OK. We are not allowed to test God. Are we also forbidden to test the possible IMPOSTORS, who only claim to be God?

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Who might these impostors be? Anyone of flesh and blood who claims to be G-d is not so; there is no need to test them.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Who might these impostors be? Anyone of flesh and blood who claims to be G-d is not so; there is no need to test them.
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God is not limited by the laws of nature, and he could make a second appearance, if he wanted to.
FiveLinden said:
Where does it say we cannot test God?
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In the bible, of course. 🙂 and since the bible is the inerrant, authoritative word of God… 😉 you know!
 
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For Catholics we have the Catholic Church, I’m pretty sure you’re not Catholic, so you are kind of on your own.
 
Two different kinds of test.

One usage is in John. He encourages us to test spirits, rather than accepting them blindly.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
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The other usage is “I don’t have faith in you, God, so you gotta prove yourself.” Like what happened in Exodus.
The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.
So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?”
But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
The LORD answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
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What Midori said. We are forbidden to try experiments on God. We are not forbidden to test the claims of those who say they speak for God.
 
Zaccheus said:
What Midori said. We are forbidden to try experiments on God. We are not forbidden to test the claims of those who say they speak for God.
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Since God hides above the clouds, we can ONLY test those who allegedly speak for God… first and foremost the Catholic church. 🙂
 
I have not heard about God impostors, only false prophets. By their fruits you will recognize them.
 
And exactly what ‘test’ do you have in mind?
(Actually, God does not ‘hide above the clouds’. God is everywhere. If you have the author of a book, you don’t expect to see him ‘between the pages’ or speak of him being, ‘above the cover’ as if his existence depended on him being in reference to the BOOK, instead of the book’s existence being in reference to HIM. However all the words in the book come from that creator, and thus express his personality and make his ‘voice’ heard. Far more then does God, creator of all things, exist outside of them, not limited to a terrestrial point of view.
 
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Dan_Defender said:
I have not heard about God impostors, only false prophets. By their fruits you will recognize them.
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What fruits?
stpurl said:
Actually, God does not ‘hide above the clouds’. God is everywhere.
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When was the last time you ran into God, so you could conduct a conversation with him? Anyone who asserts to speak for God is a legitimate target for testing.
 
I pray to God daily. Prayer is communication. So I ‘converse with God’. Want to ‘test me’? In what way, pray (that’s prayer again) tell?

What will prove that I communicate with God. . that is, prove it to YOU?

Edited to comment,
I don’t claim to speak for God in that I don’t go around saying, "God personally told me X’. But as a Catholic, I believe that God did speak to us through Jesus Christ, and that Jesus established a Church, and that Church is the Catholic Church. I believe that Jesus’ words to us regarding the Church, The Holy Spirit (who is God) who will lead us to all Truth, and the establishment of the Church and its deposit of Faith, and the Scriptures, give us God’s inerrant Word, which the Church faithfully proclaims. The Church doesn’t make up new beliefs, it is just the medium whereby God has allowed His revelations to the world to be faithfully proclaimed and in the matter of faith and morals, infallibly protected.

I believe that while all individual members of the Church have at one point or another committed personal sin, the Church itself. . .that is, God’s word and teachings as given to the Church for us all to live by. . .have not.

IOW, all God’s revealed Truths remain true and perfect; it is the individuals in the church who sometimes fail to keep those truths who commit personal error. . .the Truths do not. It’s like a math student; the formulas for math, say for solving for X in algebra, are correct but the individual student may make a mistake, forget a step, write down a wrong sum, and get the problem wrong; but that doesn’t mean that the whole principle of solving for X is wrong!

So it would be just as silly to say that a group of students in Mrs. A’s algebra class who get the problems wrong prove that Algebra is hopelessly flawed, as to say that a number of people in the Catholic Church who get the teachings wrong, or refuse to follow the rules, prove the teachings are flawed.

Even if you had a class where every student messed up every problem, that doesn’t prove that the math was ‘wrong’. And if you went to the same classroom another day, or year, you might wind up with a class who answered every question that the other class ‘got wrong’, correctly!
 
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If you receive an apparition claiming to be Jesus, you have not only the right but the obligation to confirm that it is Him and not a demon pretending to be Him. Ask to see the crucifixion wounds, for He will not begrudge them to His servants, but demons will not imitate them.
 
I always thought testing God went along the lines of If You do this to me, I will continue to believe in You. Definitely a no no.
 
@Thinker_Doer

“Testing” God.

Judges 6: 36-40. Gideon had already seen miraculous things earlier in the chapter, but he insisted on the experiment. “Lord let this wool fleece be wet and the ground around it be dry.” And it was so.
Then he said: “Lord this time let the fleece be dry and the ground be wet.”
Gideon was trying experiments on the Lord. This is what we mean by “testing God”.

God was patient with Gideon but don’t do that.
 
mythbuster1 said:
If you receive an apparition claiming to be Jesus, you have not only the right but the obligation to confirm that it is Him and not a demon pretending to be Him. Ask to see the crucifixion wounds, for He will not begrudge them to His servants, but demons will not imitate them.
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These demons are very incompetent. 😉
sallybutler said:
I always thought testing God went along the lines of If You do this to me, I will continue to believe in You. Definitely a no no.
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A bit more complicated. It would be like this: “If you would manifest your existence, I will start to love and serve you. After all, how could I love and serve you, if I cannot be SURE that you exist?” What is wrong with that? Yes, I am aware of the “Blessed are who have not seen and yet believe”, but that is not something I can accept.
 
Zaccheus said:
“Testing” God.

Judges 6: 36-40. Gideon had already seen miraculous things earlier in the chapter, but he insisted on the experiment. “Lord let this wool fleece be wet and the ground around it be dry.” And it was so.
Then he said: “Lord this time let the fleece be dry and the ground be wet.”
Gideon was trying experiments on the Lord. This is what we mean by “testing God”.

God was patient with Gideon but don’t do that.
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The question is “why not”? If one is not allowed “testing”, that is demanding blind acceptance and blind obedience. Not my cup of tea. God gave us the power of thinking and the power of reasoning, and then demands that we suspend these powers for blind faith? Is that how a perfect being would behave? I don’t think so. This is how a con man would behave… who merely says: “Trust me!”
 
Thinker_Doer said:
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FiveLinden:
Where does it say we cannot test God?
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In the bible, of course. 🙂 and since the bible is the inerrant, authoritative word of God… 😉 you know!
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Just for clarification:
Are you a fundamentalist? If you are a fundamentalist then you are assuming a flawed premise on a Catholic Forum, because we are speaking two different languages if you are a fundamentalist.
 
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Thinker_Doer said:
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goout:
Are you a fundamentalist?
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No. And my answer to @FiveLinden was tongue-in-cheek. With a few emojis to indicate that it is not serious.
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So “we” are allowed to test God then? What’s your assumption?
Are you an atheist? If you are an atheist why are you asking about something you don’t believe is a thing?
 
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