How do you know about God's existence and providence?

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ethereality

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Questions summarizing complaints below:
  1. How do you know God exists?
  2. How do you have confidence in God’s providence to reject the notion of God’s absence?
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Recently I’ve had trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy, i.e. the source of all existence responsible for everything that happens (the Christian understanding of God and divine providence), and a world that exists as an incomprehensible fact where there are no supernatural beings doing anything.

Basically I’m just complaining about my suffering. I want God to heal me and He hasn’t yet, though I am recovering from a bike-car collision. I want to see miracles happen more but searching online I find only scams and misunderstanding. I want some private revelation when I go to church but instead it appears a waste of time (poor music and incomprehensible Japanese language). I want to know that God exists instead of trusting other humans in spite of my impressions. (The best argument I’ve seen has been that nature is ordered such that empirical science is possible, but it’s not clear to me why this cannot be a brute fact: It seems to me only states of being that come into existence require an explanation beyond themselves.)

I don’t suppose you have anything new to say, but I’m posting here given a low probability of reading something helpful. Thanks for your time.

The forum suggests three threads with discussion already on the first question. This 2005 discussion has many poor responses; I suppose I will finish reading through and then check “Why is God so secretive about His existence?” and a different 2005 “How do we know” thread.
 
Read the great suffering Saints. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, for example. They most certainly suffered, but advanced spiritually to the point of such perfect union with Christ that they enjoyed - enjoyed - their suffering due to their profound love of God.

Methinks you are wasting your suffering. Each moment of each day, you can offer that suffering for your loved ones in purgatory. Think of that! You suffer to ease their suffering. Look into “victim souls” as well. Here are words of wisdom from the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen:

http://copiosa.org/suffering/
 
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Every Sunday for a while now I’ve been offering my suffering to God to be united with the Eucharist, so I don’t think any of it’s been wasted in a while.

However, I have been wanting to ask how God uses my suffering to help others. I don’t understand it. Not only do I not understand the mechanism, I also don’t understand the need. Or, because I don’t understand the mechanism, I don’t understand the need. (I.e., it looks to me as if God is just waiting for us to offer our suffering before doing something He could have done without our suffering.)
 
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Offering our suffering changes us, not God. It deepens our bond both with each other as well as with God. We share in that suffering, and joyfully, as we know that this life is short and eternity is long. An eternity in which suffering will be as forgotten as labor pains once the baby is delivered.

And that points out something that occurred to me as a private opinion. Those undergoing purgation are suffering, but joyfully in the knowledge that heaven awaits. Our birth to earthly life comes via increasing pain followed by relief and joy. I see purgatory the same way: Those in the process will suffer in an increasing amount until they are delivered, at which time that suffering will be forgotten. just after the peak of suffering, God will appear before us. We will be astounded. The virtue of hope applies here, as hope must never be lost during this process.

God has offered membership in Christ’s redemptive Body to us. We are now members; parts of that Body and we suffer - we must suffer and we do, indeed, suffer. Suffering is deliverance. We each play our role in Christ’s on-going redemption - a fulfillment of Colossians 1:24 - the most problematic verse in all of scripture for non-Catholics.

If we seek to avoid suffering, at some level, we also seek to avoid deliverance. The two are inextricably intertwined.

Suggestion: Read Job. Read Tobit.
 
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I agree with much of what you’re saying, but it misses the point: People say our suffering can be used by God ‘to help poor sinners’ (cf. Our Lady of Fatima), not only to change our own relationship with God. Indeed, there’s even this idea about ‘becoming a victim soul’, as if God actually uses whipping boys for sinners to receive additional graces.
 
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For many people , a belief is only a belief until it becomes a fact.

Some could suggest that every witness, every writing , every account of Jesus was just a mass hallucination and maybe the global calendar changed because of some other reason.
 
God’s existence and providence?

Existence: There is far too much harmony in creation for it to be random, or accidental. Some think that having certain aspects in common, as most plants do, and as most animals do, points to an identical, incidental, accidental, spontaneous creation of all that exists. To me, that is nonsensical. Rather, it points to a common, cogent, intentional, logical Creator, Whose actions have a consistency, a repeatability in them - like the laws of physics.

