Four Channels of Divine Communication

[Ophir]

In the ANE, God personally visited his children to speak with them. Look at the patriarchs. Look at Hagar. Look at the kings. Sometimes, he even spoke directly to leaders of pagan nations warning them not to be the aggressor against Israel. The Bible tells us to believe this happened literally.

God doesn’t do that anymore. Instead, He chooses highly subjective ways to speak to people today. Most Christians would agree that He doesn’t verbally talk to us these days. They are convinced that God speaks to human beings, only in more subtle ways.

Most Christians agree these are the main conduits through which God talks to us today:

• Prayer and Meditation
• Worship
• Circumstance or happenstance (like a job promotion or a strategically aimed hurricane)
• Bible reading (God speaks to us through our interpretation of His words)

The problem with communicating this way is that God makes it fearfully easy for counterfeit messages to be confused with genuine messages. This is how religion, particularly Christianity, has become such a racket today; it’s incredibly easy to exploit numinous feelings in people. Hundreds of millions are duped because this gullibility remains largely unchecked. And because religious authorities like pastors, priests, and Popes tell believers God speaks to them through these four channels, it becomes a self-perpetuating delusion machine.

Consider a real-world example: a Christian friend of mine is convinced God helped her get a better car. She prayed for it, and now she has it. To her, the message was clear: God said, “Here’s your new car, faithful daughter,” because she faithfully entreated Him for transportation help.

Very neat and tidy.

But what if I told you she was a fiscally conservative lesbian? All of the sudden, it gets complicated. God doesn’t hear the prayers of the wicked. Why, then, does He make it so easy for good fortune to be confused with acts of genuine divine providence? She really believes it was God. She’s just as convinced of this as the Pope is convinced Mary appeared at Lourdes.

This is just a microcosmic example of the larger problem. I contend that God’s method of communication has failure built into it because He conveys messages through very subjective and unreliable modes of discourse. This, for example, is what makes the Hagees and the Robertsons and the Falwells see God’s booming voice in calamities like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Surely, you’ve met the Christian who says “God put it on my heart to [fill in the blank]…” Think about that for a moment. Think about how suspicious a statement that is. How can you even exult with other believers knowing they likely might have mistaken strange human feelings (the numinous) with God’s specific supernatural prompting?

My point is this: Like Abraham, Jacob, and David, we should know when God rends the dimensional veil, shouldn’t we? Why would The One True God make communication with Him so chaotic and open to interpretation? That doesn’t match the love and concern that the Bible says He has for us. It certainly doesn’t match the methods it took to convince Abraham, Jacob, David that He was real. Theirs were tangible experiences, not the spiritual ticklings most Christians today claim is “the voice of God.” All religionists feel that spiritual tickle, which makes the claims of Christianity seem positively yawn-worthy. When I was a Christian, I didn’t understand why so many people were unimpressed by my personal testimonies. Now, having experienced numinous feelings in much more profound ways than I ever did as a Christian, I understand why they couldn’t be moved. It is arrogance to assume God specifically told you something. Factious intertribal bickering always follows these wild claims, which is why the church is in pieces today and beyond any hope of repair.

Think of it this way:

Many Protestant Christian fundamentalists say they have a genuine concern for the lost. When they read their Bibles, they are convinced God created the universe like Genesis says He did. The messages they receive from Him are always in accord with their fundamentalist biases, which they see as biblically correct orthodox Christian principles.

while…

Many Catholics have a genuine concern for the lost. And yet when they read their Bibles, they are convinced God is pro-Catholic. The messages they receive from Him are always in accord with their Catholic biases, which they are convinced are biblically correct orthodox Christian principals.

Both factions say their beliefs accurately reflect scripture (they are “biblically correct orthodox Christian principles”). It’s the same old canard they’ve been repeating for centuries. Understand that, and you can almost hear the sound of the manacles unlocking themselves.

Numinous experience is so subjective and yet so powerful, it split the church in half. Think of just how drastic a division that was. The church is so confused now it doesn’t even know where to spread the gospel:

• The Catholics missionize the Protestants.
• The Protestants missionize the Catholics.
• The ecumenists leave each other alone.
• The hardcores on both sides accuse the ecumenists of being too liberal.

And all of them have the gall to expect you to take the Bible seriously. I see no allure in a belief system like that, do you?

Today, if you decide to convert to Christianity, you have two choices—and one or the other will land you in serious error. How comforting, this dilemma. I don’t think many Protestants and Catholics have considered what a roadblock this is to conversion or what ammunition it gives to the skeptic. It takes stepping outside the protective bubble of faith to see the madness of it all.

Christians have to believe their numinous feelings are the genuine article, while others’ numinous feelings are counterfeit. I just couldn’t do that anymore.

