illumination and the cooperation of our minds with absolute truth

When we talk about absolute truth in the postmodern church, one of the questions that's been coming up is:

Even if we have absolute truth and it's communicated in the Bible, how can we have certainty in our understanding of that truth? After all, humans are finite to begin with and depraved since the fall. So how could we be presumptuous enough to believe that with our corrupt minds, we've truly got a grasp on much (if any) of what God is saying in the Bible?

I was thinking about this in the shower today. And into my head popped the name of a doctrine I haven't even really thought about in years: illumination.

Of course, as the evangelical dictionary of theology points out, the word illumination has been used to refer to several different concepts in the history of Christian thought. And apparently, wikipedia considers it a synonym for enlightenment. But I'm talking about the idea I learned as a child that when a follower of Christ reads the Bible, God in the person of the Holy Spirit (okay, no more wikipedia today) may interact with our minds so that we can correctly understand the passage we're reading. The existence and extent of that interaction would be dependent on the believer's being "in fellowship with God," as sin in a believer's life hinders the work of the Spirit. According to Ryrie's article in the EDC, the doctrine is supported by John 16:13 and helped by 1 Cor. 2:9-10. To me, these verses don't specifically teach the doctrine as I've stated it, but they certainly would allow for it. And perhaps this is one answer to the question of how we can trust our understanding of absolute truth.

When our finite minds which corrupted by the fall look at scripture, if we are walking in an intimate relationship with God, then the Holy Spirit will open our minds to properly understand God's absolute truth.

This is obviously going to be a pretty subjective idea -- after all, if the Holy Spirit illuminates the minds of believers to understand scripture, then why don't all mature Christians interpret scripture the same way? But maybe it's a start for understanding how our minds truly can interact with God's truth in a valid way. We should also consider the idea of the present fulfillment of our status as "new creations" and how that affects our interaction with truth.