This explains, not the missing link, but the elevation above all other created goods that mankind occupies. There is no evidence of lower creation self-awareness, of the ability to ponder, to think regarding the puzzles of life. To plan and to carry that plan out.

Providence? We were created and continue in creation. We breath and have air. We eat and have food. We seek shelter and warmth and have it. We love and are loved. We remember those who have died, and their memory never dies.

Having about a 0.5% chance of being alive after 10 years of fighting various fatal illnesses, having seen the miracle after miracle needed for this to happen; after stumping medical authorities time and again, I am keenly aware that all of this has been via providence. I did not accomplish any of this on my own. Others did not accomplish it for me. Something far, far greater than ourselves saw to it that all of this not only happened, but continues to happen.
 
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I just told you … I was asking how God uses our suffering to help others and why God doesn’t help them without our suffering.

I can answer the second question that God wants us to participate and not be purely passive observers, but I can’t answer the first question.
 
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You really do not know this? It is Catholic 101!

When you have sore muscles, do you ever apply liniment? Isn’t that one part of your body helping the other to ease suffering? So, what if the hurting part is in purgatory and not here on earth? Our prayers and suffering are the liniment that God applies to the hurt.

How? Why?

He loves us.

I’m out.
 
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“by uniting it to Jesus’ Passion” doesn’t clarify how my suffering helps
others, if that’s what you are referring to.

Moreover, do you mean to suggest that God would withhold the grace needed
for someone to repent of mortal sin unless I unite my poor vision to Jesus’
Passion?
 
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I will try my best to take this one step at a time. God does exist, there is no fantasy about that…Let’s get to the heart of all this. You are recovering from an accident, You have come to God as you said"complaining about your suffering" You want God to heal you’ He hasn’t yet, you want to see miracles happen more, ,you want some private revelation when you go to church, but you say it’s a waste of time. Look at the way you have come to God. There is no humility, in your words complaining. Try coming to God, as one of His own., talk to Him. He is there I promise you that.You have approached Him half believing and demanding. Try putting your trust in Him. You don’t have to turn anywhere else. The love that radiates from the Heart of Jesus reaches all those who believe in Him. May God’s love and mercy reach your heart and stay with you.Will remember you in my prayers. God Bless you::🦋🦋
 
ethereality said:
However, I have been wanting to ask how God uses my suffering to help others. I don’t understand it. Not only do I not understand the mechanism, I also don’t understand the need. Or, because I don’t understand the mechanism, I don’t understand the need. (I.e., it looks to me as if God is just waiting for us to offer our suffering before doing something He could have done without our suffering.)
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You’re seeing the idea of offering suffering like a gumball machine where we offer X and then God dispenses Y as a result. It doesnt work quite that way.

Offering our suffering also pleases/makes reparation to God and it spiritually benefits us. Think of it as a father who has 2 kids and he wants his older son to learn to share with his younger brother, so Dad, having informed Son that it’s good to share, gives Son 2 cookies. If Son shares his cookies with Brother, then Dad is happy with Son, Son grows as a person from learning to share, and Brother gets a cookie. Dad could have achieved the same cookie distribution by giving Son and Brother each a cookie, but that wouldn’t have given Son a chance for that personal growth and to make his Dad happy with him.

Now perhaps if Son had chosen instead to be rude and greedy and eat both cookies, Dad would have given Brother a cookie anyway because he loves Brother too and has lots of cookies, but wasn’t it nicer when it came from Son’'s kindness?
 
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Please help me to apply your analogy, because it seems to apply only to mental anxiety about hoarding unnecessary clothing. Suppose someone is born with poor vision, whereas most on Earth have normal vision. Here God has deprived someone of a good He gives to most other people. He goes to doctors and they say there’s nothing that can be done. He prays for healing and his vision instead worsens. How does your “he has two cookies” analogy apply here?
 
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I assumed you would get my point and not take the analogy literally. Let’s try one more time.

Some hardship, some suffering in your life happens. Many would say God gave you this suffering, this cross; others would say it is suffering that’s in the world as a result of man’s original sin, or in some cases (war refugees for example) a result of man’s current sins. Whatever. You have the suffering. God isn’t making it go away.

