The Problem of Revelation

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Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

So I'm aware religion threads are rarely productive. Still, I've been sincerely and obsessively exploring my faith recently, and this is a question I've been turning over in my mind that I can't find a way past, and one I haven't seen much discussion on anywhere either. I know there are religious people on this site, and they are who I am interested in hearing from.

First, a quick background on me so that you know exactly where both I and this problem (as I see it) are coming from. I was born and raised in the American south, in the Episcopalian church. For those who don't know, Episcopalian is very close to Catholicism, but it still falls within the realm of Protestantism. It's a relatively liberal church (the first openly gay bishop was Episcopalian), but very much within the "tradition" as it were - that is, choir and organ rather than praise band, real wine at communion rather than grape juice, etc. I was totally a believer in God throughout my childhood, but toward the time I went off to college, I realized I had many doubts, and in early college I swung the pendulum in the opposite direction and became a full-fledged douchebag teenage atheist. Since that time, I've swung back toward the middle, and though "agnostic" might describe me pretty well, I prefer to say I an "unaffiliated". Though I trust scientific accuracy in essentially every case, there are still things I see about the world - strange coincidences, things that could potentially be "signs" from a deity - that make me think, maybe, there is SOMETHING else out there. Still, there are too many problems with the Bible for me to take it seriously as an inerrant missive from God, and furthermore, I can't see why one religion is any more or less viable than any other - we dismiss Greek gods as myth, but treat Islam and Judaism as (if you are of the respective faith) absolute reality, yet from my perspective, they are equally mythological.

My problem, then, is couched in a Christian perspective, but (as I see it) can apply to all faiths if you simply swap out the specifically Christian components with Muslim ones, or whatever. In Christianity, as it has been explained to me, when you accept Jesus as your personal savior, the Holy Spirit enters you and from then on guides your conscience in everything you do. When you have a question or a problem, you can look inward, and ask the Holy Spirit for help, and it will reveal to you the answer. This is especially useful when attempting to interpret scripture: when a meaning is unclear, you turn to the Holy Spirit, and it illuminates the meaning of the text.

Thanks for starting a serious thread about serious matters. Let's hope this won't go down in flames as fast as these tend to. I'm sorry I'm going to slice your post in a few parts. There's quite a few things I want to address and I hope I'll be able to keep my thoughts organized that way. I'd really like to reply to you, in depth, so it's only fair tat I'll give you something to know what perspective I'm writing from. I'm a Finnish Lutheran and I like to think I'm pretty well-versed in the basics of theology. I don't know much about other denominations or their teachings, since we haven't had much religious diversity here until very recently. I also don't really know if American Lutherans differ significantly from us in practice, despite being doctrinally pretty identical.

quote:

So given that, here is my question, in a nutshell: assuming two equally devout Christians who both read the Bible prayerfully and considerately, then turn to the Holy Spirit and ask for guidance, how can the two Christians then disagree? And to be clear, I'm not talking about "can I eat this cookie before dinner?" or any similarly trite question, but a question on something universal and concrete, like how the church ought to be run or whether something is a sin. Important items that would have a single, all-encompassing answer from the Lord.

For example, many Christians believe women are not fit to teach in church. This is based on multiple passages from the New Testament, such as Paul's (second?) letter to the Corinthians, and Paul's first letter to Timothy. The passages seem very clear that women are not permitted to teach in the church, ever, at all - period. Yet there are other Christians - and one of them has been someone I've asked this of in person - who, by way of Holy Spirit-guided revelation have come to understand that those verses applied only to that time and place, first century middle-east, and not in today's world. So there are two camps, equally devout, both scripture-based, both asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, both equally certain of their conclusions, but in direct opposition.

How does this happen? Is the Holy Spirit giving different advice, or are people simply making mistakes in interpreting it? Second, how does one figure out who is actually correct in their revelations? And lastly, if what I'm referring to as "personal revelation" is such a poor and inaccurate method of obtaining information, why does anyone rely on it?

The way you describe revelation is very foreign to me. I'm sorry if I sound like a lecturer here (you wouldn't be entirely wrong) but, as far as I know, Revelation can traditionally be divided into two categories: general revelation and specific revelation. The term revelation itself is based on the idea that God is entirely unknowable to us and if we know anything about Him, it is because He has revealed himself to us in some way. So, there are some things that reveal something general about God and then there's something that goes into specifics.

