How to get around the "God will reveal it to me problem"

[flick427]

If a protestant is told that they follow a bible where the New Testament was pieced together by the Catholic Church and they can accept this, but they do not accept the church’s traditions, how do you get around the “God will reveal it to me if I need to follow it” problem…?
I told a protestant that the Bible is not all that God intended us to follow and that we are to follow the traditions of the church as well. He was trying to infer that I said the Bible was incomplete…
I say: the BIBLE is complete, but the faith a protestant follows is incomplete and they do not fully practice the faith the way God intended them to…
So when I say that he is wrong according to history and “common sense” and that the Sola Scriptura idea is really rather new. I get the answer that God won’t expect him to follow anything else unless God “tells” him he is wrong…so, he continues to follow ONLY the Bible because God hasn’t told him otherwise.
He says that God reveals to us how to worship Him…but that can’t be right because that is how ou get things like Mormanism and Jehovah’s Witnesses…because people worship God the way that they think God wants through some sort of revelation. God is unchanging, so he would be contradicting Himself if He had something be necessary for one person and not for the other.

 

[flick427]

…what would I do to illustrate how this “theory” is not a good practice since it leaves man open to error when he interprets what may, or may not be God speaking to him.

 

[John_19_59]

God will reveal it to me if I need to follow it" problem…?

When non-Catholics ask for guidance in prayer, why don’t they receive it? In fact why do some Catolics not recieve it either?

Why doesn’t God answer “Well actually you need to be a Catholic”.

I have known many sincere non-Catholics who have a prayerful life. When people speak to God, why do they not get clear answers? Why should it be down to “signs”, “feelings”, “intuitions”.

There are so many people who say “God is telling me this” or “God is telling me that”, contradictory things, but they sincerely believe they are being told, but many of these things are contradictory. “God is calling me to be a woman Priest”, “God is telling me it’s OK to be Homosexual” etc, etc…

How does anyone know what God is telling them to do? He doesn’t directly speak to many of us, (there are a dubious few who say he does).

So why, when asking sincerely for guidance do people not get clear answers?

Why does it have to be so murky?

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

God will reveal it to me if I need to follow it" problem…?
Why does it have to be so murky?

God wants us to walk by Faith. To strive for God is meritorious. If answers were given on a silver platter what merit is there in that? Why carry the cross at all? Why did He carry the cross? God gives us an opportunity in the Church militant to return love to Him. To praise Him freely accented by difficulties increases, I think, the merit.

Even if you heard a “heavenly” voice, what would be the certainty it was God and not a pretender? I think certainty is only in the beatific vision and when we see Him, we have finished our walk of Faith and our spiritual journey.

That’s what I think.
peace

 

[John_19_59]

God wants us to walk by Faith.

Is that entirely true?

The Israelites had the parting of the Sea, the Pillar of Flame, the Ark of the Covenant etc…

The Apostles had Jesus, the miracles, the transfiguration, the resurrection.

St Paul had the road to Damascus.

70,000 people at Fatima had the miracle of the sun.

And so it goes on.

If you talk to God in prayer, why shouldn’t you expect Him to talk back? For years I tried to live a life of prayer, the daily Rosary, daily Mass, parish work, reading the Bible, reading the lives of the Saints etc. I have genuinely asked God for help and guidance and protection daily, how do I know he is answering? What form should the answer be? Should I look for “signs”? What? How do I know “signs” are not coincidences?

What way should I expect God to tell me what to do?

Does God only listen to and answer Catholics? If he answers non-Catholics why isn’t more specific about the nature of the True Church?

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

God wants us to walk by Faith.

Is that entirely true?

True enough for my part; for God’s part, that’s out of my scope to determine. What, why and how God works puts me in the dangerous business of judging God which is a bad mindset.

I suppose I need faith that God will not make my cross to heavy and I have to assent with my heart and consent with my will to the Goodness of God. If you seek a sign, be patient, I think, we are all promised ressurection on the last day. Until then, pray for Love of Him and prsay to foster that Love. Believe He will give you what is good for you.

I prolly did not help much, but I give my 2 cents anyway

 

[dream_wanderer]

In one sense your Protestant friend is right. God will call him but not in ways he is used to and not in ways that he would expect.

