We can still sense God, nonetheless. This is knowing God through the power of the human mind, but not the specific power of reason.
• Calvin thought that this sense of God was required, so that people would be without excuse if they didn’t believe in God. It’s necessary that everyone know God exists, to justify sending people who don’t believe in God to hell.
• Calvin thought that natural theology through sensuing God was the only way the human mind could know God by itself.
• Calvin thought natural knowledge was insufficient, however. For full knowledge of God, such as that Christ was God incarnate (trinity), that Christ rose from the dead etc, we need faith in the Bible.
• The spread of atheism suggests this sense does not exist. Some countries like China have over 90% non-religious people. In the UK it is 37%.
• In Calvin’s time being an atheist was dangerous – people were forced to believe in God. It’s easy to see why he would get the impression that we are born with a sense of God, but it could just be because of how dominant the social pressure to believe in God was.
• Plantinga supports Calvin, suggesting that some might lack the sense of God because of sin.
• However, this is a weak argument because it assumes that atheists sin more than religious people. In fact, the northern european countries are very atheistic and yet have very low crime rates.

Romans 1:20

• The Bible seems to support Aquinas’ style of natural theology.
• “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his external power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”.
• Paul here seems to suggest that God’s qualities & nature can be understood from what he has made, i.e. the natural world. 
• This is what inductive a posteriori arguments such as Aquinas’ cosmological and teleological (design) arguments do.
• Calvin attempts to argue that this verse is really justifying his style of natural theology – not Aquinas’.
• Calvin argues this verse is not supporting knowing God through reasoning about the natural world, but through sensing God.
• However, what about the word ‘understood’ – doesn’t that imply reasoning rather than merely sensing? 
• Furthermore, the verse seems to suggest that the understanding is gained from creation itself, which sounds like reasoned inference from the natural world rather than a sense of God which isn’t derived from ‘what has been made’; creation. 
• Finally, the verse suggests that God’s qualities and nature can be understood – not just his existence, so it seems to go further than the sensus divinitatis in that regard also.
• It looks like Romans 1:20 is saying we can know God’s nature through reasoning about the natural world, not just that we can sense the existence of a higher power.

Barth’s interpretation of romans 1:20

• Barth also attempts a reinterpretation of this verse away from natural theology.
• Barth points out that just because this verse says God can be known through creation – it doesn’t follow that we are able to do that. 
• He claims humanity has become too sinful due to original sin to know God through our own mind.

Evaluation:

• However, Barth’s argument is unsatisfying because the quote clearly claims that this knowledge of God is meant to leave people ‘without excuse’. It’s hard to argue that doesn’t apply to us. 
• Adam and Eve, before original sin, metaphorically ‘walked’ and talked with God in Eden, so they had no excuse for that reason. 
• We are those born with original sin, we must be those the passage refers to as having no excuse due to this knowledge of God through reasoning about the world. 
• So, Aquinas’ style of natural theology is validated by the Bible.

The issue of original sin

• Augustine’s arguments for original sin – as the best explanation of evil existing. 
• This was very influential on protestants like Calvin and Barth.
• Aquinas’ approach was to reconcile original sin and natural theology through reason. 
• Pelagius has a much more radical approach of denying original sin altogether.
• If there is no original sin, the protestant arguments against natural theology fall apart. (They claim reason is corrupted by original sin).
• Modern science shows that Augustine is wrong – the fall didn’t happen, we evolved. 
• Genetic diversity shows that it’s not possible for all of humanity to have come from just two people. So, there was no Adam and Eve. 
• So, it makes no sense to say that human nature became cursed because of their actions when they are just fictional characters.
• Some defend original sin from this criticism, arguing that even if Augustine was wrong about the particular details by which original sin came about, we can still empirically observe that it exists. 
• C K Chesterson argued you can see original sin ‘in the street’.
• However – this defence fails because modern sociological evidence shows that humanity has improved in its rate of violence & crime, and thus sin. Stephen Pinker studied the history of violence and showed it has declined in modern society. 
• This proves that original sin cannot exist, because if we really had an irresistible temptation to sin, we could not have morally improved, yet we have.
• Evil actions are better explained by social conditioning, or what Pelagius called being ‘educated in evil’. 
• Freud could explain Augustine’s ‘pear’ story. Socialisation forces us to feel frustrated over repressing our instincts to the point where rebelling against social control can feel good in itself.
• Pelagius travelled from Ireland to Augustine’s part of the world, and noted that people in Rome were much more sinful than he was used to, which proves this sociological point that it is culture and upbringing which causes sinful behaviour. Believing it is nature is really just an excuse.
• If there is any selfishness in human nature, evolution is a much simpler and more scientific explanation of it.

