Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!hedrick From: hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian Subject: what does it mean to talk to God [a brief attempt at an answer] Message-ID: <893@topaz.ARPA> Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 04:46:51 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.893 Posted: Thu Mar 7 04:46:51 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 04:24:10 EST Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 92 Xref: watmath net.religion:5886 net.religion.christian:369 Amid the usual clutter of junk in net.religion, I have seen two perfectly reasonable requests from non-believers. The first is in response to the various Christians. These folks said they believe in God because they talk to him all the time. Many readers found it hard to figure out what this means. It seemed unlikely that these people were really seeing visions and hearing voices. And they couldn't figure out what else could be meant. I think it is quite reasonable to expect a bit more explanation. So I am going to try to explain what I mean when I say that I talk to God. I am reluctant to take on this task, because it is primarily the task of the philosophy of religion. If any readers are versed in philosophy, it will become painfully clear that I am not a competent philosopher. However the question seems important, and no one else seems likely to try, so I will. Maybe one of you philosophers can try to clean up what I say. In order to understand what I mean when I talk about God doing this or that, you have to realize that my model of the universe does not separate events cleanly into those that are caused by God and those that happen by "natural causes". It seems clear that the laws of the physics do not uniquely determine what goes on in history. Even in classical physics, many different histories are possible, depending upon the initial conditions (or some equivalent, if you believe in a universe that has lasted forever). With quantum mechanics, there is of course far more freedom. I think of God as being responsible for the specific course that history has taken. I view the laws of physics as being similar in kind to the laws of poetry. The Author has chosen to follow certain patterns. But these patterns are not so rigid as to contrain what he is saying. Thus I believe that every event can be looked at from two different perspectives: that of someone tied to the visible universe, and God's. From our perspective, the event is tied in to history, and has the usual sort of causes. Depending upon the type of event, these causes may or may not uniquely determine it. But I also believe that in his providence, God has either chosen to have the event happen, or at least to make the universe a place such that the event would happen. This is somewhat similar to the "two levels" that other people have talked about, except that I consider that every event can be understood in terms of either level. Now on to communication with God... There are certainly times when God hits people over the head, but for most of us, most of the time, communication with God occurs in the context of prayer. When I say that "God showed me X", I think I normally mean that I realized X when I was praying. If you want to look at this from the worldly perspective, it could probably be said that no information actually arrives from an extraterrestrial source when I pray. I think most insights could be regarded as coming from one of the following sources: - considering events around me and seeing patterns in them - Scripture, particularly meditating on the life of Christ - the views of other Christians (or non-Christians, for that matter) However in my view, God is still responsible. One can see something like this even in the case of human teachers. I have found that it is not always possible to teach something just by lecturing about it. Often you have to find some way of pointing to it. Socrates is well known for trying to bring his students to see matters for themselves. Nevertheless, one would still say that a teacher of this sort is communicating. In my view, God has arranged the world, and our lives, to help bring us to certain insights. He has provided Scripture to remove any ambiguity that might otherwise be there. Prayer is when I take time to think about things carefully enough that I can see what God is trying to tell me. (NB: This is not a complete description of the role of prayer. I am completely omitting intercessory prayer, and no doubt other types of prayer as well.) There is a danger here that I will be understood as meaning something like the Deist model, where God sort of sets up the Universe and then leaves man to make the best of it. I believe that God is concerned with everything that happens to us, and that his providence applies from minute to minute. He *is* trying to tell me something specific. It is just that normally he speaks through events around me, through Scripture, and through other people. The primary difficulty with this view is that it is not "falsifiable". That is, if I claim that God is sending me messages on 100 MHz with frequency modulation, it is very easy to verify whether this is true or not. When I claim that he is sending me messages through the events around me, it is very hard to prove this true or false. Someone else can look around and see no message there. According to certain philosophers of science, in the final analysis this means that my claim is meaningless. I do not have the space here (or the expertise) to give a complete defense against this charge. However to some extent it is based on a naive understanding of the way science itself works. Many of the basic ideas of science (e.g. conservation of energy) are not subject to direct proof or even disproof. These basic ideas are embodied in a specific theory. But if that theory is disproven, it is always possible to add epicycles to it so that the basic principle continues. The actual choice among basic approaches is made in the long run, on the basis of whether it proves useful or not. If conservation of energy leads theorists to be able to propose lots of new experiments, and continues to be able to summarize the results of these experiments elegantly, we will keep it. I believe that it is the same with following God. If it leads me to new insights about myself and the world around me, and if it is capable of making sense out of everything I run into and see in the world, then it is a useful (and hence meaningful) idea.