I’m a convert and I would think many of the converts here would understand what I am talking about.

As a Protestant I was used to praying and then either get a ‘strong’ feeling that a certain course should be followed or circumstances just work out so it made it easier for me to follow a certain path. Some would have a Bible verse ‘leap’ out at them and they would believe that was a ‘sign’ from God that a certain thing was hHs will.

For myself, Things started getting put in my way. I ‘accidently’ found a website for Preterist beliefs that challenged my belief in the rapture theory. It made me start wondering about all the various intepretations of the Bible by all the Protestant sects and I started to question which one was true… Someone had to have the truth, they couldn’t all be right and somewhere the truth had to exist in an uncorrupted form.

I also ‘happened’ to arrive at belieftnet.com and there was a poster there called ‘biblecatholic’ who could answer almost all objections from the Bible. I thought…'WOW!" but at the time I thought it was just an intellectual exercise. I was also exploring the Quakers at the time…talk about an extreme!

Looking back I believe Got was answered my prayer that really wasn’t a prayer at the time…it was a desire for truth. I really didn’t expect God to hear me…I thought I would just wander around and do what I always did. pick what was comfortable for me. However this time God did most of the work for me!

Something someone will say will peak their interest and they will do research. Then they will either accept it or reject it…but either way I do believe it is God leading them there. They may not recognize it at the time and if they convert they will look back and see how things worked out…and more than likely it will NOT be the way they were used to doing things.

dream wanderer

 

[Mijoy2]

God wants us to walk by Faith.

Is that entirely true?

QUOTE]

John_19_59, I ask myself the same or similiar questions all the time.

Is the evidence we posses enough evidence to justifiably say our faith is not blind?

Many protestants use the fact that 500 people, all at the same time, saw Jesus following the resurrection to prove the resurrection. Yet they do not believe the 70,000 that saw the sun dance at Fatima.

What does this tell us about using this as proof of the resurrection? How should I interpret this obvios discrepency?

Thomas got to touch His wounds, Mary Magdelin witnessed the empty tomb and had Him speak to her. It happened 2000 years ago and what we have is the Bible and a 2000 year old tradition. Yet we are called to believe based on the evidence.

These issues cause me to question every day. Yet I find I still go to Mass, still pray and still find logic in my beliefs. I have hope God understands my questioning and my doubts. I hope and I hope and I hope.

Has anyone ever truly had a private revelation or are they alll wither hoaxes, honest results of over active imaginations, dreams that are misinerpreted as reality? Who knows? Who can honestly answer this? Am I being unfaithful for wishing for such an experience?

 

[Timidity]

flick427:

how do you get around the “God will reveal it to me if I need to follow it” problem…?

Me? I would say “How do you know he hasn’t? Maybe it’s like that old joke about the guy in the flood.” And if they don’t know the joke, I would tell it to them.

Is it one of those things that will make them suddenly “see the light”? No. It’s more like one of those things that they’ll laugh at but think about in the back of their mind for a while.

 

[Kecharitomene]

"God will reveal it to me when I need to know it"

It seems quite clear that it was this kind of very attitude that the Pharasiee’s and Saducees embraced. Basically, when Christ was on earth and public revelation was in full flow, they just said “NO”. Actually it was more like a “Not yet” kind of attitude, or at least I gather. The irony is that the Protestant reformers adopted the Palestine Canon who was in fact a Jewish Traditonalist attempt to restore Judiasm in the late first century by paring away as much messaniac prophesey as possible from the Septuagint (Apostles Bible), so that they could forget this Jesus of Nazareth and his rag tag band of followers that have disrupted things so terribly. They wanted to put the past behind them, and look forward to the day when God would reveal to them their messiah.

The reformers thus adopted the Palestine Canon and with it, they rejected much of what had been revealed and revered for centuries through the buying into of the same mantre of saying “No, not yet” to the whole of revealed truths.

I figure that for both the Protestant and the Jew, the prime mover in rejecting revelation is that they aren’t ready to “go all the way” when it comes to the fullness of the faith, so they just “take what they can accept”. I figure that presuppositins and predjuices are hard items to rid oneself from, but it seems to be objectively evident that you can’t pass through the Eye of the Needle with all that baggage on your back.

