Earlier this year, a documentary was released called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus". It purported that an archeology team had recently found a tomb that had a man named Jesus in it. If this was the Jesus of the Bible this would have been the greatest discovery in the history of the Western world. Unfortunately it came up well short as every well-credentialed archeologist said it was nothing of the sort. Jesus was a common name and the tomb did not fit where Jesus would have been buried or the income level of Jesus' family. What shocked me however was that the documentary makers made a revealing and stunning comment to soften the public blow on Christianity - they said that the discovery shouldn't hurt Christianity at all. I was screaming in my head, "What?! How do you get that idea?"
The only possible way you can make sense of such a comment is to think one of three things: Jesus' resurrection was spiritual, Christianity is not about facts but faith, or he had no idea that Jesus' death and ressurection is the backbone of Christianity. I would guess that they would not be so niave to believe the last one. It is possible that they are familiar with the debate on Christ's ressurection being spiritual or bodily. But I would guess it was the middle one because that is a common view in today's world, especially the academic world.
But this view of Christianity is become a "Christian" mindset as well. As christians, especially in the west, have begun to lose their identity in the intellectual realm, they have not fought this but actually are now encouraging it. There is a movement happening in the evangelical crowd. It's moving to emotionalism, cliche phrases that have no honesty left in them, and even a lite form of fideism. The reason why is because the Christian worldview, throughout most of the 20th century, had no true, cogent answer to the growing western world. As It lost its indentity in as compitent, reasonable worldview, it drifted into what it was comfortable with. The result is a group that are copycats to culture, mindless in worship, and ignorant in thought. Anyone who has grown up in an evangelical church has heard the verses "God's ways are greater than my ways" and "how unsearchable are your ways oh God" taken out of context at least once. We have come to the conclusion that faith equals not asking questions and not trying to work things out. I wonder what they would do when they realized that Job, Habakuk, Abraham, and the disciples all asked questions.
Christianity has become a religion that is based on leaps in the dark and not truth. These "leap in the dark" moments are called faithful moments. Is this faith?
When Jesus coming into a town, some servants of a Roman centurion came to him and asked him to heal their masters greatest servant from a deathy sickness. Jesus agreed to come the centurion's house. As he came closer to the house, the centurion sent out his servants again and the servants said that their master did not need Jesus to come out of his way for him but that Jesus just needed to say the word and he would be confident in the healing of his servant - for has the centurion had authority to tell people to do things so did Jesus have authority to do what is in his power to do. Jesus said that he had not found such faith in anyone else he had encountered and that the centurion's servant has been healed. What kind of faith did this man have in Jesus? It was definitely not a leap in the dark.
The centurion obviously knew of Jesus and his power. He based his belief on what was true. He heard the testimony of Jesus' miracles and understood Jesus' authority. This is the very opposite many see Christianity today. Many people see Christianity in the light of: their faith makes it true for them. However, this is not how the Bible sees faith. The Bible sees it this way: truth makes their faith reasonable. Truth precedes faith, not the other way around. The centurion heard of Jesus and knew of his power, and based his faith in Jesus on the evidence given to him.
The word for faith in the new testament is "pistis". This greek word is probably best understood as having trust in something that is reliable. It is the idea of trusting in something that has been well tested. It is not a leap in the dark where you are trusting anything, whether reliable or not. Faith, in the Christian sense, is not this. As the centurion trusted in Jesus and his authority because of knowing of Jesus and his works, so do Christians trust in God. The Christian idea of faith is dependent on truth and evidence. They have yet to find Jesus' dead body and I believe they never will because the evidence does not point to his grave but his ressurection. The evidence for the resurrection is obviously not 100% and that is why faith comes in. But I have faith that Jesus did raise from the dead because the evidence points that direction. Faith is not the absence of thought or reason, it is the trusting in the conclusion that the evidence points to.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Obedience
When I was younger, and even into my late teens, I was under the impression that obedience was a necessity to having favor with God. I heard all my life that Jesus loves me, and coupled that was usually the phrase “If you tithe, Jesus will bless you.” Within the fabric of my worldview was this tension that I never liked. But I always stayed in it because the danger of denying good actions at the time was the movement of denying goodness at the same time. It was the movement that said that what matters in honesty and God is okay with your faults and doesn’t expect you to really get over them. Or we’re human and God realizes that – he cares about you loving him and not you obeying his impossible demands. This “honesty” seemed even more deadly – at least my way I was still doing good things. So I chose the approach that if I do good things, then God is in favor with me and blesses me, but if I do bad things, he will chastise me. This is in the Bible, but it is not all there is.
