Trusting in God

[Psychotheosophy]

Why should we trust in God,
At times when there is no physical evidence?

 

[davidv]

Why should we trust in God,
At times when there is no physical evidence?

The Church is physical (as well as spiritual).

“no physical evidence” is a false premise.

Why not trust in God?

 

[MarcoPolo]

I think your best best is to acknowledge that God came incarnate and permitted Himself to be tortured and murdered by His own creatures—and it is this God that told us to trust Him----since He showed Himself to be God by His miracles and resurrection, we can then deduce that His knowledge is vastly superior to ours. It is a very difficult thing to trust Him when we see no evidence, so I think this is one of the best ways to do think of it.

 

[workingman]

I know this does not address physical evidence but I suggest reading Hebrews chapter 11 and John 20:24-31 these address faith specifically. I just sort of addressed this in my blog post recently. The link is in my signature. I hope it may be of help.

 

[myfavoritmartin]

If you seek Him He is faithful to reveal Himself to you, but ou must be earnest in seeking Him out…It will be all the evidence you’ll need once it happens to you.

 

[imkingdad]

Why should we trust in God,
At times when there is no physical evidence?

Miracles Happen everyday. These are clearly manifestations of God’s Love & mercy that result in clear Physical evidence. ie: the complete, sudden healing of any number of illnesses or conditions that have been documented by countless Authorities, Church, Civil, Medical etc.

So on the face of it your base premise is clearly in error. Remember just because you refuse to see, taste, smell, feel, hear or believe something does not negate its existence. It only shows how your resistance is willful & intentional.

Afterall there is no physical evidence of your existence to me, no physical evidence of your soul, your intellect, your spirit. Does that mean you do not exist? Just because we can not touch Christ on the Cross does not mean He wasn’t crucified. Your “Premise” would result in each & every generation having to REPROVE all that was handed down to them ( History & Tradition) such efforts would almost certainly result in little to no advancements during any particular time period.

Bottom line this question just doesn’t fly. or even have legs under it.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

“no physical evidence” is a false premise.

Bottom line this question just doesn’t fly. or even have legs under it.

We trust our prayers are answered according to God’s will,
Even though we may never see any physical evidence of this.
Why?

I think your best best is to acknowledge that God came incarnate and permitted Himself to be tortured and murdered by His own creatures—and it is this God that told us to trust Him----since He showed Himself to be God by His miracles and resurrection, we can then deduce that His knowledge is vastly superior to ours. It is a very difficult thing to trust Him when we see no evidence, so I think this is one of the best ways to do think of it.

Certainly,

Jesus is the only true God and true man,
And always will be the only true God and true man,
And even if we put all our intellects together,
We could never explain this,

However,

Acknowledging these things,
Is not the same as trusting God.
We may acknowledge these things,
Yet still trust in idols (money, power, etc.)

We can have a divided heart, so to speak.

I know this does not address physical evidence but I suggest reading Hebrews chapter 11 and John 20:24-31 these address faith specifically. I just sort of addressed this in my blog post recently. The link is in my signature. I hope it may be of help.

Actually,
I think it does,

“Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see.”

Hebrews 11:1

If you seek Him He is faithful to reveal Himself to you, but ou must be earnest in seeking Him out…It will be all the evidence you’ll need once it happens to you.

How are you,
“Earnest in seeking Him out?”

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Miracles Happen everyday. These are clearly manifestations of God’s Love & mercy that result in clear Physical evidence. ie: the complete, sudden healing of any number of illnesses or conditions that have been documented by countless Authorities, Church, Civil, Medical etc.

So on the face of it your base premise is clearly in error. Remember just because you refuse to see, taste, smell, feel, hear or believe something does not negate its existence. It only shows how your resistance is willful & intentional.

Afterall there is no physical evidence of your existence to me, no physical evidence of your soul, your intellect, your spirit. Does that mean you do not exist? Just because we can not touch Christ on the Cross does not mean He wasn’t crucified. Your “Premise” would result in each & every generation having to REPROVE all that was handed down to them ( History & Tradition) such efforts would almost certainly result in little to no advancements during any particular time period.

Bottom line this question just doesn’t fly. or even have legs under it.

Since we trust in the physical evidence,
Of trusting in God,
And physical evidence leads us,
To trusting in God,

And we stop listening,

To the physical evidence
Of trusting in God,
If the conclusion is something
We don’t want to hear,

Or continue listening,

To the physical evidence
Of trusting in God,
If the conclusion is something
We do want to hear,

Then,

Why is it important,

That we struggle in not listening
To the physical evidence,
Of trusting in God?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Why is it important,

That we struggle in not listening
To the physical evidence,
Of trusting in God?

