Only uncertain ancient history? I want more reason to be Christian

[tp3192000]

Perhaps my problem can be summarized: I am facing the question, “Why isn’t God doing what I think a Father should do?” (e.g. communicate with me, comfort me) and the most likely answer appears to be, “Because He’s not there.”

The reality is the same for me who believes as for you who does not believe. We live in a world deprived of the apparent presence of God. The Kingdom of God does not reign here on Earth. Because Jesus is not visible to us does not mean He does not exist. Because He chooses not to communicate with you on the terms you desire does not mean that He does not thirst for you to come to Him. He does in fact thirst for you to come to Him and communicates in ways that are unfamiliar to you.

 

[ethereality]

The reality is the same for me who believes as for you who does not believe. We live in a world deprived of the apparent presence of God. The Kingdom of God does not reign here on Earth. Because Jesus is not visible to us does not mean He does not exist. Because He chooses not to communicate with you on the terms you desire does not mean that He does not thirst for you to come to Him. He does in fact thirst for you to come to Him and communicates in ways that are unfamiliar to you.

You suggest that God is both not sovereign and not competent.

You cannot say that God is “King of the Universe” but not of Earth. It is likewise strange to say that Jesus longs for something but hides and fails to communicate.

It’s not communication “in the terms I desire”, but rather “in a comprehensible way”, a way that can be distinguished from my imagination and my neighbors, and a way that is appropriate for one’s son: What human father would write a collection of letters during one’s infancy, pack his bags and leave and never say another word? “Just read those letters over and over again!” As Jesus says, God is better than good human fathers, not worse. Hence we should expect more than the Bible for a Father’s communication with His adopted sons.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

I don’t think those responding have addressed the issues.

You need the Paraclete.

For me, others demonstrated the Paraclete to me.

You say you sit in a church building. Do any of the congregation speak English or bother to talk to you?

Also you have experience as a Protestant.

Again they might not bother. But you are allowed, are not precluded from attending.

I haven’t got answers except that.

 

[Kliska]

Jesus was a real individual and the only reasonable explanation of all the evidence is that He rose from the dead. The evidence can be researched and weighed. God isn’t going to force belief, He provides enough info and the grace to make a choice.

Prayers for you…

 

[tp3192000]

You suggest that God is both not sovereign and not competent.

You cannot say that God is “King of the Universe” but not of Earth. It is likewise strange to say that Jesus longs for something but hides and fails to communicate.

I suggest nothing of the kind. Only here on Earth where man has free will and vanity, man chooses to do as he wills, not as He wills. Our sin leads us to the crappiness that we see in our world today. God is not less because of choices that we make ourselves.
Jesus is not hiding. He has already told us where he is. He does communicate, but many choose no to see or listen.

 

[ethereality]

I suggest nothing of the kind. Only here on Earth where man has free will and vanity, man chooses to do as he wills, not as He wills. Our sin leads us to the crappiness that we see in our world today. God is not less because of choices that we make ourselves.

I repeat what I said earlier. Your response here does not clarify the matter. You only raise an additional question of how our actions can obscure the sovereignty of someone allegedly far more powerful than we are. You may say, “He holds back his power out of love,” but here we have gotten off-topic: The topic is a silent and absent Father, not a distant King.

Jesus is not hiding. He has already told us where he is.

You’re not taking this thread seriously if you are supposing Jesus’ presence is obvious in the Eucharist (“not hiding”).

He does communicate, but many choose no to see or listen.

How does he communicate? You’re not taking this thread seriously if you are supposing I’m “choosing not to see or listen” – and offending me by neglecting what I’ve written.

 

[tp3192000]

I repeat what I said earlier. Your response here does not clarify the matter. You only raise an additional question of how our actions can obscure the sovereignty of someone allegedly far more powerful than we are. You may say, “He holds back his power out of love,” but here we have gotten off-topic: The topic is a silent and absent Father, not a distant King.

You’re not taking this thread seriously if you are supposing Jesus’ presence is obvious in the Eucharist (“not hiding”).