This thought pattern is common too. Many people I have met have this idea that we must have favor with God through obedience, or that my good works will get me one more crown in heaven, or, for the non-Christian, that my good works will get me heaven. The problem here is our view of morality. In his book “The Grand Weaver”, Ravi Zacharias points to a definitive fact that really helps us shape our view of morality: “In every religion except Christianity, morality is a means of attainment.” He goes on to explain that the Hindu and Buddhist use morality to shape and offset their karma, and how the Muslim follows his strict moral code to obtain favor with Allah and hopefully heaven, if Allah so chooses. Christianity doesn’t see morality as a way to attain anything.
But there is more. Zacharias makes a very profound statement about that cracks the door on what morality means to a Christian: “Here the Hebrew-Christian worldview stands distinct and definitively different. Redemption precedes morality, and not the other way around.” We see this in the giving of the Ten Commandments, as Zacharias points out. In Exodus chapter twenty we find a qualifier for the Ten Commandments that not only states God’s authority over law-giving but also states a very indicative statement about the Israelites. Before God gave the commandments he told them, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Here God sets before them that they should do good not because they need to attain anything, but because they are redeemed.
And this is the same in the New Covenant. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus looks at his disciples and says,
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. . . Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Notice that Jesus said, “You ARE the light of the world”. This is very important because it is an indicative statement. He is not saying, like many evangelists do, that you should be the light of the world and that you must work hard to become it. Jesus says you are the light of the world, which means you are redeemed, that you have a new nature.
Paul pointed this out too when he said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Once again we see that good actions do attain anything but redemption gives validation to our good actions. As Zacharias says so well, “Jesus did not come to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.”
So what is morality to a Christian? I was at this point as I kept asking myself, “Why am I being obedient?” It is a valid question. If my salvation is not based on what I do, but on what I have become then what role does obedience have? If I’m made holy as the Bible says then why do I still mess up?
These are questions that I still struggle with. One thing that has really helped me to start to make sense of these longings is to realize the purpose of obedience, thankfully, is not about attaining anything; it is to honor and glorify the one who did redeem me. This is why we are light so that we may glorify our Father.
My obedience is also a very important part of my relationship with God – the Creator/creature, Father/son relationship. My obedience is in direct correlation with my closeness to God. The Bible is very clear that God never leaves you nor forsakes you. You push yourself away from Him. This is what happened in Eden. As we read Paul’s words from Ephesians, he makes a wonderful statement about how we were created in Christ Jesus (made new through redemption) for good works. We are made new so that we can once again glorify and honor our Creator. We do good because of who we are not because of what we want to become. This is obedience: submission to the nature God has given us.
This thought pattern is common too. Many people I have met have this idea that we must have favor with God through obedience, or that my good works will get me one more crown in heaven, or, for the non-Christian, that my good works will get me heaven. The problem here is our view of morality. In his book “The Grand Weaver”, Ravi Zacharias points to a definitive fact that really helps us shape our view of morality: “In every religion except Christianity, morality is a means of attainment.” He goes on to explain that the Hindu and Buddhist use morality to shape and offset their karma, and how the Muslim follows his strict moral code to obtain favor with Allah and hopefully heaven, if Allah so chooses. Christianity doesn’t see morality as a way to attain anything.
