In my last post, discussion turned to the question of whether or not we need God. One of my regular contributors, William, posted the following comment, and I felt it deserved its own post:
I am just having problems understanding whether humans “need” a god.
Do humans “need” a father? it may be beneficial if it’s a good father, but we can see many who get along fine who have not had a father, so “need” is the wrong term.
And what if that father is never around, left before you were born, and only left a letter to you explaining (not always in the easiest or most direct of terms) how he expects you to behave and promises that he’ll take care of you and promises to severely punish you for disobedience or for leaving him?
is that a good father? is that a father we need? isn’t it laughable that such a father could even begin to threaten the child for “leaving him” (since the father clearly left the child) not to mention how absurd it is to think that such a father actually does anything to really take care of the child?
I’m having a hard time understanding how we’re ingrained to “need” such a father, or why we’d even call such a father good?
Finding Truth 
I really do believe that all of this does come down to what you make of Jesus. You are looking for proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is who he said he was before you are willing to trust him. You’re turning this into a transaction – Jesus, if you do this for me, I will trust you. Jesus did not come to offer a transaction. He came to bring us the good news that we have a relationship with the creator already. These conversations often boil down to “I want proof. And, until I have it I refuse to believe”. I just don’t think that’s the way things work in relationships. God has offered us love and relationship with him. It’s strange to expect that, by way of securing our response, he would force our hand in relating to him. Doesn’t it make more sense that he would allow us to choose whether we trust him? That, it seems to me, is more consistent with the idea of love than forcing someone’s submission.
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Yet didn’t he work that way with Paul and Thomas?
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“He also said that this wouldn’t take away a person’s free will, unless you believe that Abraham, Paul, Gideon, etc didn’t have free will.”
This argument assumes that no one would accept God’s offer without God removing their choice. I don’t accept that assumption. I think some will accept and some will not. And, the one’s who will not would only accept if God changed them at a fundamental level.
“So do you agree with William’s assertion that a level of interaction from God that matched what he supposedly gave in the Bible would leave our free will intact? And if so, do you think it would help more people become Christians?”
I think it would leave our free will intact. No, I don’t believe it would increase the number of people willing to accept Christianity. There were people who had this level of interaction, and hated God for it (Jonah, Pharisees) and many others who had direct experiences of God and still feared their human enemies, which you would think illogical.
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“Yet didn’t he work that way with Paul and Thomas?”
Paul heard a voice from heaven and was blinded. It was his choice to believe this as a message from God or not. Would you necessarily believe based on this? I bet a lot of people wouldn’t. So, I wouldn’t count that as forcing Paul.
Thomas requested proof and got it. He also didn’t have to believe based on this. At least, my reading of it does not necessitate an overriding of free will.
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Then how do you explain Paul’s conversion? How do you explain Thomas’ unwillingness to believe unless he had a “hands on” experience? How you explain the passages (specifically at the end of John) that say miracles were given so that people would believe? How you explain God giving signs to Moses so he would go to Pharaoh? How do you explain virtually every example of the supernatural that occurs within the Bible if they have no effect in persuading people?
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Josh, i think you’re creating exceptions for the bible. Do you believe in Muhammad without iron clad proof? or anyone/anything else?
And here, with god and jesus, we don’t even know that they’re real – at least in the way the bible makes out.
I could go on and on about my great relationship with Cindy Crawford. How she supports me in what I do and how I lean on her for strength and how I know she loves me… that sounds nice until you know that i have never met her. She has never actually spoken to me. It sounds weird and stupid, yet people talk this way all the time about supernatural and eternal beings. It’s a one sided relationship with jesus and the biblical god at best, and strangely resembles imaginary friendships.
So yes, some proof would be very nice. And by the way, i’m not rejecting jesus’s words or even god’s words. I’m questioning the claims of the MEN who wrote the bible. Why do you trust them so readily without proof? And then why dont you trust what other men have said about god (apart from the bible)? Miracles you haven’t seen, but they have only told you about? This great one-sided relationship?
