Does God love me?

[ready]

Why is attempting to reconcile conflicting models of our understanding of God seen as “judging” God for you? I’m working to fit discordant pieces of our intellectual puzzle together. Judging someone indicates that I am claiming they do or do not measure up to some standard. If you are right and the utter dependency is the more accurate part of our attempt to fit our limited intellects to him, let’s kick away the pretense of applying human concepts like “father” to him at all, since the term seems to be strained by more misfits than fits.

Little children are utterly dependent on their fathers for their well-being, there is nothing wrong with us acknowledging God as “Father on Whom we are utterly dependent,” especially when we truly are His little children as we should be (if we wish to enter Heaven). You are judging God by human standard sis all I am saying, which means you are understanding Him the way you understand good humans. My lesson to you is that God is not a good human but a good and perfect God, Who knows more and is more loving and more good than any good human … He is not to be understood as human beings are understood–for He is Perfect, Spirit and Divinity! God bless you.

 

[James_Tyler]

Why is attempting to reconcile conflicting models of our understanding of God seen as “judging” God for you? I’m working to fit discordant pieces of our intellectual puzzle together. Judging someone indicates that I am claiming they do or do not measure up to some standard. If you are right and the utter dependency is the more accurate part of our attempt to fit our limited intellects to him, let’s kick away the pretense of applying human concepts like “father” to him at all, since the term seems to be strained by more misfits than fits.

What have you SEEN or HEARD that YOU can share and bear witness to? If someone bears witness to God and says “He is like a father” then that isn’t just some intellectual puzzle to them. They are actually getting to know God that way. If I say “God is my savior, my home base, my guardian protector, my guide, my judge” then that is the way I am getting to know God. Try to bear witness to him. If you say “God is my most challenging puzzle”, “he is what makes me angry because he doesn’t do what I think he should do”, “God is a hodgepodge of conflicting testimonies by a confused rabble of backwards weirdo’s” that’s fine as long as it is true. Tell what you think is TRUE. It might not be true but if you do your best to tell the TRUTH then God will bring you closer to TRUTH. That’s how you walk towards God. Speak TRUTH. But also listen to it. If you don’t believe God is LOVE then just say it. Say “GOD is absent”. “He is NEGLECTFUL”. If you can’t bear witness to God then just bear witness to what you think is true. “I can’t see GOD with neither my eyes, or my ears, or my heart, or my mind, or my soul. I can’t touch him with my hands. I can’t experience him through the testimony of others. I don’t know God. I can’t reconcile God to myself or the truth of the way I see the world. And nothing anyone says has ever made a difference enough to satisfy me.” or whatever man.

 

[Neoplatonist]

What have you SEEN or HEARD that YOU can share and bear witness to? If someone bears witness to God and says “He is like a father” then that isn’t just some intellectual puzzle to them. They are actually getting to know God that way. If I say “God is my savior, my home base, my guardian protector, my guide, my judge” then that is the way I am getting to know God. Try to bear witness to him. If you say “God is my most challenging puzzle”, “he is what makes me angry because he doesn’t do what I think he should do”, “God is a hodgepodge of conflicting testimonies by a confused rabble of backwards weirdo’s” that’s fine as long as it is true. Tell what you think is TRUE. It might not be true but if you do your best to tell the TRUTH then God will bring you closer to TRUTH. That’s how you walk towards God. Speak TRUTH. But also listen to it. If you don’t believe God is LOVE then just say it. Say “GOD is absent”. “He is NEGLECTFUL”. If you can’t bear witness to God then just bear witness to what you think is true. “I can’t see GOD with neither my eyes, or my ears, or my heart, or my mind, or my soul. I can’t touch him with my hands. I can’t experience him through the testimony of others. I don’t know God. I can’t reconcile God to myself or the truth of the way I see the world. And nothing anyone says has ever made a difference enough to satisfy me.” or whatever man.

Ah, but I AM. My experience of God is constantly a process of sparking and challenging and inspiring me to understand Him better, and part of the way He seems to do that is by defying each new understanding I have reached and breaking out of any concept forcing me to seek a better one. That’s why I’m here on the forums—to work through the cracks and mismatches in concepts we have tried to stretch to fit and come up with a better understanding.