But there is more. Zacharias makes a very profound statement about that cracks the door on what morality means to a Christian: “Here the Hebrew-Christian worldview stands distinct and definitively different. Redemption precedes morality, and not the other way around.” We see this in the giving of the Ten Commandments, as Zacharias points out. In Exodus chapter twenty we find a qualifier for the Ten Commandments that not only states God’s authority over law-giving but also states a very indicative statement about the Israelites. Before God gave the commandments he told them, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Here God sets before them that they should do good not because they need to attain anything, but because they are redeemed.
And this is the same in the New Covenant. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus looks at his disciples and says,
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. . . Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Notice that Jesus said, “You ARE the light of the world”. This is very important because it is an indicative statement. He is not saying, like many evangelists do, that you should be the light of the world and that you must work hard to become it. Jesus says you are the light of the world, which means you are redeemed, that you have a new nature.
Paul pointed this out too when he said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Once again we see that good actions do attain anything but redemption gives validation to our good actions. As Zacharias says so well, “Jesus did not come to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.”
So what is morality to a Christian? I was at this point as I kept asking myself, “Why am I being obedient?” It is a valid question. If my salvation is not based on what I do, but on what I have become then what role does obedience have? If I’m made holy as the Bible says then why do I still mess up?
These are questions that I still struggle with. One thing that has really helped me to start to make sense of these longings is to realize the purpose of obedience, thankfully, is not about attaining anything; it is to honor and glorify the one who did redeem me. This is why we are light so that we may glorify our Father.
My obedience is also a very important part of my relationship with God – the Creator/creature, Father/son relationship. My obedience is in direct correlation with my closeness to God. The Bible is very clear that God never leaves you nor forsakes you. You push yourself away from Him. This is what happened in Eden. As we read Paul’s words from Ephesians, he makes a wonderful statement about how we were created in Christ Jesus (made new through redemption) for good works. We are made new so that we can once again glorify and honor our Creator. We do good because of who we are not because of what we want to become. This is obedience: submission to the nature God has given us.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Sex: The Need for a Context
Annie Dillard, in her book "Living by Fiction", said that when we lose our context, we lose our meaning. In this work of hers, she dicusses postmodernity's effect on literature then shows how it has moved to our very lives and has effected our lives in the exact same way. She starts with this gripping phrase on losing our context. What is a context? It is the pre-understood circumstances in a certain situation or issue that helps certain aspects of the situation make sense. When we read in a book, "Susie opened the door," we usually have an understanding where she is or at least the circumstances that lead up to opening the door - there is a strange noise behind the door, or she is going to bed. Without this understanding, the fact that Susie opened the door has no meaning or sense to it. In Scripture interpretation we use the context of the chapter, book, covenant, and eventually the entire Bible to understand the verse. For instance John 3:16 without the rest of the Bible is an empty, nonsensical statement, but, within the context of a Creator God who made humans who denied their place as creature as well as multiple prophecies, events, and theologies, it makes much more sense. So if we are to understand what something means we must first understand its context.
From the beginning of time, man has been trying to change the context by which we live. When this happens, we pervert the meaning of life. For instance, Hitler tried to change the context of race and ended up killing many Jews and other races because of this. Hitler said race or blood was the same as the soul; and a "dirty" race meant a "dirty" soul. He made the attributes of a person equate to the person himself. By changing the context of race and soul, he destroyed the very meaning of life itself.
And we do this everyday in our lives. I was thinking of the movie "Wedding Crashers" earlier today. I have never seen it but I was thinking of how we laugh at and celebrate our shame in this culture. Think of the movie (I'm getting the summary from the trailer and from friends who have seen it): two guys sneak their selves into weddings and try to hook up with the girls who are all emotionally charged from being at a wedding. Think of the way woman are treated in that film; they are prey for the sexual appetite of these two men. But even a more staggering thought, think of audience watching this film and laughing at this - think of the women who sat through it and laughed at it, and did not make the connection to that and the guys who harrass them and pinch their butts as they walk down the street. The context of a woman's worth has been destroyed by this culture through this type of entertainment where women become objects that satisfy instead of people to respect and cherish. When we sit there and encourage this behavior are we not admitting its legitimacy in our own lives? Remember the context is how we interpret the meaning of a statement or action. If we see women being treated this way and we see people react in such a way towards it, then the meaning of a woman's worth has been perverted. It is though Hitler has walked into the room and said, "A woman's worth is according to how well she can satisfy." Attributes once again establish the meaning of a life.