Eternal Life as Knowledge of God Essay

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Many Christians claim to know God because they possess propositional knowledge about an infinite being who they believe to be the creator of the universe. However, this is insufficient because the best knowledge of God should be attained through acquaintance with Him. Many Christians focus on hoarding facts about God but rarely connect with Him at a personal level through their hearts, actions, thoughts, and ways of living. The teachings of Christianity are revered for their depth and simplicity.

However, few Christians apply and live them as a way of cultivating deep relationships with God. For instance, compassion, kindness, and generosity are key tenets that help Christians connect with God. Human beings can only connect with God through their souls. In order to be acquainted with God, Christians are advised to grow their spirituality. Christianity promotes meditation and prayer as core ways of connecting and communicating with God.

Numerous Christian teachings provide knowledge about God that is relayed through the Causal-Acquaintance Principle. For instance, all aspects of life that are beyond human comprehension are attributed to God. For instance, Christians are acquainted with God through observing His effect on their lives.

Christianity teaches that God created humans. Therefore, human life is attributed to God as the source. Christians believe in eternal life. This belief emanates from the teaching that the human spirit is indestructible because it is part of God. Therefore, when a Christian dies, the spirit survives and passes on to eternal life.

The teachings of Christianity are based on the life of Jesus. According to Christian beliefs and teachings, Jesus was one with God. Therefore, he possessed knowledge of God. His teachings were aimed at helping people know God and develop loving relationships with Him as their source. Loving God is the main way of knowing and developing a relationship with Him.

Christians believe that avoidance of sin and emulation of the life of Jesus are sufficient to create a relationship with God. To know God is to be acquainted with Jesus through living his teachings. Jesus taught numerous precepts that are important for connection with God. They include love of God and fellow humans, faith in God, kindness, hope, and compassion.

When Christians live their lives governed by the precepts of Christianity, they connect and form eternal relationships with God. One of the core requirements of knowing God is avoidance of sin. God is pure and Christians are called upon to live spiritually and morally upright lives. The effects of knowing God manifest through experiences that cannot be comprehended by the human mind. For instance, love, wisdom, joy, peace, and happiness are signs of deep communion and acquaintance with God.

Christianity teaches that God sacrificed His only son because of the love He had for the human race. Sacrifice is another way of expressing God in life. Whenever Christians sacrifice for the sake of other people, they express the love that Jesus taught. The teachings of Jesus instill confidence in God, which is a core aspect of knowing God.

Christians know God through the observance of tenets such as love, compassion, sacrifice for fellow humans, and kindness. Following Christian teachings and having faith in God cultivate lasting relationships with God. The reward for living the teachings of Christianity is eternal life. This is based on the belief that God will resurrect souls and elevate them to eternal life.

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IvyPanda. (2020, March 26). Eternal Life as Knowledge of God. https://ivypanda.com/essays/eternal-life-as-knowledge-of-god/

"Eternal Life as Knowledge of God." IvyPanda , 26 Mar. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/eternal-life-as-knowledge-of-god/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Eternal Life as Knowledge of God'. 26 March.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Eternal Life as Knowledge of God." March 26, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/eternal-life-as-knowledge-of-god/.

1. IvyPanda . "Eternal Life as Knowledge of God." March 26, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/eternal-life-as-knowledge-of-god/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Eternal Life as Knowledge of God." March 26, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/eternal-life-as-knowledge-of-god/.

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Knowledge of God as Assimilation and Participation: An Essay on Theological Pedagogy in the Light of Biblical Epistemology

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I Think Therefore I Teach

Tips for A level students. Lesson ramblings for teachers (helpful ideas too!)

Natural and Revealed Knowledge of God: DCT

Preview of Lesson Plans

PP: How can knowledge be gained – discussion question. Write down answers then share as a class

Work through the PP: up to Immediate and Meditate revelation

Hand out stories (Abraham, Decalogue and Plagues) (worksheets)

Students read stories, summarise each, then pick one and create a story board linking it to Immediate and Mediate Revelation (and Natural Theology if possible)

Glossary (worksheet)

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The mystical knowledge of God : an essay in the art of knowing and loving the divine majesty

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Divine Revelation: God Making Himself Known

Other essays.

God’s makes himself known as Lord through divine revelation, which is given to all people through creation and human nature and to specific people through events, inspired human words recorded as Scripture, and Jesus Christ himself.