I dont know, josh. The more we lay it all out, the more it seems so off…
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Nate – “Then how do you explain Paul’s conversion?” and following:
You’re still assuming that everyone who has a direct interaction with God has to believe. This is not what is presented in scripture, so if you’re going to use scripture in a conversation you can’t hold that position.
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The bible exists outside of reality. That’s the only position I can come to, josh, if what you keep saying is right. The rules of logic and principles of reason cease to exist and do not apply to its pages. It’s from god after all, and we know that because it says it is…
Paul had a miraculous revelation (if it were true) and it did change his mind on jesus. It’s right there in the bible. Thomas and really the rest of the apostles, didn’t believe jesus had resurrected until they saw him face to face. If seeing jesus werent enough, seeing him after he came back from the dead seemed to be for them. But yeah, seeing a guy you saw killed and buried walking around with the death wounds still on him is unbelievable, but an old book written by random dudes bears much more weight.
I’m sorry, this is laughable.
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Okay, I just watched the video. I laughed all the way through it. Sorry to the person who made it. The reason Jesus did not give the same answer to the question is first and foremost simply because all of us are so different. Each of us has a different struggle, a different problem, and a different path. There is no pat answer for finding God, period.
It occurred to me that there was something missing (glaringly so): the rest of the story. Anyone can pull stuff out of context and make it say whatever they want. Certainly all of these verses taken out of CONTEXT and then put together as if they are a step-by-step way to heaven is ludicrous. But when you start to look at the texts cited within their context AND as conversations about SPIRITUAL things and not LITERAL, EARTHLY things, the conclusion of the video-maker is seriously called into question.
One of the things I have wanted to point out since the beginning of the discussion is the difficulty of a supernatural being revealing himself to natural beings. How does a God who inhabits infinite dimensions reveal himself to creatures who cannot perceive beyond 3 of them?
For me, Rob Bell did a great job of dealing with this question in his 1-hr. long video “Everything is Spiritual”. He uses an illustration of 3-dimensional intersecting 2-dimensional (he calls the 2-dim. world ‘flat land’) and considers what that intersection might look like. I have always believed that Revelation was a good example of someone trying to describe color to a blind man.
What IF we simply cannot perceive God as He is? What IF He has to use word pictures and faulty illustrations to describe Himself to us – not because He is limited but because WE are? This is how I come at the Scriptures these days … they do not provide answers to our questions, in fact, the Bible has produced more questions in me than given me answers. But there is something that pulls me in anyway. Not a desire to know, but a desire to be known. I talked about this a lot more in a recent blog.
Anyway, too long-winded, as usual. Thanks for another GREAT discussion thread, Nate!! 🙂
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William – You assume my relationship with God is one-sided. It is not. However, my experiences would provide no more proof to you than what is recorded in scripture. I know, despite how good I want and try to be, how evil I can be at times. Scriptures accurately describe the need we have, and Jesus provides the only failsafe resolution. Mohammed provides no resolution. Just more things we have to do to please God. It is the Roman/Greek/OT understanding of God all over again. Jesus seals the deal – for me.
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the real assumption here is that the biblical authors were telling the truth.
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Josh, jesus and god literally walk and talk with you?
or are you referring to your own thoughts as in, you prayed for wisdom in making a decision and then you made a decision and seemed to be a good one, therefore god interacted with me?
and true, I’d be skeptical if you said God or jesus actually talked with you or showed themselves to you or even talked to you through a burning bush or bright light from heaven.
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That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying the Bible shows that miracles and interaction with God and/or Jesus led to more conversions. I maintain that the same would hold true today. If people today could experience God/Jesus in the same way that they supposedly did in the Bible, more people would be saved. The only real question is why God doesn’t work that way now, if he wants as many as possible to be saved.
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William – “jesus and god literally walk and talk with you?”
Yes. Not in the way you’re imagining, I’d think. But, answers to my questions and deliberations and arguments with God come in many forms.
Nate – “I’m saying the Bible shows that miracles and interaction with God and/or Jesus led to more conversions.”