 

[FRATER_PAVLVS]

In the ANE, God personally visited his children to speak with them. Look at the patriarchs. Look at Hagar. Look at the kings. Sometimes, he even spoke directly to leaders of pagan nations warning them not to be the aggressor against Israel. The Bible tells us to believe this happened literally.
…
God doesn’t do that anymore. Instead, He chooses highly subjective ways to speak to people today. Most Christians would agree that He doesn’t verbally talk to us these days. They are convinced that God speaks to human beings, only in more subtle ways.
…
Most Christians agree these are the main conduits through which God talks to us today:

• Prayer and Meditation
• Worship
• Circumstance or happenstance (like a job promotion or a strategically aimed hurricane)
• Bible reading (God speaks to us through our interpretation of His words)

The problem with communicating this way is that God makes it fearfully easy for counterfeit messages to be confused with genuine messages. This is how religion, particularly Christianity, has become such a racket today; it’s incredibly easy to exploit numinous feelings in people. Hundreds of millions are duped because this gullibility remains largely unchecked. And because religious authorities like pastors, priests, and Popes tell believers God speaks to them through these four channels, it becomes a self-perpetuating delusion machine.
…
I contend that God’s method of communication has failure built into it because He conveys messages through very subjective and unreliable modes of discourse.
…
Christians have to believe their numinous feelings are the genuine article, while others’ numinous feelings are counterfeit. I just couldn’t do that anymore.

I agree that Christianity is vulnerable to critique both over whether it is genuine and whether it is not just a money-making machine. I agree yet more that divisions among Christians testify against them. But I simply has not yet found anything better than Roman Catholicism. In my case, I’m open but I don’t see any worthy alternative. Atheism? Apart from its pessimism about my life as a person which I just don’t like, which leaves no point of living, I sometimes feel atheistic, especially if I sleep little then the following morning I can feel atheistic. Other religions? Not inspiring. I’m a very earthly person, I’m only thinking how I can arrange my life well, I’m not biased towards any particular spiritual practise nor do my religious views result from any sort of nationalism. I believe how I love to believe and I love Roman Catholicism.

And now, the choice made, religious life begins. I ask new questions, I no longer ask whether the whole thing is not a fraud because it works for me, it makes me happy.

Now, as for proving that Christianity is true, there are smart people who are trying. But I would like to put it this way: take modern physics, well, from Newton to now, what really makes us trust its conclusions? Mathematical nicety? Simplicity? Apprehensiveness? No, not really. These help us. But what makes us sure is that physics works, its fruits, its generality, huge steam engines, hoots here and there, the Internet, hot water… things that make us feel good make us accept physics. Now, to me, there are things in Roman Catholicism that make me feel well so I embrace this faith.

To the point, finally, yes, these four channels are often imperfect. But the glitches are in man. At the same time God is in a difficult situation: how to talk to man without violating man’s freedom? When God speaks man can hardly feel easy, I suppose. That’s why wonders are seldom. Indeed, God, omnipotent as He is, can in a moment prove to the whole Universe that He is the Lord, but God is gentle and He is not wont to be intrusively assertive. The other aspect is that God and creation are utterly different. It is naturally difficult for a creature to get to grips with its Maker in a fortnight. God Incarnate seems to have closed the gap but still, who said it was gonna be easy? All good things are gained through hard work. Religious aren’t the exception.

P.S. Perhaps I haven’t grasped the main point of your letter, but this is what I think.

 

[FRATER_PAVLVS]

In the ANE, God personally visited his children to speak with them. Look at the patriarchs. Look at Hagar. Look at the kings. Sometimes, he even spoke directly to leaders of pagan nations warning them not to be the aggressor against Israel. The Bible tells us to believe this happened literally.

God doesn’t do that anymore. Instead, He chooses highly subjective ways to speak to people today. Most Christians would agree that He doesn’t verbally talk to us these days. They are convinced that God speaks to human beings, only in more subtle ways.

Yes, there is this wonderful straightforwardness in the Old Testament. My view is that this was for several reasons in categories:
**1.**concerning the early folks, from Adam to Noah, they had not yet lost that paradisical closeness to God;
2.concerning Abraham, his integrity and God’s will made him the Patriarch somehow of mankind (most of us Christians are his stone children), Abrahams task was significant enough for him to hear from God directly.
3.concerning those pagan leaders fortunate to hear God speak, I think, it is because God was shaping the whole region towards the end of becoming terra sancta. It was vital to safeguard Israel’s faith, because were it lost it would be impossible for God, who is non-intrusive into a free human conscience, to gain people’s attention and save them since salvation is a two-party process when taken seriously. Safeguarding the faith wasn’t always, as you know, synonymous to safeguarding their independence. Sometimes, it was necessary to push them that their faith be OK. Here would pagans be of assistance, roughly and inaccurately speaking.

As for us, we are free children, everything has been given. Christ died for us and rose still incarnate. In Baptism and Eucharist we join Him. Is it not enough? Seriously, we now do not need any wonders at all, or any specific instructions. The way we live is the Church, we are already in Christ.