How does he communicate? You’re not taking this thread seriously if you are supposing I’m “choosing not to see or listen” – and offending me by neglecting what I’ve written.

You put words in my mouth in your earlier post that I did not say nor suggest. You are not truthful when you say He is an absent father when after all He has given us His Son. You are expecting Him to act in a way that is human and not divine.

I was not speaking of the Eucharist; I was speaking of the Ascension. He told us he would be with the Father, and has been there since the Ascension. This is something that we have in common with the first disciples, waiting and wondering about his return.

Jesus communicates in subtle ways. He communicates of course through the Eucharist. He also communicates through the Church, through Mary and the saints, the Holy Spirit and sacred scripture.

How does he communicate? You’re not taking this thread seriously if you are supposing I’m “choosing not to see or listen” – and offending me by neglecting what I’ve written.

Here is one small example. St Catherine Laboure, who lived within 100 years of my life, had a vision of Mary who asked her to distribute the miraculous medal. Mary shows her sense of humor in asking St. Catherine if she had more questions for her, in reference to Mary’s question at the Annunciation. The medal itself has one side of God’s communication to us written in a symbolic language that can be understood by anyone who ponders it. St. Catherine’s incorrupt body is still on display in Paris.

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

Well I am Catholic because I am very happy as one, in spite of, even because of, God’s silence. Indeed, once I have learned how to love God, not only am I happy in spite of those things and events that give me sorrow, they also give me happiness. I do not think any other religion or philosophy can do that for anyone.

You see, the most crucial attitude to loving anyone is that you must give your loved one freedom to be himself or herself. And if that someone is God, then you must let God be Himself.

When I first realized that, the first thing that came to my mind was that God is mysterious, beyond my understanding, and has no obligation whatsoever to let Himself be known to me or answer my prayers the way I want them to be answered. And I had to let Him be mysterious if I had any chance of loving Him correctly. I started to tell myself “Let go and let God be God” repeatedly throughout the day to remind myself to stop shoehorning Him into my expectations. I also had to start to forgive Him (I know, it sounds blasphemous, but later I intuited that this is something God wanted me to do) for the hurts He gave me when He didn’t do what I expect Him to do.

It was just a few days later when I started to feel God’s presence in ways I did not expect. Intellectually, I learned long ago that “God walks among the pots and pans” but this was the first time I experienced it. I began to see Him in the people around me, in the events that happen around me. God is not just Mysterious, He is Providence, and because of that nothing ever happens by chance. I see God talking to me all around me, though I cannot understand most of what He is saying, but that’s OK. It is as if all that expecting of God to talk to me, to let His presence known to me in my prayers were just shouts drowning His gentle voice.

Now, even in times of spiritual desolation, in His supposed silence, when it feels He has abandoned me, I let go and let God be God, because I love Him. And that already gives me joy.

But that is just the beginning of loving God, although for me it is the most crucial. You must not just give God freedom, but also you must also be free yourself to love Him. Finally, you must also be truthful to God and yourself about your love for Him.

 

[Cmc1972]

There will be no absolute proof-hence the mystery of faith.

Our belief in God is like being an athlete, if we do not eat right, practice right, then we can not compete at high levels.

If you do not pray and go to church and practice your and accept the belief in God, then at some point you will not beleive in God.

If God came down and went to each person on earth to satisfy there own individual doubts in God, then free will would no longer exists.

I have my own personal experience.

My daughter at 3 days, one month, and three months was declared by sperate doctors and specialists to be legally death with no cure available.

My wife and my family prayed for 9 months for Gods will to be done.

My wife every night would say my daughters name from behind her so she could not see her and each night my daughter would not react to the sound.

The night before the 1 year test, my wife called her name and she turned her head around and smiled at her mother.

The next day, she passed the test.
No one could give us an answer as to why.

Either you believe this is a miracle or a fluke.

The choice is yours.