This is where the point hits. We have changed the context, which means we have made it something it was not meant to be. If the context gives legitimacy and meaning to the object, person, situation, event, issue, or whatever else, then to fall away from its rightful context is to fall away from it's very nature. Therefore the context of something is the way it is meant to be. Notice the word "meant" in that last sentence. Context gives meaning, and when we lose that context we lose the meaning.
So how was sex meant to be? What is the context for sex? I would suggest that few people actually believe, or can actually live out the belief, that sex is merely for biological reasons. If this is the case, then "Wedding Crashers" really destroys their argument. You can take this either way. If you have a problem with the way it portrays women then you admit that sex does not have a pure biological context because the worth of the women transcends the need for sex. If you want to look at it the other way and say that the portrayal of women is not wrong whatsoever, you dig yourself an even bigger whole (the Hitler hole). So sex's context is bigger than biological reasons, although it does have a part in biology (reproduction, etc).
Now the common idea of sex's context nowadays is that if the two people truely care and love for one another than it is okay to have sex. In this case no one is being taken advantage of, they both understand the responsibility, and they both are actually invested in the other. This sounds very responsible, and it is much closer to a stable context but it's not quite there. Here's why: to understand the context you must go back to the way we were made as human beings. If sexuality is a part of the human make up we must understand why it is here and the meaning of it.
The caring/loving idea has its own problems; it does not have any ground to stand on. Where did this idea come from? How does love and caring for a person legitimize sex? Who said those are sufficient qualifiers? You may say that it is a natural succession to love; meaning that when you love someone then it eventually comes to the point where sex is wanted as a natural expression for love - kissing, hugging, talking, cuddling, spending time together are all ways you can express love too so why not sex as well?
Here is what I think has happened, and it is a clever trick. We have taken certain aspects from the true context, which does have grounds, and made these aspects the ground rule. It is making something that looks similar to the original, but not the original. It is a knock off brand. It takes out certain qualities and only leaves in the ones we all like and calls it the same. This view has actually cheapen sex from its proper context. I'm a guitar player so, to me, it's like taking eric clapton's guitar and making that knock off you find at wal-mart that looks the same but costs a lot different and the quality is much lower. This is an invalid move.
The proper context for sex is marriage. The reason is not because "God said so". The reason is because that is how it was meant to be. This is the only way we can have sex fit its very nature. When God created man and woman, he created marriage. And he said that the man should leave his parents to become one flesh with his wife. Sex is the physical consumation of the marriage. It is priviledge and kept sacred for such a union. The purpose of sex is not just biological reasons, and it is not just to express your love to someone, although it is both. Sex is reserved for marriage because it has a link or relationship with it; we cannot assume they are unconnected.
Sex is reserved for marriage not because God said so but because he created it so. There is a difference. He did not create sex and THEN say you can only do it in marriage, as if a mother says to a child you can have your cookie only after dinner (this is purely a rule). This assumes a separation between the two that is not at all necessary. God created marriage and then gave it its own unique expression that demonstrates the connection only shared in marriage. It is like the cookie's purpose was to be eaten after dinner. This doesn't mean cookies don't exist until after dinner, but merely that the purpose for them is after dinner and to change that context is to lose the meaning of having a chocolate chip cookie (this points to order and the nature of sexuality, not a merely a rule). This way, sex has grounds not just in that there is male and female, but that there is marriage. God created it this way and it is not empty like the faux loving/caring sexual context that has no grounds as to why that is right. Sex is made for marriage, and to change that is to change the whole reason why sex is existent.
From the beginning of time, man has been trying to change the context by which we live. When this happens, we pervert the meaning of life. For instance, Hitler tried to change the context of race and ended up killing many Jews and other races because of this. Hitler said race or blood was the same as the soul; and a "dirty" race meant a "dirty" soul. He made the attributes of a person equate to the person himself. By changing the context of race and soul, he destroyed the very meaning of life itself.
