What is it fair to expect from God? What "evidence" of him should we expect to be given. Should we look for 100% certainty...shake his hand and have him physically and audibally be there? Perhaps a neon sign in the sky? I've got to be honest, all that would be real nice right now!Perhaps one of my biggest struggles right now is that much of what we "see" of God today is based on interpretation and personal experience. We in Christian circles often state that God is like the wind...we don't see the wind, but we see the effects of the wind. This is true. But I don't understand right now why God needs to be that invisible. For instance, I know George Bush exists (let's not get into the semantics of do I really know it since I've only
seen television broadcasts of him). I also see the effects of George Bush's views and policies which I can choose to believe in/accept or not...but I need not question the existance of the man. Why can't God similarly make his existance less work to find and allow our free will to be based more on our heart to follow.Yet even those who lived with Jesus and saw his signs doubted. The pharisees asked for a sign and were rebuked by Jesus because of how much was already given them to beleive (Matt 12:38-42). As Jesus was preparing his disciples for his death, Philip - who had seen all Jesus had done and said - asks to see God. Jesus simply replies astonished that Philip does not recognize him after all he has experienced (John 14:8-11).
Those of us who are skeptical have the uncanny ability to explain away all evidences we may find, no matter how seemingly obvious to outsiders.
What I am looking for now is plausibility: an understanding that my faith in God is not grounded in wishful thinking or ignorance, but instead accounts for reality and is more "reasonable" than other explanations or worldviews. Primarily, over the next few weeks, I will look at the rationality of the following cornerstones of the Christian faith:
- God Exists
- The Bible is a reliable source about Him
- God continues to be involved in the world today
- Christ is God and the Salvation for all those that follow Him
2 comments:
Mike, I just want to know if this falls into the four questions you listed before:
Why is the Christian God the "one true God?"
Good question, Jill. I belive that if the bible is considered a reliable source (for all it says about God and his claims) then there is really no option to believe in other God's. So your question is kind of what I am getting at by questioning the claims of the Bible itself since that is the primary source (outside personal experience and conjecture) of what God is like. That said, one of the things I did not list is that I want to understand other worldviews a bit more and have a Christian based book that does just that.
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