St. John of the Cross wrote this in,
“The Ascent of Mount Carmel,”…

“Those who imagine God through some of these figures (as an imposing fire or as brightness, or through any other forms) and think that He is somewhat like them are very far from Him…St. Paul teaches in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘We should not consider or esteem the divinity to be like gold or silver, or stone sculptured by the artist, nor like anything a man fashion with his imagination’ (Acts 17:29).”

Book II, Chapter 5

So,
Physical evidence is not Happiness itself.

“These considerations, forms, and methods of meditation are necessary to beginners that the soul may be enamored and fed through the senses,…(however) err greatly if they do not determine, dare, or know how to detach themselves from these palpable methods…They believe such procedure permanent requirement. They strive hard to meditate, but draw out little satisfaction, or none at all; rather their lot becomes aridity, fatigue, and restlessness of soul.”

Book II, Chapters 5 and 6

So,
Physical evidence leads us to Happiness.
But, the physical evidence itself
Loses it’s satisfaction,
Happiness does not.

“Once the faculties reach the end of their journey, they cease to work, just as a man ceases to walk when he reaches the end of his journey. If everything consisted of going, one would never arrive; and if everywhere we found means, when and where could one enjoy the end and goal?”

Book II, Chapter 6

So,
By detaching from physical evidence.
Happiness is perfected.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Physical evidence is not Happiness itself.

Physical evidence leads us to Happiness.
But, the physical evidence itself
Loses it’s satisfaction,
Happiness does not.

By detaching from physical evidence.
Happiness is perfected.

All people naturally desire to follow the Principle of Happiness,
And if this is pointed out (physical evidence),
It becomes easier to be
Aware of and
Receptive to
This natural desire.

“Mary Magdalen was first shown the empty sepulcher, and afterwards the angels told her about the resurrection so that she would believe before seeing. As St. Paul says: Faith comes through hearing [Romans 10:17] And though she beheld Him (Jesus), He seemed only an ordinary man, that by the warmth of His presence He could finish instructing her in the belief she was lacking [Matthew 28:1-6; Luke 24:4-6; John 20:15].”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel
Book III, Chapter 8

Eventually,
As this natural desire becomes more evident,
Physical evidence (such as pointing it out),
Becomes less necessary.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

My understanding is that the Catholic Church teaches that you can know with certainty that God exists “from the created world” (CCC 36). The First Vatican Council said that “If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.” So unless I’m misinterpreting it, it seems like a Catholic must believe that there is some sort of physical evidence for God, or be considered anathema.

But assuming there is good evidence for some sort of god, I think there’s still the question of whether he’s trustworthy. I’ve thought about this a decent bit, and it just doesn’t seem to me like there would be good reason to trust him.

Think about why we come to trust individual people. If my experiences have shown that people are generally pretty trustworthy, I should trust a stranger more than if I thought that most humans were evil. But how much we trust someone depends on other things like the context that we met them in. We assign teachers, drug dealers, people in suits, and people who look like gang members different initial levels of trust based on what we think we know about the trustworthiness of these groups. While this can be a good thing, sometimes these biases are irrational. Many people are racist or xenophobic without any actual evidence supporting their biases.

What about God? For one thing, we have no experience with other all-powerful supernatural beings. Even if humans are trustworthy in general, that doesn’t mean that the same holds for supernatural beings. Given that there doesn’t seem to be any reason a priori to think a good god is more likely than an evil god, I don’t think we have an a priori reason for trusting him.

But as we get to know someone better, our level of trust changes. If someone tries to steal my wallet and is not a magician, I start trusting them less. But if I see someone giving up their time or money to help someone else, I start trusting them more. While this seems like a good way of figuring out whether someone is trustworthy, you have to be careful. If you ask an email scammer to send you $10 to prove he’s honest and he does, that doesn’t mean you should send him your life’s savings. While small selfless acts may cause us to trust someone, we still shouldn’t trust that person totally or we could be easily swindled.

So what has God sacrificed? Christians say that he sacrificed his son. But since God is all powerful, he could have brought about the same result without having Jesus die. It’s a little like if a judge stabbed himself in the leg with a pencil and then decided not to send someone to jail. The pencil has nothing to do with whether the act is benevolent. But also, if Jesus is part of the godhead, he would be infinitely capable of dealing with pain and dying on the cross wouldn’t hurt him at all. Even if he could strip himself of his ability to deal with pain, his act would be no more benevolent than the judge’s self-mutilation. It would also raise the interesting question of whether God could take away all his powers and kill himself.