And we do this everyday in our lives. I was thinking of the movie "Wedding Crashers" earlier today. I have never seen it but I was thinking of how we laugh at and celebrate our shame in this culture. Think of the movie (I'm getting the summary from the trailer and from friends who have seen it): two guys sneak their selves into weddings and try to hook up with the girls who are all emotionally charged from being at a wedding. Think of the way woman are treated in that film; they are prey for the sexual appetite of these two men. But even a more staggering thought, think of audience watching this film and laughing at this - think of the women who sat through it and laughed at it, and did not make the connection to that and the guys who harrass them and pinch their butts as they walk down the street. The context of a woman's worth has been destroyed by this culture through this type of entertainment where women become objects that satisfy instead of people to respect and cherish. When we sit there and encourage this behavior are we not admitting its legitimacy in our own lives? Remember the context is how we interpret the meaning of a statement or action. If we see women being treated this way and we see people react in such a way towards it, then the meaning of a woman's worth has been perverted. It is though Hitler has walked into the room and said, "A woman's worth is according to how well she can satisfy." Attributes once again establish the meaning of a life.
This is where the point hits. We have changed the context, which means we have made it something it was not meant to be. If the context gives legitimacy and meaning to the object, person, situation, event, issue, or whatever else, then to fall away from its rightful context is to fall away from it's very nature. Therefore the context of something is the way it is meant to be. Notice the word "meant" in that last sentence. Context gives meaning, and when we lose that context we lose the meaning.
So how was sex meant to be? What is the context for sex? I would suggest that few people actually believe, or can actually live out the belief, that sex is merely for biological reasons. If this is the case, then "Wedding Crashers" really destroys their argument. You can take this either way. If you have a problem with the way it portrays women then you admit that sex does not have a pure biological context because the worth of the women transcends the need for sex. If you want to look at it the other way and say that the portrayal of women is not wrong whatsoever, you dig yourself an even bigger whole (the Hitler hole). So sex's context is bigger than biological reasons, although it does have a part in biology (reproduction, etc).
Now the common idea of sex's context nowadays is that if the two people truely care and love for one another than it is okay to have sex. In this case no one is being taken advantage of, they both understand the responsibility, and they both are actually invested in the other. This sounds very responsible, and it is much closer to a stable context but it's not quite there. Here's why: to understand the context you must go back to the way we were made as human beings. If sexuality is a part of the human make up we must understand why it is here and the meaning of it.
The caring/loving idea has its own problems; it does not have any ground to stand on. Where did this idea come from? How does love and caring for a person legitimize sex? Who said those are sufficient qualifiers? You may say that it is a natural succession to love; meaning that when you love someone then it eventually comes to the point where sex is wanted as a natural expression for love - kissing, hugging, talking, cuddling, spending time together are all ways you can express love too so why not sex as well?
Here is what I think has happened, and it is a clever trick. We have taken certain aspects from the true context, which does have grounds, and made these aspects the ground rule. It is making something that looks similar to the original, but not the original. It is a knock off brand. It takes out certain qualities and only leaves in the ones we all like and calls it the same. This view has actually cheapen sex from its proper context. I'm a guitar player so, to me, it's like taking eric clapton's guitar and making that knock off you find at wal-mart that looks the same but costs a lot different and the quality is much lower. This is an invalid move.
The proper context for sex is marriage. The reason is not because "God said so". The reason is because that is how it was meant to be. This is the only way we can have sex fit its very nature. When God created man and woman, he created marriage. And he said that the man should leave his parents to become one flesh with his wife. Sex is the physical consumation of the marriage. It is priviledge and kept sacred for such a union. The purpose of sex is not just biological reasons, and it is not just to express your love to someone, although it is both. Sex is reserved for marriage because it has a link or relationship with it; we cannot assume they are unconnected.