It is faith seeking understanding, in the grand Medieval tradition, and the seeking is key.

 

[ready]

“I can’t see GOD with neither my eyes, or my ears, or my heart, or my mind, or my soul. I can’t touch him with my hands. I can’t experience him through the testimony of others. I don’t know God. I can’t reconcile God to myself or the truth of the way I see the world. And nothing anyone says has ever made a difference enough to satisfy me.” or whatever man.

I

Is this text above from you, James? If one loves God and believes in Him by pure faith–not by seeing, hearing, feeling in one’s heart, mind, and soul; not by the testimony of others; not by feeling one knows Him or understands Him–and loves Him and believes in Him as though he did experience all these sensible consolations, then very blessed by God are they! I seriously mean it based on what I have read. God bless you.

 

[ready]

It is faith seeking understanding, in the grand Medieval tradition, and the seeking is key.

St. Augustine says that understanding follows one’s assent to faith–you seem to have things the other way around, Neoplatonist --you have understanding preceding your assent to faith. First must come one’s ASSENT to believe all the teachings of the Church (e.g. that God loves us ALL, that God is all-good, all-fair, etc.), then our understanding of these truths follows, says St. Augustine, and rightfully so. God bless you.

 

[Neoplatonist]

St. Augustine says that understanding follows one’s assent to faith–you seem to have things the other way around, Neoplatonist --you have understanding preceding your assent to faith. First must come one’s ASSENT to believe all the teachings of the Church (e.g. that God loves us ALL, that God is all-good, all-fair, etc.), then our understanding of these truths follows, says St. Augustine, and rightfully so. God bless you.

Sorry, but it’s all too easy for him to say when it didn’t happen that way for him.

What separates that from a placebo effect, then?

I have dealt in other threads with the idea that we can choose what to believe. It’s a very threatening line of thought and people get defensive quickly. Can we freely choose to believe that 2+2=5? That people have rights? That we are awed by nature? Can you give any other examples from human experience where we freely ‘choose’ to believe something and then actually believe it? (Not self-delusion, not denial, honest, bet-your-house-and-savings believe.)

Is faith then a choice, rather than a gift? Sounds like Augustine says yes, my catechism says no.

 

[clem456]

Sorry, but it’s all too easy for him to say when it didn’t happen that way for him.

What separates that from a placebo effect, then?

I have dealt in other threads with the idea that we can choose what to believe. It’s a very threatening line of thought and people get defensive quickly. Can we freely choose to believe that 2+2=5? That people have rights? That we are awed by nature? Can you give any other examples from human experience where we freely ‘choose’ to believe something and then actually believe it? (Not self-delusion, not denial, honest, bet-your-house-and-savings believe.)

Is faith then a choice, rather than a gift? Sounds like Augustine says yes, my catechism says no.

You are free to choose anything because you have free will. Being free to choose is not the same thing as freedom. Freedom only exists in truth.

You can believe that playing in traffic is harmless. But the truth is different. If you believe in a lie are you living in freedom? No you are enslaved to a lie. There are countless examples.

To answer you question, I do not believe we can make a choice to believe in something we do not know something about. Faith and reason work together. One does not cause the other to happen. Faith is not magic.

Faith is a theological gift. A gift does not presuppose automation on our part. We must cooperate with our free will to receive the gift. And it is not forced on us.

 

[ready]

Sorry, but it’s all too easy for him to say when it didn’t happen that way for him.

What separates that from a placebo effect, then?

I have dealt in other threads with the idea that we can choose what to believe. It’s a very threatening line of thought and people get defensive quickly. Can we freely choose to believe that 2+2=5? That people have rights? That we are awed by nature? Can you give any other examples from human experience where we freely ‘choose’ to believe something and then actually believe it? (Not self-delusion, not denial, honest, bet-your-house-and-savings believe.)

Is faith then a choice, rather than a gift? Sounds like Augustine says yes, my catechism says no.