A Christian might say that it’s still benevolent because God forgave our sins. But this is still not the kind of self-sacrificing act that should make us more likely to trust someone. God is essentially giving up nothing of value, and then asking us to give up something we value very much: our ability to live our lives the way we see fit. So sacrificing to God might be worse than giving your life’s savings to the scammer. God has sacrificed less to earn your trust and is asking for more.

Certainly this isn’t the only way someone can earn your trust. If you get to know someone very well and you see what they’re really like, you might start to trust them. If you see someone at their most raw and uninhibited, you can get a better idea of whether they’re trustworthy. For example, if you meet a politician after he’s had a few beers you might get a better idea of what he’s like than if you listen to every single one of his speeches. While we can be easily fooled, this can at least give us some idea of how trustworthy someone is. This works because humans are not perfect at deception, as the success of poker players at reading tells demonstrates. But an all-powerful being that wanted to deceive could do so better than any human ever could. So we could not tell whether our interactions with him show us what he is really like, or whether he is merely deceiving us.

One other good way of seeing whether we should trust someone is seeing what other people we trust think of him. At first this seems like it could be a good reason to trust God, but then you have to think about why other people trust God. If there is no good reason to trust God even in the best case scenario when God communicates with us constantly and seems to make our lives better, what basis do those people have for trusting God? If everyone I knew believed something but I knew that they had no good reason for believing it, that wouldn’t give me a reason to believe it. If everyone I knew trusted in the U.S. government, but I knew that the only reason they did so was they thought blind patriotism was good, that wouldn’t give me any reason to trust the U.S. government.

continued…

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Yet even if you realize there’s no good reason to trust God, you could still say that if God rewards you for doing what he says, it makes sense to keep doing it. If God somehow demonstrates to us in an unmistakable way that he is rewarding us for our actions, then maybe this would make sense. If I gave a $10 bill to a poor person and then a $100 bill appeared in my wallet and God told me he’d keep doing that, I’d start giving out a lot more $10 bills. But God still wouldn’t earn my trust. I see trust as a confidence that someone is generally honest and a good person. There could be a practical benefit to doing what an evil dictator says, but that doesn’t mean you should trust him.

One final reason someone might trust God is for the psychological benefits. It seems like it would be disturbing to believe that God exists, but have no idea whether he’s good or evil. While there are probably cases where it could make you happier, trusting in people merely for psychological benefits can be very dangerous. Many people had a profound trust in Jim Jones and this may have made them happy, but this misplaced trust had disastrous consequences.

Even if God exists, and even if he does the things Christians claim he does, it still doesn’t seem like there’s any rational way to justify trust in God. God controls our reality, and if he wants to create a world in which he makes us think he’s nice in order to get us to do evil, he can do so without any effort whatsoever. So even if we have solid evidence that an all-powerful all-knowing supernatural being exists, I don’t think we’d have any reason to trust him.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

My understanding is that the Catholic Church teaches that you can know with certainty that God exists “from the created world” (CCC 36). The First Vatican Council said that “If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.” So unless I’m misinterpreting it, it seems like a Catholic must believe that there is some sort of physical evidence for God, or be considered anathema.

“The principle object of supernatural faith lies in the mysteries of faith which are know by Divine Revelation. The Divine Revelation guarantees the infallible certainty of the truths of the faith. The truths of Faith have therefore a higher degree of certitude than the natural truths of reason.”

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
(referencing the Summa Theologica)

Which “certainty” are you referring to?

But assuming there is good evidence for some sort of god, I think there’s still the question of whether he’s trustworthy.

God = Goodness
We can always trust
Goodness to be Good.

Think about why we come to trust individual people.

I agree,
Man is not Goodness,
So, man can not always
Be trusted to be good.

So what has God sacrificed?

When our will is united with God’s will
His sacrifice becomes united to our sacrifice.

For instance,

“Here are some examples of these divine operations. A person will ask a soul in this state for prayers. The soul will not remember to carry out this request through any form or idea of that person remaining in the memory. If it is expedient to pray for him (that is, if God wants to receive prayer for this person), God will move its will and impart a desire to do so…The reason is that God moves these souls to do those works that are in harmony with His will and ordinance,…Thus the works and prayer of these souls always produce their effect… Such was the prayer and work of our Lady, the most glorious Virgin.”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel
Book III, Chapter 10

But also, if Jesus is part of the godhead, he would be infinitely capable of dealing with pain and dying on the cross wouldn’t hurt him at all.