General revelation consists of stuff like the beauty and complexity of nature, guidance you feel in your personal life, guidance that may be seen in history of the world... You know, stuff that makes you say: "There's gotta be someone or something behind this!" or "That's just to much to be a simple coincidence!" General stuff. Specific revelation then, well, that's Jesus, who taught us what and who God is and who participated in our life so much that he became one of us. You know the story. A bit more widely speaking, specific revelation is what is recorded in the Bible, because the Bible is what tells us of Jesus and his Father and the Holy Spirit. I won't go any deeper here (yet) since much of the previous sentences depend on how you interpret the Bible but the gist of it is that there's no mention of "personal revelation" there.

I'm not saying people cannot be revealed things by God. I'm saying that I cannot find biblical or traditional basis for any guaranteed personal revelation. It's actually quite the opposite. Notahippie wrote about it earlier so I'll just quote him a bit:

Notahippie posted:

Catholic interpretation of this, as I understand the theology, is that humans are innately fallible. While our decisions can be guided by revelation, preferably coupled with reading theology and the teaching of the church, it's part of our fallible nature as humans that we can get the final decision wrong.

I'm afraid that you are (or whoever taught you is) confusing personal revelation with plain old conscience. Ideally, conscience is right. In practice it's very often somewhat or completely wrong because we're all sinners. Being a Christian doesn't make your conscience magically any better at being right or wrong. If anything, it just makes you more aware about how wrong exactly you yourself often are. And that's again an ideal situation. I've been taught a rule of thumb about conscience: you better do what you think is right, because that's all you can do. But do pray and read the Bible and make an effort to find out if you might actually be wrong. Same applies to whatever revelation you might have: if it's in accordance with the Bible, it's not likely wrong and you may not have needed that revelation to begin with. If it contradicts the Bible, there's something wrong somewhere. If there's nothing in the Bible, then weighing the trustworthiness of your revelation is on your conscience anyway.

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So I hope it's clear what my question is. I've heard of the "Wrong hell problem" (info here), which essentially asks how can one pick a religion, but that's not quite what I'm talking about, and furthermore, I can imagine the Christian response to that problem: those other religions don't have the Holy Spirit working in them, they sin, and so they get stuff wrong. Simple.

I have to repeat myself here. Christians get horrible stuff wrong all the time. That's kinda the entire point of being a Christian. We sin heck of a lot despite having Holy Spirit with us.

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My question is more within just one religion: how can there be disagreement if the information is coming from the same divine source? Don't you have to kind of believe that you, alone, are infallible in interpreting the Holy Spirit to really believe you are right about your entire belief structure? I mean, if someone has to have made a mistake, couldn't it have been you? If you could be wrong, why aren't you in this case?

Please, I'm not looking for an echo chamber of responses along the lines of "because religious people are dumb!!!" That's not helpful. I'm looking for any insight into why people trust this gut-feeling-esque method of understanding God if it is so clearly unreliable. Am I wrong in any of my assumptions? Are there no true disagreements among Christians? Are there ways of verifying revelation that I'm not seeing? Would God have different rules for different people, and if so, why write the Bible and fill it with so many seemingly universal laws?

Thanks, and I look forward to some illumination on this topic.

Why people trust gut-feeling-esque method? I'll go and agree with this guy:

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

Okay, I guess we have a problem of terminology here. I'll try to clarify my position. "Personal revelation" is just the term I've been using, and I'm not aware of it being "officially" used in any other contexts or by any churches. I guess what I'm talking about is similar to your "general revelation" when you mention guidance in your personal life. It's going to God for guidance on some specific issue and feeling Him responding in some way. For this problem as I see it, I am especially talking about reading Bible passages and turning to God for clarification. Things like "God, is it really true that women can't teach in church?" or "God, is there ever an exception to 'be ye not unequally yoked with nonbelievers'?" which, once an answer is arrived at, often disagrees with other Christians' interpretations of the same verse(s). Thus, my point is: turning to God for clarification is simply too unreliable a method to be trusted, since it produces so many conflicting views.

The difference between general and specific revelation (those are terms I literally translated from Finnish so they might not be exactly correct either) can also be defined quite well by thinking what question is answered. General revelation is overwhelmingly about the existence of a higher power and very little about what he/she/they/it is like: "Is there a god?" Specific revelation is about the specifics. Thus your examples, especially because they're from the Bible, fall firmly into the latter category: "What is God like and what does He want?" The division is a useful tool but somewhat besides the point here, so I'm not dwelling on it much longer.

