Experience/Meeting God!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bahman
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes there are many man made religions growing out of our ancestors sense of God’s presence in our souls and spirits. But there is only one religion founded and commissioned by God made Man = Christ. Natural religions reflected man’s knowledge that there was something or something out there greater than himself and I sure God smiled upon their efforts to reach out to them and did not condenm then if they lived according to the instilled sense of right and wrong that is in all of us by virtue of being created in His image. But when the time came for that part of God’s plan for the redemption of fallen mankind He became man, taking on our humanity and set new rules to follow. He founded a church. A new Way.
“But there is…” How you could justify that? This is only what you believe and nothing more. How you could be sure that this you get you anywhere? I understand that this give you peace of mind that you would eventually go to heaven, but what if this state of belief is false or at least not the right approach to reach peace in presence of God.
No, we become Christians by the mercy of God.
You mean that God has no mercy on me since I am not Christian.
If we believe something contrary to God’s revelation we are in error.
What you mean with error? Why we should be given the possibility to do error? Why the concept of “God” and “no God” should be so equivalent that no one could possibly provide any prove for one or other. I mean why we should be embedded in such state of mind and being so we could not have a common understanding/sense of what God is?
 
I think we could agree that we own the knowledge of our existences to experience of our existences. Simple and plain, we don’t make argument X and then conclude that we exist as the result of the argument. Meeting God, assuming that it is good, if it is logically possible should lead to experience of a good quality (if God is good). My question is how we could be 100% sure that this permanent specific experience is related to experiencing God and is not an illusion?
With experiences a more fitting question is whether we have reason to doubt them. If a person has an experience of God which lines up with the knowable (provable) nature of God and with reason, then that would without doubt be a reasonable and fitting belief to hold.

Saying that too, I don’t doubt that God can make Himself known to a person by infusing them with knowledge of His existence in a mystical way, as has happened to me much younger before I really had the capacity to understand and apply philosophy.

These are subjective things, but still very reasonable. They are great graces to help us, or maybe to give some of us a kick start where we need it, but He has already equipped us to know Him with certainty through light of natural reason which is no less of a gift.
 
“But there is…” How you could justify that? This is only what you believe and nothing more. How you could be sure that this you get you anywhere? I understand that this give you peace of mind that you would eventually go to heaven, but what if this state of belief is false or at least not the right approach to reach peace in presence of God.
Using man’s reason alone how can we be sure of anything? Reason however is only one mechanism only we have to find truth. The other is faith. We are guided in faith by scripture but at some point we have to step out and believe without having seen. Only then does the truth about all things become clear to us. As Jesus said to Saint Thomas “Blessed are those who have not seen but believe” Faith is hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t taken the step, but for those who have it is our commission to try to convince others.
You mean that God has no mercy on me since I am not Christian.
Not at all. God is merciful to everyone. But He is also a Just God. The time of mercy is now while we still have the opportunity to believe, repent and turn to him. After our physical deaths comes the time of God’s justice.
"What you mean with error? Why we should be given the possibility to do error? Why the concept of “God” and “no God” should be so equivalent that no one could possibly provide any prove for one or other. I mean why we should be embedded in such state of mind and being so we could not have a common understanding/sense of what God is?
Without the possibility do error there could be no freewill to choose. God is eternally present. As stated he is not limited by time or space. It is man who marks time in a linear fashion and God speaks to us in ways that we will understand, but after all how does the all knowing all seeing “eternal Being” explain himself to man with our limited capacity and intellect. (Talk about having to dummy things down!) That is how God can see and know what will happen in our future without interfering with our freewill to choose. God looks as our lives in terms of eternity and not as we often do as the short period between birth and physical death. He knows that like it or not that we are here spiritually for all eternity and that our time of earth is just a drop of water compared to the unlimited sea of eternity.
While we see the loss of life through disasters, disease or crime as something immediately horrible, God is more concerned with the rest of eternity than how long we actually physically inhabit the earth. The good dying young is only terrible to us as it reminds of our own physical frailty but young is not that big a deal when we are talking eternity. Never-the-less it can be painful for us to see and God does care even if I may sound a little callous.
God is love. Love cannot be forced and can only be given freely. God created man and wants them to love Him so in order to be true to His nature he had to give us the option not to love him, even to hate Him. God will not force his love on us. It follows that God has His positive will and His permissive will allowing us to accept or reject Him. In order for us to have freewill we have to be able to choose between good and evil. As He created us in His own image an instinct for good is instilled or inherent in us. (His precepts were written on our hearts so to speak) We can reject this and do when we sin. We can rationalize it away. When we choose evil we cut ourselves off, individually or collectively, from God’s grace. When we cut ourselves off from God’s grace bad things can and will happen again individually or collectively. It’s our choice. Only repentance and prayer can restore our life of grace from God. When we ask how can God let that terrible thing happen, we are usually looking at things from our own limited point of view and our own limited sense of what we want justice to be. We don’t often see things through the eyes of God. When we do it’s called Wisdom.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top