 

[ethereality]

tp, I don’t see that you can be reasoned with, because you are repeating platitudes without really engaging my problem, namely how to live with them, and how some of them are reasonable. (Try saying that your human father only talks to you through your brother (like ‘God speaks to us through the Church’) and it becomes clear how that’s absurd: It demonstrates only the human agency of the one actually speaking; there is no evidence the person not speaking is actually responsible for the message.)

Here is one small example. [The incorrupt body of] St Catherine Laboure, who lived within 100 years of my life, …] is still on display in Paris.

No, her rotting body is still on display in Paris. I have no idea why people believe these bodies are “incorruptible”: Every single one of them is obviously rotting. You don’t even have to look far; any YouTube video with enough resolution to see detail shows it.

People who cite “Incorruptibles” as evidence of the Church’s truth – or, even worse, as ‘miracles’ – clearly either have problems with critical thinking and plain observation, or simply want to believe and are grasping at straws. I think it’s frankly scandalous to claim that rotting corpses are “preserved from decay, as if they’re sleeping” etc. as Tim Staples has done on air numerous times: It makes him out to be a liar when the claim is found false.

 

[ethereality]

You see, the most crucial attitude to loving anyone is that you must give your loved one freedom to be himself or herself. And if that someone is God, then you must let God be Himself.

I think this is a great observation; it does give credence to the idea that God didn’t do some good thing for some good reason. However, how do you reconcile this attribution of any outcome to God’s will with Jesus’ claim that God is our Father? When I was seriously injured, my father took me to the hospital: He did not leave me on my own to fend for myself. The harsh reality I’m facing is that I have no evidence that God is doing anything at all. This atheism explains every suffering, from the persecution of Christians to our unanswered prayers.

To put it another way, when we say that God is our Father, we have to actually mean something. What does this mean? Jesus is clearly teaching some relationship – indeed, Jesus depicts God as acting like (and better than) human fathers. I don’t see how to reconcile this teaching with God’s apparent neglect, i.e. absence. Your answer of mystery effectively denies this claim of fatherhood. Friends and acquaintances can be mysterious, but fathers must be personal and intimate, responsive. Far from lessening it, fatherhood being “divine” only strengthens this requirement, because it means God must be all the good that human fathers are and perhaps more.

If God came down and went to each person on earth to satisfy there own individual doubts in God, then free will would no longer exists.

This contradicts the alleged reality of Adam and Eve: They had direct contact with God. They knew God was there. They still had free will and chose to sin. Also, do those in heaven lack free will?

I have my own personal experience.

Your story is incoherent due to grammar and lack of detail. Are you saying your daughter was deaf and has since gained the ability to hear? I’m happy for you, but the more plausible explanation is that you were mistaken about the nature of her illness, e.g. the permanency of deafness. (The body is very complex and can injure and recover in a number of ways.)

 

[ethereality]

To put it another way, when we say that God is our Father, we have to actually mean something. What does this mean? Jesus is clearly teaching some relationship – indeed, Jesus depicts God as acting like (and better than) human fathers. I don’t see how to reconcile this teaching with God’s apparent neglect, i.e. absence. Your answer of mystery effectively denies this claim of fatherhood. Friends and acquaintances can be mysterious, but fathers must be personal and intimate, responsive. Far from lessening it, fatherhood being “divine” only strengthens this requirement, because it means God must be all the good that human fathers are and perhaps more.

The Catechism says,

270 God is the Father Almighty, whose fatherhood and power shed light on one another: God reveals his fatherly omnipotence by the way he takes care of our needs; by the filial adoption that he gives us (“I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”):109 finally by his infinite mercy, for he displays his power at its height by freely forgiving sins.

Here is the part I am struggling with, because it appears to me that God is not taking care of my needs – more than that, God has not given me any way to care for them myself, either: I literally can do nothing but suffer until God or another agent intervenes. (Someone else has written that suffering is good for me since it is an expiation for sin, but I don’t understand why both Jesus and I must suffer together for life to turn out well – it only raises the question of why we must suffer at all, especially when it is not because of our own sin.)