Sex is reserved for marriage not because God said so but because he created it so. There is a difference. He did not create sex and THEN say you can only do it in marriage, as if a mother says to a child you can have your cookie only after dinner (this is purely a rule). This assumes a separation between the two that is not at all necessary. God created marriage and then gave it its own unique expression that demonstrates the connection only shared in marriage. It is like the cookie's purpose was to be eaten after dinner. This doesn't mean cookies don't exist until after dinner, but merely that the purpose for them is after dinner and to change that context is to lose the meaning of having a chocolate chip cookie (this points to order and the nature of sexuality, not a merely a rule). This way, sex has grounds not just in that there is male and female, but that there is marriage. God created it this way and it is not empty like the faux loving/caring sexual context that has no grounds as to why that is right. Sex is made for marriage, and to change that is to change the whole reason why sex is existent.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Shame
"Through levity of heart and carelessness about our faults, we do not see the pitiful state of our souls, but often idly laugh, when in reason we should weep." - Thomas a Kempis
One thing God has shown me in the past year, through many mistakes of watching many of the wrong movies and tv shows as well as making many wrong jokes and laughing at many wrong jokes, is one of the Enemy's greatest weapons in todays culture. The Enemy has been able to get us to laugh at our shame. Look at the shows and movies we watch: Jack Ass, Borat, anything with Will Ferrel, the Office, and much more. I own a Will Ferrel movie, I own the second season of the Office. I've seen Will Ferrel on the Tonight Show in his underwear and having everyone laugh at him. I agree with Kempis, we should weep over these things or at least feel some sorrow for the "human condition" (a term orignally used to show that man has faults in a negative light, and now we use the term to celebrate film makers because they show this "honest" and therefore beautiful depiction of our imperfect nature; man has grown to love his imperfection). Intsead we laugh. And once we laugh at our shame, we open the door to acceptance and celebration of this shame.
In Eden, Adam and Eve for the first time experienced shame when they realized they were naked. Why then? The "human condition" settled in and they found that they could no longer view their nakedness in the way it was intended. Once they decided to define things, they could justify anything and that is the reason why they couldn't justify their nakedness. Shame hits when we realize things are not as they intented to be. When we laugh at our shame we lose the way we should look at our shame, and thus we not only lose realization of things being wrong but we lose the possibility of that realization. Its a good trick, a horrible trick, a deadly trick.
One thing God has shown me in the past year, through many mistakes of watching many of the wrong movies and tv shows as well as making many wrong jokes and laughing at many wrong jokes, is one of the Enemy's greatest weapons in todays culture. The Enemy has been able to get us to laugh at our shame. Look at the shows and movies we watch: Jack Ass, Borat, anything with Will Ferrel, the Office, and much more. I own a Will Ferrel movie, I own the second season of the Office. I've seen Will Ferrel on the Tonight Show in his underwear and having everyone laugh at him. I agree with Kempis, we should weep over these things or at least feel some sorrow for the "human condition" (a term orignally used to show that man has faults in a negative light, and now we use the term to celebrate film makers because they show this "honest" and therefore beautiful depiction of our imperfect nature; man has grown to love his imperfection). Intsead we laugh. And once we laugh at our shame, we open the door to acceptance and celebration of this shame.
In Eden, Adam and Eve for the first time experienced shame when they realized they were naked. Why then? The "human condition" settled in and they found that they could no longer view their nakedness in the way it was intended. Once they decided to define things, they could justify anything and that is the reason why they couldn't justify their nakedness. Shame hits when we realize things are not as they intented to be. When we laugh at our shame we lose the way we should look at our shame, and thus we not only lose realization of things being wrong but we lose the possibility of that realization. Its a good trick, a horrible trick, a deadly trick.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Divine Revelation
This is the last and probably shortest of this series. The reason is that it does not rely on much reasoning or hard thinking. It is the most common type of revelation to be found in the Bible, but the hardest to believe or grasp. Divine revelation is simply when God shows himself without any means of Christians. It is the burning bush, Isaiah's vision, the Damascus road where Paul saw Jesus, it is the dream that Afarin experienced (the book Persian Springs gives accounts on how God reached out to Persians through dreams, visions, and even speaking to them; its not a book that proves things but it is a book that demonstrates things), and many other real events where God has spoken to man directly.