God makes himself known to his creatures because he first knows himself perfectly as a personal, speaking God. Although all people suppress the knowledge of God in their sin, he has clearly communicated about himself to his creatures through the creation and through human’s being made in the image of God. On top of this general revelation, God communicates about himself to particular people in special revelation, which includes the events of nature and history, human words that are inspired by God and recorded for us in Scripture, and through the person of Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate image of God. In all of these different ways, God reveals himself as Lord, which is comprised of his control, presence, and authority over all things.

The God of the Bible is a personal being, in contrast with the gods of many other religions and philosophies who are abstract or impersonal forces. The doctrine of the Trinity underscores this fact, for the biblical God is not only personal but a society of persons, existing eternally in mutual love and deference (John 17).

So, whatever God does he makes known. The persons of the Trinity know one another exhaustively, and each understands the thoughts and actions of the others. In human beings, there are hidden depths in our nature so that we cannot fully understand our own actions and motives. But God is fully known to himself. Much about God is mysterious to us, but not to him.

One way Scripture describes God’s exhaustive self-knowledge is by saying that he is a speaking God or, simply, that he is Word :

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

God is not only eternal, holy, all-powerful, and so on, but he expresses and shares those qualities through something like human speech. In his eternal nature, he has the power to speak (the “Word”), and that power to speak is who he is: his Word is eternally with him, and his Word is his very nature. John identifies this Word with Jesus Christ in John 1:14. In Jesus, the Word became flesh. So the existence of the Word did not begin with Jesus’s incarnation. There are hundreds of references to the divine word in Scripture, in both testaments, as the means by which God reveals himself.

Moreover, God reveals himself to himself, each Trinitarian person to the other two, and his revelation extends beyond his own being. It comes also to the world he has created, and especially to the intelligent creatures of that world: angels and human beings. Because self-revelation is his nature, he wants all his creatures to know him.

The creatures of the world cannot know God exhaustively. One cannot know God exhaustively unless one is God. But creatures receive great benefits from knowing God; indeed, they cannot live without knowing him, for he is the author of life. This is true both of our natural lives and our spiritual lives. Adam came alive when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). And Jesus says that the great benefit of eternal life, his salvation from sin, is the benefit of knowing God:

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

In one sense, all human beings, even the wicked, know God:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (Rom. 1:18–20).

But many reject this revelation, people who, Paul says, “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”  (Rom. 1:18). Though God is clearly revealed to all, fallen people prefer to deny that they know him, as Adam hid from God in the Garden (Gen. 3:8). When people say they do not know God, it is not because God has failed to reveal himself, or that God’s revelation is not clear enough. Rather, their ignorance of God is something they have done to themselves. They are lying to themselves, trying to convince themselves that God does not exist or that he is obscure, while all the time God is staring them in the face.

God Reveals Himself as the Lord

God’s personal name is Lord , which translates the mysterious name I AM which God revealed to Moses in Ex. 3:14–16. His lordship connotes particularly his control, authority, and presence in relation to the world he has made (see John Frame, The Doctrine of God , pp. 21–240, and The Doctrine of the Word of God , pp. 3–14, 47–68). Everything he does reflects his lordship in these ways, including his revelation. Scripture describes God’s word-revelation in terms of his control as a powerful force:

Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? (Jer. 23:29)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb. 4:12)

It also makes clear that God’s word of revelation has supreme authority :

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. (John 12:48)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17)

And God’s word, his revelation, is also his presence , the place where he meets with his people. God’s nearness to Israel is the nearness of his word (Deut. 4:7–8, 30:11–14). And God comes to be “with us,” Immanuel , in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, his living word to us (John 1:1–14).

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

It was mentioned earlier that the biblical God is personal , not an abstract force like the gods of the nations. His revelation is particularly a personal encounter between him and his people. When we hear revelation, we hear God himself. Our response to it should be a response appropriate to supreme power, to ultimate authority, and to an intimate Father.

General and Special Revelation

Theologians make various distinctions among types of revelation. The most common is between general and special revelation. General revelation is revelation of God given to everybody. It is the kind of revelation described in Romans 1. It tells us that God exists, what kind of God he is, and his moral standards. In revealing God’s standards, it shows us that we have not measured up to them. Paul says of general revelation that it reveals God’s wrath on sinners (Rom. 1:18). General revelation comes to us through the natural world (what is called natural revelation) and through our own nature. For we ourselves are revelation, the image of God according to Genesis 1:26–27.