I still don’t grant this. Interactions and miracles led to SOME conversions, but your leap to MORE is unwarranted. Some people who interacted with God in the OT believed and trusted. Some did not and rejected God. Some who interacted and saw miracles of Jesus in the Gospels believed and trusted. Some hated him and plotted to kill him. I don’t see how you can conclude that interactions and miracles would lead to more conversions. We must conclude that it was not the interactions or miracles that solidified the responses, so those could not be the key ingredients.
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William – ” i think you’re creating exceptions for the bible. ”
I may be. But, I can assure you, if I am doing that I’m not doing it intentionally. I absolutely believe what I’m telling you. I could be wrong and misled. That’s certainly a possibility.
“The bible exists outside of reality. That’s the only position I can come to, josh, if what you keep saying is right. The rules of logic and principles of reason cease to exist and do not apply to its pages.”
This is most likely true. “The wisdom of God is foolishness to man”, etc, etc. Paul says again and again that belief seems foolish from the outside. And, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christians are to be pitied above all. I’m willing to accept that possibility, as was Paul.
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Good point Nate ! Many Christians would say God has shown miracles in recent times through people like Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, Peter Popoff, Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley to name a few. Most of these people have been proven to be fakes or without Medical Evidence but 2000 years ago ….maybe not. What would differentiate these Modern Day Miracles from the ones ancient people saw Moses, Elijah, Jesus, The Disciples, etc perform in those days ? Curious to hear your thoughts.
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Interactions and miracles led to some conversions — fine; I agree with that. It seems to me that if it had not been for these miracles and interactions, those individuals would probably have not converted. Therefore, such miracles and interactions today would lead to more conversions.
It’s really not very complicated. Interacting with God or receiving miracles from him qualifies as very strong evidence — we all make certain decisions based upon evidence. So it only follows that stronger evidence will convince people who have a higher threshold for belief. This explains why Paul, though familiar with Christianity, did not convert until his experience on the road to Damascus, and why Thomas needed to see and touch the wounds to believe Jesus had risen, when the other disciples didn’t seem to need that same level of evidence. And again, the Bible itself says that the miracles were performed to confirm the message.
So to say that those weren’t important factors seems to completely ignore the Bible’s evidence.
As an aside, you point to the gospels’ claim that some people saw miracles but still didn’t believe as evidence that miracles would be dismissed by many people. It could also be evidence that no actual miracles took place.
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“The bible exists outside of reality. That’s the only position I can come to, josh, if what you keep saying is right. The rules of logic and principles of reason cease to exist and do not apply to its pages.”
Jesus resurrection defies logic and reason. So, if true, this statement would be an accurate assessment.
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But this is probably one of Paul’s most absurd statements. If God loves everyone and wants them to be saved, and he created all of us, he can’t use the excuse that we just don’t understand him, because our ability to understand things was given to us by him. He would have to be incredibly inept to create us, and then write instructions to us that we likely won’t understand. It would be like building a toaster that runs on electricity, but trying to power it with coal.
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“So to say that those weren’t important factors seems to completely ignore the Bible’s evidence.”
I wasn’t trying to say they weren’t important – only that they couldn’t have been the principle factors, since some didn’t believe.
“you point to the gospels’ claim that some people saw miracles but still didn’t believe as evidence that miracles would be dismissed by many people. It could also be evidence that no actual miracles took place.”
That is certainly a possibility. But, we’re talking about accounts in scripture and what they indicate about conversions, so dismissing them in the midst of the conversation is not really fair 🙂
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“But this is probably one of Paul’s most absurd statements…”
But, Nate, some do understand and accept. So, your point cuts both ways.
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Hi kcchief1 — yes, I definitely suspect that the “miracles” talked about in the Bible were actually nothing of the sort. I think that’s why so many people still didn’t believe even after witnessing a miracle.
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Yes, there were also some people that joined Heaven’s Gate. Does that mean they were right?
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I’m not trying to dismiss them — just pointing out that they indicate two possibilities.
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Josh, does it not bother you at all that in order to have stronger faith, you must also have a weaker grasp of reason? What else in your life works that way?
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