Why doesn’t God just fix your suffering? We don’t fully know, but perhaps (just perhaps, we don’t know the whole mind of God) because he wants you to use the suffering in some way, such as by offering it up in reparation for mankind’s sins (including your own). When you offer up for other’s sins, this is the same as if you shared a cookie you got from God. You offer up in atonement for your sins and God gives you the cookie of mercy. You offer up for others’ sins, you asked God to give the cookie of mercy to the other person and not you.

Now God has an infinite supply of mercy cookies and he can easily give the other person a mercy cookie without your needing to suffer. But you did a self-sacrificing thing by helping the other person. You also bore your own suffering and turned it to good use rather than sitting there whining and saying God, why dont you hurry up and end my suffering. So God is pleased. And you used the negative experience of your suffering for a good purpose.
 
I think I understand that, but then why does the Church generally make the ill and crippled fast the same as healthy people? (They only give a few exceptions, as I understand it — e.g. in the US, those over the age of 65 and pregnant women.) It comes across as, “You’re not suffering enough,” and by instituting the same additional sufferings as more able-bodied people, suggests they’re no worse off, when, objectively speaking, it appears they are.

Basically, I think there is enough suffering from living on this earth and dealing with other people’s selfishness, that God doesn’t need to give us bodily problems in addition to it. It’s like a game developer making a game hard and then giving someone a defective video game controller. The game’s hard enough; can’t you at least give us all working controllers? Yet one could easily say this is “pride”, and of course we don’t know the mind of God or all of our own reality, so there could be a good reason. But — getting back to the topic of this thread — we cannot assume there is one. We must know that God exists and that He loves us in order to infer that there is one. I’m trying to experience this as Fr. Larry Richards exhorts us to, but I’m not sure if I have or how I can know.
 
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ethereality said:
why does the Church generally make the ill and crippled fast the same as healthy people?
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I’m not sure if you’re talking about Eucharistic fast, or the “fast” for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday that involves abstinence and two small meals + one large meal.

For the Eucharistic fast, those who are sick are exempt from fasting, along with their caretakers.


With respect to disabled people, it depends to some extent on their individual situation. Often a disability is occurring in connection with other illnesses or issues (such as a hospital stay with meals at set times) which make it difficult to fast. On the other hand, there are probably very minor disabilities, let’s say you walk with a limp, that aren’t putting you in the hospital or impacting your necessary nourishment very much. In these situations, the person can discuss with their priest if they have a question or concern and he will give the right guidance based on the situation.

For the Ash Wednesday/ Good Friday fast, for people in the designated age group, they are supposed to take their own physical conditions into account and adjust their fast accordingly. And I’m sure they could also speak to their priest if they felt that fasting might be harmful to their health, but really it’s a pretty minimal “fast”. It’s not like we’re telling people to go a day without food.
 
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I thought a fast meant a fast, i.e. no food at all, and recently they introduced only two snacks which together are less than one meal. So you’re positing more food than I thought was permitted.

Checking that webpage, it still seems to me that if you have a physical disability, then as long as you’re mindful of it and suffering accordingly from it, then you don’t need to fast or take on additional penances. In other words, even reading that webpage, it appears additional sufferings are for people who aren’t suffering enough, e.g. able-bodied Americans who have so much food and luxury they become fat. So it seems unjust for the Church to insist that /everyone/ take on additional suffering regardless of their disabilities (if their disability is considered by the medical community as ’stable’).
 
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An analogy is a comparison between two things for the purpose of illustration: The reader is supposed to find parallels between them and through similarity understand the underlying point. Perhaps you should have instead stated your point directly, which you mostly did this time, thank you…

It is disheartening, though, to not be told what your suffering is actually accomplishing. Every Sunday I offer my suffering, and God hasn’t told me what good it’s doing.
 
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Some of the people you’re considering disabled might want to follow the fasting rules. Those who don’t, like I said, can speak to a priest.

I personally don’t find the Catholic required “fasts” to be much of a fast at all. They’re more like how I eat most days of the week to be honest. Compare that to some of the Eastern Catholic Churches (I’m not sure which ones but I know there are some) that have more fast days where you basically do not eat, or Muslims who do not eat all day long for a month and have to be at work/ school during that time.

But setting that aside, we are not assigned in this life equal amounts of suffering, nor does the Church try to even it out by making people who have more hardships suffer less and the rest of us suffer more. Forcing equivalent suffering on all of us is not the point.
 
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