Pax Christi

 

[aridite]

Timidity:

Me? I would say “How do you know he hasn’t? Maybe it’s like that old joke about the guy in the flood.” And if they don’t know the joke, I would tell it to them.

Is it one of those things that will make them suddenly “see the light”? No. It’s more like one of those things that they’ll laugh at but think about in the back of their mind for a while.

God could speak to each person’s heart and make everything crystal clear. Apparently he does not, not even for those who claim he does in their personal interpretations of the Bible since these contradict each other.

I’m pretty sure God thinks its better for us to help each other in our faith, and that we don’t a “me and Jesus” kind of faith. God speaks to us through the words of others, and just because they are the words of a fellow human being, that doesn’t mean they can’t also be the words of God. It takes discernment to which are really God’s words and which aren’t, but “walking by faith” also means being open and obedient to hear God when he speaks, often in unexpected ways. (Remember Elijah finding God in the small whispering sound, and not the fire, wind and earthquake.)

Questions are a good way for us to support each other and come to the truth collectively. On the face of it, the handing down of a tradition for 2000+ years seems a pretty dangerous and unreliable way to get people to understand something, and Protestants apparently think it so dangerous and unreliable as to be incredible. But I think God did it that way so as to grow together in faith, hope and love, as well as grow closer to him.

 

[John_19_59]

These issues cause me to question every day. Yet I find I still go to Mass, still pray and still find logic in my beliefs. I have hope God understands my questioning and my doubts. I hope and I hope and I hope.

Brilliant! That sums up my feelings. I cling to hope. What else is there?

Am I being unfaithful for wishing for such an experience?

Was Thomas unfaithful? He’s my favourite Saint.

I am puzzled, perplexed yet I still cling to the faith. I hope I’m not wrong in wishing it all made more sense. I fully understand people who can’t make that leap. I hope God does too.

 

[Mijoy2]

"God will reveal it to me when I need to know it"

It seems quite clear that it was this kind of very attitude that the Pharasiee’s and Saducees embraced. Basically, when Christ was on earth and public revelation was in full flow, they just said “NO”. Actually it was more like a “Not yet” kind of attitude, or at least I gather. The irony is that the Protestant reformers adopted the Palestine Canon who was in fact a Jewish Traditonalist attempt to restore Judiasm in the late first century by paring away as much messaniac prophesey as possible from the Septuagint (Apostles Bible), so that they could forget this Jesus of Nazareth and his rag tag band of followers that have disrupted things so terribly. They wanted to put the past behind them, and look forward to the day when God would reveal to them their messiah.

The reformers thus adopted the Palestine Canon and with it, they rejected much of what had been revealed and revered for centuries through the buying into of the same mantre of saying “No, not yet” to the whole of revealed truths.

I figure that for both the Protestant and the Jew, the prime mover in rejecting revelation is that they aren’t ready to “go all the way” when it comes to the fullness of the faith, so they just “take what they can accept”. I figure that presuppositins and predjuices are hard items to rid oneself from, but it seems to be objectively evident that you can’t pass through the Eye of the Needle with all that baggage on your back.

Pax Christi

Wow, well said. Also, makes sense. I wonder how tolerant God is to presuppositions and predjudices?

From my understanding of the CCC vs. Protestant belief is the the Catholic church believes God to be quite understanding to these. However the Protestant saved or not-saved philosophy is one that is not so understanding. Believe or else!

 

[aridite]

Mijoy2:

Wow, well said. Also, makes sense. I wonder how tolerant God is to presuppositions and predjudices?

From my understanding of the CCC vs. Protestant belief is the the Catholic church believes God to be quite understanding to these. However the Protestant saved or not-saved philosophy is one that is not so understanding. Believe or else!

Yeah, this just recently occurred to me. We Catholics believe that if one has invincible ignorance (you do not and could not have known any better), one is not at fault for what one does because of this. So those who have never had the Gospel preached to them will be judged on what of God’s will they did know (natural law). For protestants, the fact that we sincerely believe Church teaching to be true is no excuse; if we have not “accepted Jesus Christ etc.”, then we are not “saved.” (Of course we do accept Christ and salvation is not a one time deal.) But protestants don’t seem to make any allowances for the invincible ignorance (from their perspective) of non-protestants. Hence the urgency of “being saved.”