Now how do we know this reliable? How do we know its not a mere illusion? You can go through Alston's defense through religious experience, but that is not very appeasing, although helps think through these things. Divine Reveation does not rely on the actual events but on the person of God. If the God of the Bible truely exists then there is no reason not to believe these things. Is Divine Revelation proof that God does exist? Most certainly to the individual who experiences it, but I do not think that the purpose is to convince everyone. It is not a normal event because it is more important for God to make sense for your life instead of Him giving you a cool experience. Almost everytime Divine Revelation has been used it was to reach out to someone like Moses or Paul or many of the people who still are reached today by these miraculous events. And these people most definitely turned to God by the attention that God had through these miraculous events, but God wants us to understand propositions and realities in our normal lives that can only make sense through Him. God equally shows his existence in the way he gives meaning to our lives unlike any other worldview can do. A lot of times we like to take the unusual and make it the norm and say that Divine Revelation proves God exists (and that is valid to a point), but it is more helpful to say that God's existence validates the Divine Revelation.
So Why doesn't everyone experience Divine Revelation if it has such a good track record of turning people to God? Why doesn't God write in the clouds that he is there and that the Bible is true? As Dale Fincher puts in his book, "Living with Questions", God does not want to overwhelm us. It is in that moderation between silence and overwhelming us that God best reaches out to us. As Dale said, we would freak out if these things happened to us. It is in the propositional truth of the gospel that God reaches out to us with because it is solid truth that gives meaning of who you are. I know for myself I would much rather have God get my attention through giving me ideas, propositions, and truth that puts the peices together than having a totally emotional experience that, in and of itself, brings even more questions of reliability and so on. God reaches us best when he gives us things that real to us, the norm, and not the unreal or the rare exceptions.
Divine Revelation is real although rare. It is the most bizarre and unsure way that God reaches us, but it is very effective. And this is the end of this little series of Revelation. I learned a lot through it and now it is time to move on to new and exciting things.
Now how do we know this reliable? How do we know its not a mere illusion? You can go through Alston's defense through religious experience, but that is not very appeasing, although helps think through these things. Divine Reveation does not rely on the actual events but on the person of God. If the God of the Bible truely exists then there is no reason not to believe these things. Is Divine Revelation proof that God does exist? Most certainly to the individual who experiences it, but I do not think that the purpose is to convince everyone. It is not a normal event because it is more important for God to make sense for your life instead of Him giving you a cool experience. Almost everytime Divine Revelation has been used it was to reach out to someone like Moses or Paul or many of the people who still are reached today by these miraculous events. And these people most definitely turned to God by the attention that God had through these miraculous events, but God wants us to understand propositions and realities in our normal lives that can only make sense through Him. God equally shows his existence in the way he gives meaning to our lives unlike any other worldview can do. A lot of times we like to take the unusual and make it the norm and say that Divine Revelation proves God exists (and that is valid to a point), but it is more helpful to say that God's existence validates the Divine Revelation.
So Why doesn't everyone experience Divine Revelation if it has such a good track record of turning people to God? Why doesn't God write in the clouds that he is there and that the Bible is true? As Dale Fincher puts in his book, "Living with Questions", God does not want to overwhelm us. It is in that moderation between silence and overwhelming us that God best reaches out to us. As Dale said, we would freak out if these things happened to us. It is in the propositional truth of the gospel that God reaches out to us with because it is solid truth that gives meaning of who you are. I know for myself I would much rather have God get my attention through giving me ideas, propositions, and truth that puts the peices together than having a totally emotional experience that, in and of itself, brings even more questions of reliability and so on. God reaches us best when he gives us things that real to us, the norm, and not the unreal or the rare exceptions.
Divine Revelation is real although rare. It is the most bizarre and unsure way that God reaches us, but it is very effective. And this is the end of this little series of Revelation. I learned a lot through it and now it is time to move on to new and exciting things.