Faith is both a gift and a choice. You know that I disagree with you on this thread, and we will have to leave it at that for now, unless I can come back later to try to help you see where your thinking is faulty – and it is very faulty, I’m afraid to say. God bless you.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Faith is both a gift and a choice. You know that I disagree with you on this thread, and we will have to leave it at that for now, unless I can come back later to try to help you see where your thinking is faulty – and it is very faulty, I’m afraid to say. God bless you.

Can you give an example where we choose a belief? I can’t think of any, so if you can, that would seem a helpful starting point.

 

[Neoplatonist]

You are free to choose anything because you have free will. Being free to choose is not the same thing as freedom. Freedom only exists in truth.

You can believe that playing in traffic is harmless. But the truth is different. If you believe in a lie are you living in freedom? No you are enslaved to a lie. There are countless examples.

To answer you question, I do not believe we can make a choice to believe in something we do not know something about. Faith and reason work together. One does not cause the other to happen. Faith is not magic.

Faith is a theological gift. A gift does not presuppose automation on our part. We must cooperate with our free will to receive the gift. And it is not forced on us.

I understand how we choose which will be our working hypothesis when we have uncertain knowledge about something, but not how we could choose which will be our conviction. Obviously I would allow that our beliefs can be wrong - that seems like a straw man.

What does “cooperate with our free will” mean? Pretending or acting as if something is a conviction when it should only be an hypothesis? Putting all our chips on red, even though we only think there’s a 50-50 chance it will be true?

 

[clem456]

Can you give an example where we choose a belief? I can’t think of any, so if you can, that would seem a helpful starting point.

I choose to believe everything. Faith requires my free will.
God proposes himself for my trust and assent (faith) and I say yes, to the best of my ability. Faith is part of a relationship with God.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I choose to believe everything. Faith requires my free will.
God proposes himself for my trust and assent (faith) and I say yes, to the best of my ability. Faith is part of a relationship with God.

So, for you, could you, then “choose” to stop believing God is real or loves you? I know you could act as if you no longer believed it, but could you actually believe it? Things we consider to be actual matters of choice, like “shall I have chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream?”, we can change by a simple decision. Things that are not just matters of choice, like “I love my daughter,” I cannot decide to stop doing.

Now, if my wife had proposed to me, I could have chosen to say yes, but I could not have similarly chosen whether or not I believed I loved her. I could not have chosen to believe she did not love me. Living out a marriage requires free will, and we must constantly say yes regarding our actions and ways we give the benefit of the doubt to ambiguous actions of the other. (That naturally falls away if the other does not seem to do the same over time.) We do not, however, create (or choose to feel) the feeling in the first place to which we are (or are not) giving our assent.

Thoughts?

 

[clem456]

So, for you, could you, then “choose” to stop believing God is real or loves you? I know you could act as if you no longer believed it, but could you actually believe it? Things we consider to be actual matters of choice, like “shall I have chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream?”, we can change by a simple decision. Things that are not just matters of choice, like “I love my daughter,” I cannot decide to stop doing.

Because I have free will, I could choose to believe anything. God does not force himself on me. He is giving me a gift, but I at least must have my hands open to receive it. This conversation is very relevant to my own life, since I struggle to accept that God loves me. I know it intellectually, but I struggle to give my trust to the reality of it, to give my full assent to it. I am always searching to accept God’s loving action in a more full way. This is my crisis of believing, to come to trust God, to enter more fully into that relationship which is faith.

Now, if my wife had proposed to me, I could have chosen to say yes, but I could not have similarly chosen whether or not I believed I loved her. I could not have chosen to believe she did not love me. Living out a marriage requires free will, and we must constantly say yes regarding our actions and ways we give the benefit of the doubt to ambiguous actions of the other.

You can always choose to believe your wife does or does not love you. I don’t get it. You believe in free will, right? Faith is not a brainless exercise divorced from reason. Faith enlightens reason, and vice versa.

(That naturally falls away if the other does not seem to do the same over time.) We do not, however, create (or choose to feel) the feeling in the first place to which we are (or are not) giving our assent.

Thoughts?

We might not choose to feel the feelings which are “created”, but to have faith in the substance of the relationship requires an act of free will on our part. Faith is not a feeling, it involves the whole person.

May I make a reading suggestion?
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html