 

[Mijoy2]

aridite:

Yeah, this just recently occurred to me. We Catholics believe that if one has invincible ignorance (you do not and could not have known any better), one is not at fault for what one does because of this. So those who have never had the Gospel preached to them will be judged on what of God’s will they did know (natural law). For protestants, the fact that we sincerely believe Church teaching to be true is no excuse; if we have not “accepted Jesus Christ etc.”, then we are not “saved.” (Of course we do accept Christ and salvation is not a one time deal.) But protestants don’t seem to make any allowances for the invincible ignorance (from their perspective) of non-protestants. Hence the urgency of “being saved.”

When I was on a journey back to faith after 30+ years of ignoring whatever faith I may have had, I was inclined to listen to Christian radio (mostly Evangelical) because it was readily available to me. It was in a place where noone could witness me doing silly God stuff. Although I was grateful to what I learned there (and always will be) I just couldn’t buy the saved or else Philosophy. It was what troubled me the most. It forced me to invision my wonderful little old lady Jewish neighbor who loved the kids in the neighborhood and baked them cookies burning in Hell when she died. I was tormented by this. The Evangelical argument for this was: “if ignorance is bliss then why did Saint Paul travel throughout preaching the Gospel of the Lord”? I’m still not quite sure how to answer this but I’d say it was because it was the truth and needed to be preached to bring people to the fullness of the Lord.

When I discovered the doctrine of invincible ignorance i felt God answered a prayer for me and gave me a path to belief that didn’t counter my very own conscience.

Although I think this is digressing from the original post, for that I apologize.

 

[John_19_59]

invincible ignorance

It’s not just Protestants. There are many hard-nosed “tradionalist” Catholics who will argue that it makes no difference. If you’re not baptised a Catholic then you burn.

I know, I spent many hours arguing with them until they banned me (for this and other issues - ie. Novus Ordo).

 

[John_19_59]

invincible ignorance

It’s not just Protestants. There are many hard-nosed “tradionalist” Catholics who will argue that it makes no difference. If you’re not baptised a Catholic then you burn.

I know, I spent many hours arguing with them until they banned me (for this and other issues - ie. Novus Ordo).

 

[flick427]

Perhaps it all comes down to our hard heartedness and (our)unwillingness to accept some things.

Jesus said “it is not you who chose Me, but I who chose you”…I suppose this means that sometimes we need to leave things open to His Holy Spirit and that is what really changes someones heart. All we can do is be an instrument and show them what is the truth and pray they open up to it. When we try to hear God speaking to us and listen for the wrong thing too much, we get use to that even though it may not be Him, and just us speaking to ourselves.

 

[francisca]

I think what the person meant when he said “God will reveal it to me” is that he is pondering those things in his heart. Just like mother Mary who ponders God’s actions in her life.

Sometimes it’s good to ponder than to do too much actions, the ones take away “shalom” peace from our life.

God bless.

 

[Philthy]

“I get the answer that God won’t expect him to follow anything else unless God “tells” him he is wrong…so, he continues to follow ONLY the Bible because God hasn’t told him otherwise.”

Well this is a good starting point. He follows the bible only because the bible says so? Where’s that in the bible? Where does the bible say “Do what is written unless God tells you to do otherwise?” What does he do with statements from the bible like, “…unless you eat of the the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…” John 6:53-54 Let me guess - at this point he doesn’t do what the bible actually *says, *but *interprets *what it says , and does that instead. How about a statement like," Likewise you younger members be subject to the presbyters (elders)" 1Peter 5:5 ? So here’s the bible actually saying ’ do what your spiritual superiors tell you’. Which basically means that they have been endowed with the job of interpreting scripture for the yonger members of the church. And if that’s the case, where did he come up with the idea of following his *own *interpretation of the bible? That’s actually going against the bible! “…the Church of the Living God, the pillar and foundation of truth.” 1 Tim 3:15 So now it’s clear - the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth (which is contained in Scripture); and through the Church we can know this truth. So basically God, through Scripture, tells us to be “subject” to the Church he established as the pillar and foundation of His Truth - he doesn’t say ’ interpret my word for yourself and I’ll let you know (by divine intervention) if you go wrong.’