 

[Mintaka]

Re: God’s apparent absence and silence –

There’s a natural cycle in most people’s prayer lives, where at some points they feel that God is close and at other times they can’t feel him. (Of course, some people never feel him; other people feel him all the time. Those are less common experiences, though many people who never have any “feel” of God can have very deep intellectual experiences of Him. For example, Dorothy L. Sayers stated that she never had any non-intellectual experiences of God. But she was a very devout and learned Christian and apologist, as well as a darned good writer of fiction.)

St. John of the Cross has a very good explanation of this cycle (building on other spiritual writers, monks, etc.), and that the periods of “absence” are actually times when God is very busy “behind our backs,” helping us build our spiritual muscles by making us do stuff “on our own steam.” Really, God is right there, and actually closer than when He is making things seem easy. The easy bits are just baby food or appetizers, meant to lead up to the hard work. If God thinks you don’t need the baby food anymore, He stops giving it to you.

(Although some people out there really are lucky enough to get to eat baby food all the time. Cheerful people, like St. Francis de Sales, who only had one short period during his whole life of feeling abandoned by God. OTOH, he was a bundle of persuasive energy and we’re not. God knows what works best for each of us, and He thinks I need repeated thumps on the head to get my attention.)

Bl. Mother Teresa is probably the best modern example of someone who had the baby food totally taken away. She had extensive visions and talks and feelings with God for about a year in her middle age, and then she spent the rest of her life thirsting for God. It didn’t stop her work; it didn’t stop her being holy. It made her work harder at being holy. But God was always there in her work, even though she could know longer “feel” His presence.

I am not saying that this is pleasant. Killing yourself with work in the gym isn’t pleasant, either. But from the point of view of a spiritual athlete, such as St. Paul says we should be, we should expect some pain to go along with our gain.

The book to read by St. John of the Cross is The Ascent of Mount Carmel. If you finish that, you can read the sequel, which is called The Dark Night of the Soul. (But really, don’t read The Dark Night of the Soul first, or you will totally misunderstand the entire book. And yes, I know a lot of colleges assign only The Dark Night of the Soul, because some professors are idiots.)

 

[simspt]

Give me reasons to be Christian.

Explain to me why God is not communicating directly with me, and why God is not leading me to answers.

Explain to me how God interacts with us as our Father.

Explain how we know God is there and taking care of us.

1. at minimum Pascals wager, at maximum because it is objectively true and you owe your very existence to God.
2. That question is not anserabele, only God knows that, anything else would be speculation as to why…
3. He loves us, scolds us, lets us fail, picks us up when we fail, protects us, teaches us, and is willing to die for us (as Son eg Jesus)…enough said…
4. by faith

 

[Goya]

You have it backwards.

Faith comes first. Everything else comes after that. You make a leap of faith first. Belief is a choice. You are seeking understanding so that you might have faith. That’s not the way God works. Faith comes first.

Choose to believe that God is who he says he is and that Jesus rose from the dead. Be willing to give up everything, including your life. You have to put everything on the table. God will do the rest, but you have to do your part first.

-Tim-

 

[Goya]

My suffering combined with God’s apparent absence and silence is what is drawing me away. The system of belief I am tempted to adopt is naturalism, viewing this universe as a closed system, and agnosticism. (Agnosticism: It seems the only way to know God is through direct experience, i.e. private revelation.) Perhaps my problem can be summarized: I am facing the question, “Why isn’t God doing what I think a Father should do?” (e.g. communicate with me, comfort me) and the most likely answer appears to be, “Because He’s not there.”

The rest of this post explains why naturalism appears equally tenable, if not more than Christianity.

Which has more explanatory power: Christianity or naturalism?

Christianity fails to explain suffering. (I say “fails to” rather than “does not” because Christians do attempt to explain it, namely, as ‘a mystery’, ‘something to be lived’, ‘something God entered into to carry us through it’, ‘a blessing to help us grow’, but all of these responses ultimately do not resolve the problem; they only push it away temporarily – hence they are failures.) This problem is quite simply enormous. Moreover, it appears the Church has nothing more to say on the matter, that, apart from special graces to select individuals, suffering will remain not understood until the General Judgment when all is made known.