It sounds like personal revelation like you're describing is akin to what the prophets of the Old Testament and some few select people in the New Testament received. The problem I have with it is that traditionally it's been accepted that Jesus was the fulfillment of that kind of revelation and if there was going to be more of it, it wouldn't be new information. And even if it was, it's incredibly rare even in the Bible. It makes little sense that everyone would be a prophet of some kind. There's lot of dispute about gifts like that recorded in the 1st Corinthians. And that's probably again straying from the main topic. This sure is a broad subject.

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Now I'm not sure, but I think you might be saying that turning to God for guidance like that isn't really a doctrinally approved method of discerning information about the divine. I've been told (again, by a slightly evangelical-leaning yet non-denominational person in the American south) that this is exactly the method one is to use when attempting to understand scripture, but I may have been misinformed. I guess if that's the case, my question becomes: how does one settle interpretational disputes? People find conflicting interpretations of scripture all the time, how do you go about figuring out who's right? How do you know it isn't you that has gotten something wrong?

Well, I guess I'm talking about situations where two interpretations of something scriptural both seem equally likely. That is, neither one "contradicts the Bible", they both just see it in a different light. Like the thing about women teaching; on one hand, Paul makes very clear that women are not permitted to teach, but on the other hand, in practice, Paul absolutely permitted women to teach alongside him. So did he mean the "do not let women teach" to only apply to those people he wrote the letter to, or was he the only one allowed to make an exception to an otherwise universal rule? And so both sides of this issue would have some solid scripture to pull as evidence that their position is the right one. From what I've been told, both sides read and pray and come to a conclusion that the Holy Spirit agrees with them. In this case, one side has to be wrong, yes? But how do we figure out who? And furthermore, if this method of figuring out what is "right" is so faulty, why trust it so much? Why use it at all?

I have a dull answer and I have to confess that I'm unable to go very deep here but hopefully it's not that huge a problem. You settle interpretational disputes the same way you solve practical problems that don't have apparent objective right or wrong answers: You go with what you find is right. Assuming that there are either conflicting sources in the Bible or that there are several ways to interpret the same source(s), you just have to go with one interpretation. Or not. If it's something that's theoretical to you, it's Luther-Approved(tm) to just skip that part and pray that there's some light on that matter down the line. If you don't have the option of letting the matter rest, so to speak, then at least you could research what the previous 2000-3000 years of scholarship has to say about it. You can also observe yourself since we're given a brain for a reason. And you can pray. Who am I to say that God cannot give you your answer in some way.

I give a very personal example that happens to be exactly the same you used: My family I grew up with belongs to a movement that's very Bible-centric. Not literalists by any measure but very Lutheran in the sense of the Bible being the highest authority. The Church we belong to accepts women as priests but the movement we belong to does not. My family has nothing against the priesthood of women, however, so I've been raised that way and, as it is with lot of children, not having to even think about stuff like that until adolescense. I have had the luxury of letting the matter rest for years. I've read, observed and prayed and I'm in a situation where I have studied the scriptural arguments of both sides quite well. Eventually I came into conclusion that, based on the broader biblical guideline of "knowing the tree by it's fruits" and other similiar passages, as well as observing the people around me, that as far as I can see, there really is nothing wrong with women's priesthood. Can I be wrong? Sure. I can't debunk the other side's argumentation but I'm going with what I've gotten.

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What else can they do? I mean, that's my entire point: they can try to find solid evidence to back up their position. Trusting your "gut feeling" is far, far too unreliable a method. You've said it yourself, people get things wrong all the time when going with their gut. I want more proof of what the divine wants than "I just feel like it's X", especially since many people "just feel" so many contradictory things.

There's nothing wrong in being wrong. Okay, there might be severe consequences to your actions and decisions but am I correct if I'm picking up a hint of "God accepts us when we do the right things" vibes? This is a very Protestant thing to say and I doubt you'd get many Catholic or Orthodox people to agree on the finer points but one huge bonus of what Jesus did on the cross is that your deeds no longer carry any weight in whether God accepts you or not. We're free to do good without thinking if we might anger God somehow. Just. Do. Good. You're guaranteed to mess up sometimes. Don't worry, do what you can! If you're burdened by what is right or wrong then by all means don't make decisions arbitrarily but don't let hesitation stop you from doing good. The biggest revelation... (Can I call it that? I'm going to do it!) The biggest revelation I got when researching about the priesthood example was how very little that stuff actually matters. Damnit, people, stop arguing secondary matters and start feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the imprisoned and spreading the gospel!

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 21:16

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

emfive posted:

Well it seems to me that nobody does a good job keeping that clear. Like, for example, "Our Father, who ..."