God suffered in His humanity,
But not in His divinity.

It would also raise the interesting question of whether God could take away all his powers and kill himself.

God = Life
By it’s own nature,
Life can never cease living.

I hope I responded to all your assertions.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Which “certainty” are you referring to?

I guess I was mainly talking about God’s revelation through the created world, which I assume includes divine revelation. But I’m certainly no expert on these issues.

God = Goodness
We can always trust
Goodness to be Good.

I realize that in your conception of God, he is good; I just don’t think there’s any basis for that belief. You can certainly define the word ‘god’ so that a non-good being would not be considered a god, but then you’re left with the question of why there couldn’t be a being that is like your conception of God, but who is evil instead of good.

I agree,
Man is not Goodness,
So, man can not always
Be trusted to be good.

But assuming we can establish that there’s an all powerful creator of the universe, I don’t think we have any more reason to assume that he is all good than to assume that man is all good. Even if the Bible says God is good, how would we know that he actually is? Wouldn’t it seem likely that an evil god would want to fool us into thinking he was good?

When our will is united with God’s will
His sacrifice becomes united to our sacrifice.

For instance,

I don’t see how this demonstrates any sacrifice on God’s part.

God suffered in His humanity,
But not in His divinity.

By my understanding, Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. So if the God part of him did not suffer at all, then God did not suffer. I’m not trying to be stubborn; it’s just that I’ve never been able to make sense of how it was a real sacrifice and why it was necessary.

God = Life
By it’s own nature,
Life can never cease living.

I don’t think it makes sense to say that God is equal to ‘life’ as if they were the same thing (since God supposedly has many other properties). But I get that under your definition of God, a being that did not promote life would not be considered as God. But not all gods that have been conceived of throughout history have been thought to promote life and goodness. I still think it makes sense to call these false gods, even though you believe that they do not possess all of the properties that God possesses. There is a lot of life in this world, but also a lot of death. I don’t see how this world is much stronger evidence for a god that promotes life than for a god that promotes death, or who is indifferent on the matter.

I hope I responded to all your assertions.

I don’t think you responded to all of them. But it’s fine; I made a lot of assertions.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

By my understanding, Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. So if the God part of him did not suffer at all, then God did not suffer. I’m not trying to be stubborn; it’s just that I’ve never been able to make sense of how it was a real sacrifice and why it was necessary.

The hypostatic union can’t be fully understood by human reason,
Nor is there anything in the created world
Which completely compares to it.

How much reason would you need,
To make the final leap of faith?

I don’t think it makes sense to say that God is equal to ‘life’ as if they were the same thing (since God supposedly has many other properties).

We say,
God = Unity,
Since there is no division in Unity
God is all his properties.

Wouldn’t it seem likely that an evil god would want to fool us into thinking he was good?

Why?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

anEvilAtheist;6267881:

Wouldn’t it seem likely that an evil god would want to fool us into thinking he was good?

Why?

Man can desire evil,
However,
All men naturally desire Goodness in Principle,

And this natural desire is known without human reason.

For example,
A murderer may murder,
Because he thinks its good,
To kill someone whom he dislikes.

Likewise,

Man can desire an absence of God,
However,
All men naturally desire God.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

But not all gods that have been conceived of throughout history…

Which is one reason why we believe that,
All people naturally desire God in Principle.

But not all gods that have been conceived of throughout history have been thought to promote life and goodness.

A principle = a value
Value = Goodness
Therefore,
Principle = Goodness

Since,
All people naturally desire the Principle of God,
That which they naturally seek,
Is a God who is Goodness.

Even though,
All people naturally desire the Principle of Goodness (God),
Some people may will evil,
And think of it as good,
To satisfy their,
Natural desire.

I don’t think it makes sense to say that God is equal to ‘life’ as if they were the same thing (since God supposedly has many other properties). But I get that under your definition of God, a being that did not promote life would not be considered as God. But not all gods that have been conceived of throughout history have been thought to promote life and goodness. I still think it makes sense to call these false gods, even though you believe that they do not possess all of the properties that God possesses.

I like to promote Life, Goodness, and God,
But would not consider myself God.

It’s difficult responding,
To a double negative.