On the other hand, special revelation is revelation God gives to selected messengers, charging them to bring the message to others. Those messengers may be angels, prophets, or apostles. The message may be presented orally or may be consigned to writing, as when the apostles wrote authoritative letters to the churches (see 1 Cor. 14:37–38). The Bible as a whole is a special revelation of God in written form (2 Tim. 3:15–17). The messages of special revelation typically contain one or both of two different kinds of contents: threats of judgment and promises of grace. The gospel is a special revelation of grace, a message of supremely good news:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Media of Revelation

Another way to distinguish between types of revelation is to distinguish the different ways in which revelation comes to us, the media of revelation. There are basically three types of media: events, words, and persons. These three categories correspond roughly to our earlier distinction between control, authority, and presence. But both these threefold distinctions are perspectives on the whole of revelation. The events of revelation not only manifest God’s control, but also his authority and presence; similarly the words and persons.

God reveals himself in the events of nature and history. We learn of him from the changing seasons, from the power of nature, from the sun, moon, and stars. We also learn of him through history, the particular events that shape the fortunes of human beings. He is the one who gave to all the nations their boundaries (Acts 17:26) and brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt to possess the land of promise. In his plan, general history becomes redemptive history , the events by which God arranges to redeem his people from sin by the coming of Jesus.

In one sense, all of God’s revelation is word-revelation, because it proceeds from God’s own speech, the Word of John 1:1–14. But sometimes God gives us word-revelation in a further sense: revelation in which the medium is human words. But God does not leave us to figure out for ourselves what he is doing in history. He enters our experience and speaks to us in human words. In this way, the words of the prophets are the very words of God himself. God defines prophet to Moses in this way:

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I commend him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (Deut. 18:18-22)

When a prophet or apostle writes down God’s words, the document is Holy Scripture, a document to be received as the Lord’s power, authority, and presence (2 Tim. 3:15–17, 2 Pet. 1:19–21).

Since God is a tri-personal being, his revelation is particularly vivid when it takes the form of persons. God made Adam and Eve in his image to be revelations of himself (Gen. 1:26–27). And it should not surprise us that the highest, deepest divine revelation is the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, God in person. Jesus displays his Father’s control over all things (Mark 4:41), speaks his Father’s words (John 3:34), and appears as the Father’s glorified presence with his people (Matt. 17:1-8).

If we are to know God, it is important for us to seek knowledge in God’s own way. Many have tried to gain knowledge of God through their unaided reason, or through some kind of subjective intuition. But the God of the Bible has told us not only who he is but also how we should seek knowledge of him. That knowledge comes as we attend to his created world, not repressing the truth in unrighteousness, but accepting his own guidance, his special revelation in Scripture and in Jesus. Only through these appointed means can we come to know him as Lord and as our Savior from sin.

Further Reading

• Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology
• Benjamin B. Warfield, Revelation and Inspiration
• Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith
• Cornelius Van Til, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture
• J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
• John Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God
• Ned Stonehouse and Paul Woolley, The Infallible Word
• Paul Mizzi, “ Divine Revelation ”
• Peter Lillback and Richard Gaffin, eds., Thy Word is Still Truth
• R. C. Sproul, “ Divine Revelation ”

This essay is part of the Concise Theology series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material.

This essay has been translated into French .

Developments in Christian Thought

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Knowledge of God's Existence ESSAY PLANS- Philosophy & Ethics A Level

Subject: Philosophy and ethics

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2 ESSAY PLANS IN THIS BUNDLE These essay plans helped me get an A* overall in OCR Philosophy & Ethics (Full Marks on ethics paper). Essay plans discussing the complexities surrounding knowledge of God’s existence. The essay plans have a particular focus on AO1, so that students are able to learn this topics content whilst acknowledging how they are going to categorise this information in an essay. This produces essays that contain the most relevant and well-organised information. These essay plans specifically target the knowledge that ‘learners should know’ as said on the specification. These essay plans are VERY detailed. This is because I designed my essay plans so that they can be used without the aid of revision notes, in isolation. All the extra detail you need on the topics have been included in the essay plans.

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Mystical Knowledge of God: An Essay in the Art of Knowing and Loving the Divine Majesty Paperback – September 10, 2010

• Print length 158 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Kessinger Publishing
• Publication date September 10, 2010
• Dimensions 7.5 x 0.34 x 9.25 inches
• ISBN-10 1162564601
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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Kessinger Publishing (September 10, 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1162564601
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1162564609
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.34 x 9.25 inches

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