There are a number of points that naturalism currently does not explain, but might in the future: The past of the universe (currently we have a theory extrapolated back to the Big Bang, but know nothing prior to the singularity); the reliability of the universe (i.e. how we are able to do science, i.e. the apparent order of the universe); the appearance of free will.

The first and last examples I think might be understood by physical models in the future. The second I think is a metaphysical question, but first we must answer: Why must there be an explanation? Isn’t it possible that it’s simply a brute fact? We say God’s existence is a brute fact, i.e. that God being existence itself is a brute fact: Perhaps instead the universe’s reliability, and if it’s infinitely old prior to our extrapolated singularity, then its existence – i.e., perhaps the universe’s existence is the brute fact, rather than God’s.

All I can offer is a bit of perspective.

First, IMHO, you come off as a spoiled, entitled brat. I don’t mean that quite as harshly as it sounds–but, objectively…that’s what you sound (read) like.

Second, let’s take a look at my basis for above; let’s begin with an inventory of what we can deduce about you, just from the mere fact that you are posting on here–from Japan: You’re obviously alive; you’re obviously a human being; you’re obviously literate–banging away on a keyboard, lamenting how awful you have it.

From which we may deduce:

1. You exist;
2. You exist in a more dignified manner than a rock; than a plant; than a cock roach; than a cat; than a monkey…;
3. You have been blessed with enough resources, to be able to read and write;
4. You are blessed with enough resources to type on a computer…and communicate with strangers, across the Pacific Ocean, in your native tongue;

…yet somewhere along the lines, God has allegedly damned you so, that you bemoan his benevolence towards you, and worse still, dare question His very existence.

Quite shameful, frankly.

My people came from a place that would appear to be far less dignified than where you find yourself in now (before my time); first hand however, I have worked–as a missionary—with people in circumstances that probably make yours seem downright comfortable. People who could not read or write; who slept on dirt floor, or if lucky, on a hammock, or some rickety excuse for a cot; who’s idea of a full day’s nutrition, amounted to less than what my Pekingese eats in a single sitting (to say nothing of my golden retriever, or 100 lb. Am. Bulldog); people who had scarcely even seen an automobile, let alone owned or driven one; people for whom running water and/or electricity, are unknown concepts, and whose family members were lucky to live to the see the north side of 40…

Here’s my humble suggestion to you sir:

1. Apologize to God for daring to question His existence;
2. Apologize for being ungrateful for His benevolence;
3. Thank God for the gift of today;
4. Then…politely, humbly, sweetly…ask God for a sign–in His time.

JMHO/FWIW.

 

[tp3192000]

How does he communicate? You’re not taking this thread seriously if you are supposing I’m “choosing not to see or listen” – and offending me by neglecting what I’ve written.

Just who is dishing out offensive remarks. I am “unreasonable”, have problems with critical thinking and observations, repeat platitudes and make off-the-cuff remarks, according to you. There is no good communication between us because you choose to edit my words to suit yourself.
I gave you five ways God communicates to us and one example of speaking through Mary and the saints, and you rant on about decaying bodies. Good luck with your healing.

 

[utunumsint]

Hi ethereality,

Just found out about an author who has studied over 400 years of medical miracles. She is a professor at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints, and Healing in the Modern World

I’m thinking I may purchase this book. I’ll give you a review if I do.

Also, my cousin is a doctor who graduated from Queen’s. I will drop her a line to see if she has met the author.

God bless,
Ut

Just got the book in the mail today. The first chapter states that the archives are sealed for the last six popes, so starting from 1939 forward, but those from the 1500’s to 1939 are open for anyone to examine. In addition, some of the proceedings of the canonization process have been printed and bound into books since the 18th century. And those books are not sealed. So the author was able to look at these books detailing the more modern 20th century cases. She was also able to read the *Posito * published in 1989 for the case she had been consulted on as a hematologist. This is what is sealed up in the archives. The case she worked on without knowing it was for the cause of Saint Marie-Marguarite d’Youville. So she was able to see a very modern case.