Jesus called God the Father, so that term is kinda non-negotiable but to have a gender, you would need to have more than one of the being in question. There's only one God (and He's actually described in both masculine and feminine qualities).

# ¿ Nov 23, 2014 17:24

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

I guess if there is no "right answer", but rather just different guidances for different people, then that answers my question. It doesn't work for Christian theology as I understand it, but it answers my question.

Stottie Kyek replied so well that I at least don't have much to add. I'd like to know why you think that isn't compatible with Christian theology, though. To me there seems to be nothing wrong there.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2014 02:30

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

GAINING WEIGHT..., sorry for taking two little fragments out of your very valid questions but the actual concerns are getting more eloquent answers than I'd be able to provide so I'll just point you to two things. In my opinion these two quotes might show something about the roots of the problems you are having.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

The real God would not be this incomprehensible if it were required that we must follow his every command.

What if I suggested that we're not required to follow God's every command for His sake but for our own and our neighbours' sake? Paul's letter to Romans goes to great lengths to teach how God's Law differs from Gospel. What if we're already accepted by God (the magic word: Jesus) and free to do whatever, without it affecting His acceptance at all? He'd still require us to do what is right but we'd be given the right to fail and try again, as many times as required.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

I mean, if you see the Bible as not divinely inspired, but rather a collection of possibly historical accounts and musings on God, why follow the big conclusions it presents any more than the religious text of any other book?

Because I'm convinced by it. I'd like to add that it's the work of Holy Spirit but that's pretty unverifiable without some circular reasoning (=the Bible says so). I trust that book, for some reason. My rhetorical question to you from this quote would be: Why do you think divine inspiration necessarily means literalism? Why can't it be something like God gently nudging the shoulder of an ancient king to maybe write down some history or pretty poetry and then seeing that that text survives to give food for thought and nourishment of heart for the future generations?

# ¿ Dec 1, 2014 22:46

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

CommieGIR posted:

Hand-waving away God's actions through interpretation and argument that some things are metaphorical instead of literal is not 'interpreting' anymore than making excuses for accidentally hitting someones car.

For example: We can claim that racism in the 1800s in both literature and speech as a product of its time, but in the end its still racism and its still wrong.

That's not what interpretation means, although it sure can include that. Your claim is that you don't interpret the text. You don't mean that you have no personal bias at all, then?

# ¿ Dec 13, 2014 22:19

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

After a great deal of consideration from the discussion in this thread and elsewhere, I think I'd like to approach my question from a different perspective to see if we can get any closer to an answer:

Let's say I have been convinced of Christianity in the very basic sense - that is, I think there is a God, and I think Jesus is his son who died on the cross. However, I am still unsure of which denomination to choose (and thus, which specific interpretations of many of the finer theological points to follow). This may seem arbitrary or unimportant: well gee, do you like choirs or rock bands? Pageantry or a casual setting? But there are many things the denominations differ on that seem vitally important to get right (like, I dunno, which of the five solae do I consider?).

Let's further assert that I'm not interested in choosing a denomination based on what I like the best, or what feels right, or what is easiest, or what would require the least change in my lifestyle; rather, I am interested in finding out what is correct. I think even those arguing that logic can't be applied to religion would have to agree that there is a right answer (even if that right answer is "God does not care which religion you follow, just be someone of any faith at all") and that it is a reasonable goal to find out what that right answer is before committing yourself to a creed.

And let's say that the first issue I want to solve is: do I take the Bible as the literal word of God, or not? So I go to two hypothetical friends of strong faith: a Presbyterian and a Pentecostal. The Pentecostal tells me, "Gaining, it's important you realize that the Bible is the inerrant and literal word of God, and that you must follow all the rules prescribed therein. I've prayed on this many times and have consulted God in every instance when I had a doubt, but He has reassured me every single time that I am meant to follow this book exactly. I am certain of it." I then sit down with my Presbyterian friend, who says, "Gee-dubs, it's important you don't take the Bible as the literal word of God. Doing so could lead to many poisonous views, such as hating gay people or not allowing women to teach in church. Personally, after reading verses like those, I turned to God in prayer, and He assured me that the Bible was written by fallible humans, and should not be taken exactly as is. Rather, I should take just the central message of Jesus's sacrifice for me. I am certain of it."

Two people, both claiming to speak on behalf of God, both certain they're right, and yet their views are in direct conflict. I think we can agree they can't both be right; rather, it is simply unavoidable that one of them - at least - has made a mistake in their interpretation. So how do I further investigate to determine who is correct?