Anyway, I’ve very interested in this book. I may start a thread in the philosophy forum if I think there is a topic of interest there. Perhaps something on the canonization process. Keep an eye out for it, or let me know if you are interested and I can PM you when I start it.

[edit]Actually I will continue to read the book with an eye to your comments in the original post:

Regarding alleged miracles, the problems I have been unable to overcome with each of them have been verifiability, statistics, and connecting God as the cause.

This.

Briefly explaining each point:
Regarding verifiability: The event allegedly occurred in a remote location at a remote time with insufficient documentation so I just have to take the word of a stranger who published a book.

So it appears that the archives are open up to 1939, but I’m not sure how you can access them. But at least for those beyond 1939, you can look at the published books from the canonization process.

The Church does not publish miracle commissions’ data and findings for public scrutiny. There are rumors that they exclude witnesses who have a natural explanation (e.g. a “Dr. Ranjan Mustafi” in relation to a Blessed Teresa of Calcutta miracle).

I’ll read the book I bought with an eye to the author’s reaction to the miracle. She is an atheist, so she should be fairly unbiased in her assessment, or worse, biased against.

Statistics: For example, when people report favors and miracles from Venerable Father Michael J. McGivney, one must ask, “What is the probability of this occurring naturally? How many others are praying for the same thing who God is not healing?” That is to say, the real question: “How do we distinguish divine agency from chance?” (I’ve recently found a reviewer of Craig Keener’s Miracles raising this question. It is an important one that Christians should consider and have a good answer for, since the Church teaches that God expects us to use our brains.)

The author of the book is still an athiest, as far as I know. But it will be interesting to see what her reactions are to all of these miracles.

God bless,
Ut

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

I think this is a great observation; it does give credence to the idea that God didn’t do some good thing for some good reason. However, how do you reconcile this attribution of any outcome to God’s will with Jesus’ claim that God is our Father? When I was seriously injured, my father took me to the hospital: He did not leave me on my own to fend for myself. The harsh reality I’m facing is that I have no evidence that God is doing anything at all. This atheism explains every suffering, from the persecution of Christians to our unanswered prayers.

Ah, but have you ever considered the panicking, flailing injured child? Such a child cannot be helped until he has been calmed down.

This is how I was before with respect to God: I hurt so badly, I was so sad and angry about His silence, that I never did realize until I started to calm down that my insistence on Him to say something, to let His presence be manifest before me, drown out the fact that I was in His arms all along, that He was talking to me all this time with everything that is happening to me. And all I had to do was to shut up and let God be God

And that is what you have to do. Stop questioning, stop shouting to God, and let Him speak in His own way.

Be at peace.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Note: I have no money to buy books, little time to read them, and no English library from which to borrow them. This thread is more or less a rehash of other threads I’ve posted. The summary is: Give me reasons to be Christian. Explain to me why God is not communicating directly with me, and why God is not leading me to answers. Explain to me how God interacts with us as our Father. Explain how we know God is there and taking care of us.

---

Well, I am beginning to see that God interacts with us all differently. We are after all different. We have different personality types and unique experiences of life. Some people are more abstract introspective and can spend time contemplating God. While others are more concrete and need to see God in more concrete ways. Some people can experience God alone in their rooms. While others need to be in some kind of community doing community actions. I would recommend you try different things like that. Go into your room and pray. If that doesn’t help then go out into the Christian community and get involved in different things. I personally recommend that you go on a cursillo. As this can be a great way to encounter God through other people. Some one once said the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Try new things like going on a cursillo or some other retreat. Try going to pray before the blessed Sacrament. Get involved in your church, in doing some kind of charity work. Take a course on Christianity. Do something. Just don’t sit on your hands wondering why things are not happening.