I think you're glossing over something crucial here (besides the fact that of course Lutheranism is the most correct, duh). That crucial thing is thousands of years of serious philosophy and theology, literary research, history, anthropology, knowledge of ancient languages and all that stuff they value highly in universities and seminars across the world. The guys in your example are ignoring that in favour of intuition. There was some reasoning versus faith discussion going on earlier but I've learned that presenting those two as opposites is a bit like presenting science and religion as adversaries. I don't see why you couldn't apply the already existing research, and experiences of many people across ages and cultures, when solving problems related to matters of faith. Claiming that you can hear in your head what God wants AND being 100% certain of that you understand Him correctly is a pretty dangerous claim.

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Just to head this off in advance: I don't accept that praying on the issue myself is a valid answer. For one, that's just one extra subjective interpretation to add to the mix, and two, I don't think my powers of interpretation are any better than either hypothetical friend - indeed, as someone who has been a nonbeliever so long and who is just coming around to an acceptance of the faith (in this example, not in real life), I would value my interpretations of God less strongly than my friends, who have been in communion with Him for a long time.

You (in your hypothetical example) are pretty wise. In my experience, recent converts have the biggest danger of being ultra-certain of themselves and seeing everything in black and white. The longer you've been a Christian, the more you hopefully (and in my experience usually) become to realize how little you can trust yourself to be 100% correct. That's not to say you act any better since of course you also develop habits and beliefs you don't notice. In this light, I'd say praying is in fact extremely important. Like: "I'm doing what I can, could You please see to it that I'm not doing too much damage?"

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When it's just two Christians differing on one viewpoint, from my neutral position, they seem to have about a 50/50 shot of being right. But when it's 2 billion Christians, each with varied and nuanced views on hundreds (if not thousands) of viewpoints, just based on pure probability, it is a near certainty that any given Christian is dead wrong about something, if not most things, that they believe. And I think we can agree that, since there are so many conflicting views out there on what God is and what God thinks and what God wants, most people have to be wrong. And it's not a stretch from there to say that they all are, at least in part.

Most people probably are wrong in most matters, yeah. It makes sense.

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How, then, do I trust communication with God, when that method is so demonstrably faulty? How can I simply have faith when it's impossible to decide which thing to even have faith in? If you are a believer, how do you take your own communications with God as more valid than anyone else? Do you think that you are the best at interpreting God, better than everyone else on Earth? Are you really willing to argue that when another believer disagrees with you on something, that they are necessarily wrong?

I don't think I have answers to the first two questions. Those seem like the type where finding an answer of your own is the point. In our Catechism (=Lutheranism 101, basically) there's actually something along the lines of developing trust and faith being in the domain and on the responsibility of God. It's kind of hard to simply decide to believe (in) something. For the rest, though: I don't take my communication with God as more valid than anyone else's. I'm not good at interpreting God at all. I have a bad habit of acting like I'm alvays correct. I'm often not. However, I do believe there has been one person I can trust being the best at interpreting God, by the virtue actually being His son. We have pretty good documents available about what he has taught and I think it's really important that we strive to understand those documents to the best of our ability. This Jesus person also highly valued the sacred writings of the people he was born among of, so those are probably really important as well. Then there are letters written by his students and some of their colleagues so I'm quite certain they know what they're talking about way better than I myself could figure out two millenia later.

I'm not being cheeky above. If Jesus was who he said and who his followers testified he was, research of the Bible is crucial because that's the only document we have of him and prayer is critical in that process because we're prone to insert our own preconceptions everywhere anyway. Consulting some experts will help to understand many things, too. They're also only human and can be wrong but I need experts in repairing my car so I don't think it's wise to ignore them in this matter either. (No, not the mechanics.)

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And if not - if you recognize that many people have to be wrong about many things, despite their certainty - why do you trust the conclusions you've drawn over any other?

I cannot go against my conscience. Ultimately I go with the conclusions I find most convicing or I find making most sense or that I for some reason believe in above all the others. I might be wrong, of course, but it's not me and my ability to reason things I'm putting my faith into. It's someone else.

Please ask me to elaborate if I'm not actually answering your question here.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2014 00:57

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 04:54

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

You started the thread with the intention of finding out something, I'm not entirely sure what, about how people know or seem to know things about God. You assumed God spoke to them in what you called revelation. People generally thought you were right in doubting those who intuitively claim to know what He wants. Believer or unbeliever, I think the keyword was intuitively. I don't think anyone suggested that God could be proven to exist or not, or if former, submit under the kind of observation the scientists in your parable are doing.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 19:58

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