Evidence for God from Science

DRDS wrote:You know come to think of it, is there anywhere in the Bible where God sends His "presence" in order for a follower to feel loved and comforted? Is that even a true promise or thing that God claims to do for His followers? I mean, I hear about this stuff all the time in churches and on Christian tv stations, but is it truly biblical? Or, is the only way we can even get half way close to feeling God's love for us personally (other than dying and being with Him in heaven), is to just mediate or deeply think about God's general promises for all of His followers?

Well, there is this:
2 Cor 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
2 Cor 1:4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
2 Cor 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
2 Cor 1:6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
2 Cor 1:7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

There is also the Psalms, where sometimes it looked that God was comforting David, although other times it seemd he did not, or did not do so as much. Psalms also sorta "gives permission" to feel bad, since it shows David feeling bad often and expressing that. basically, it says that God understands, so you shouldn't lie to God and pertend you feel all hopeful and stuff when you don't.

I do not know if the bible says anywhere that God will always comfort so that you "feel his presence', however the above suggests that he has done so in the past. Also, it is extremely likely that any comfort will be different fpr different people and at different times, thus I don't know that we can demand some "presence" which will be the same for all people, or even the same for one person at different times.

However, all that said, there is "Practicing the Presence of God", a very old book by "Brother Lawrence" (a monk of the old days). The basic idea was that he knew intellectually of God, he simply let his emotions know (through a process, mainly just focusing on the actual bible stated presence and reality of God at all times continuously)). You can find out more here http://www.practicegodspresence.com/ . It containes the full text and some other stuff, I havent looked it all over (the original by Lawrence is good, I don't know about the rest). There is also a "modernized" version (which I have read) where they simply took the old 17th cent settings and updated them to more modern settings to make it more understandable, as well as updated language (he was a 17th century french monk).

Here is the introduction and a bit of the first letter:

Brother Lawrence was born Nicholas Herman around 1610 in Herimenil, Lorraine, a Duchy of France. His birth records were destroyed in a fire at his parish church during the Thirty Years War, a war in which he fought as a young soldier. It was also the war in which he sustained a near fatal injury to his sciatic nerve. The injury left him quite crippled and in chronic pain for the rest of his life.

He was educated both at home and by his parish priest whose first name was Lawrence and who was greatly admired by the young Nicholas. He was well read and, from an early age, drawn to a spiritual life of faith and love for God.

In the years between the abrupt end of his duties as a soldier and his entry into monastic life, he spent a period of time in the wilderness living like one of the early desert fathers. Also, prior to entering the monastery, he spent some time in private service. In his characteristic, self deprecating way, he mentions that he was a "footman who was clumsy and broke everything".

At mid-life he entered a newly established monastery in Paris where he became the cook for the community which grew to over one hundred members. After fifteen years, his duties were shifted to the sandal repair shop but, even then, he often returned to the busy kitchen to help out.

In times as troubled as today, Brother Lawrence, discovered, then followed, a pure and uncomplicated way to walk continually in God's presence. For some forty years, he lived and walked with Our Father at his side. Yet, through his own words, we learn that Brother Lawrence's first ten years were full of severe trials and challenges.

A gentle man of joyful spirit, Brother Lawrence shunned attention and the limelight, knowing that outside distraction "spoils all". It was not until after his death that a few of his letters were collected. Joseph de Beaufort, counsel to the Paris archbishop, first published the letters in a small pamphlet. The following year, in a second publication which he titled, 'The Practice of the Presence of God', de Beaufort included, as introductory material, the content of four conversations he had with Brother Lawrence.

In this small book, through letters and conversations, Brother Lawrence simply and beautifully explains how to continually walk with God - not from the head but from the heart. Brother Lawrence left the gift of a way of life available to anyone who seeks to know God's peace and presence; that anyone, regardless of age or circumstance, can practice -anywhere, anytime. Brother Lawrence also left the gift of a direct approach to living in God's presence that is as practical today as it was three hundred years ago.

Brother Lawrence died in 1691, having practiced God's presence for over forty years. His quiet death was much like his monastic life where each day and each hour was a new beginning and a fresh commitment to love God with all his heart.
Conversations

Introduction: At the time of de Beaufort's interviews, Brother Lawrence was in his late fifties. Joseph de Beaufort later commented that the crippled brother, who was then in charge of the upkeep of over one hundred pairs of sandals, was "rough in appearance but gentle in grace". This comment was originally made by another church official who had taken note of Brother Lawrence's simple and gentle approach to living in God's presence.
First Conversation: The first time I saw Brother Lawrence was on the 3rd of August, 1666. He told me that God had done him a singular favor in his conversion at the age of eighteen. During that winter, upon seeing a tree stripped of its leaves and considering that, within a little time, the leaves would be renewed and, after that, the flowers and fruit appear; Brother Lawrence received a high view of the providence and power of God which has never since been effaced from his soul. This view had perfectly set him free from the world and kindled in him such a love for God, that he could not tell whether it had increased in the forty years that he had lived since.

Brother Lawrence said he had been footman to M. Fieubert, the treasurer, and that he was a great awkward fellow who broke everything. He finally decided to enter a monastery thinking that he would there be made to smart for his awkwardness and the faults he would commit, and so he would sacrifice his life with its pleasures to God. But Brother Lawrence said that God had surprised him because he met with nothing but satisfaction in that state.

Brother Lawrence related that we should establish ourselves in a sense of God's presence by continually conversing with Him. It was a shameful thing to quit His conversation to think of trifles and fooleries. We should feed and nourish our soul with high notions of God which would yield us great joy in being devoted to Him.

He said we ought to quicken and enliven our faith. It was lamentable we had so little. Instead of taking faith for the rule of their conduct, men amused themselves with trivial devotions which changed daily. He said that faith was sufficient to bring us to a high degree of perfection. We ought to give ourselves up to God with regard both to things temporal and spiritual and seek our satisfaction only in the fulfilling of His will. Whether God led us by suffering or by consolation all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.

He said we need fidelity in those disruptions in the ebb and flow of prayer when God tries our love to Him. This was the time for a complete act of resignation, whereof one act alone could greatly promote our spiritual advancement.

He said that as far as the miseries and sins he heard of daily in the world, he was so far from wondering at them, that, on the contrary, he was surprised there were not more, considering the malice sinners were capable of. For his part, he prayed for them; but knowing that God could remedy the mischief they did when He pleased, he gave himself no further trouble.

Brother Lawrence said to arrive at such resignation as God requires, we should carefully watch over all the passions that mingle in spiritual as well as temporal things. God would give light concerning those passions to those who truly desire to serve Him.

Also:
Brother Lawrence said we ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our affairs just as they happen. God never failed to grant it, as Brother Lawrence had often experienced.

Also:
Fourth Conversation: Brother Lawrence spoke with great openness of heart concerning his manner of going to God. He told me that all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which we know does not lead to God. We might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him with freedom and in simplicity. We need only recognize God intimately present with us and address ourselves to Him every moment. We need to beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful and for rightly performing those things which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving God thanks when we have completed them.

Thank you very much for the info on Brother Lawrence. I'll be looking up more info on him very soon. But something else I was wanting to touch on is what did King David, the early church and Christ's disciples mean by God comforting them?

Did they mean 1. that by thinking about God's promises, God's attributes, God's role in their lives, or just about God in general, they automatically received comfort and love (but it was all them and their minds or brains doing it not God doing something supernatural) or 2. God was doing something supernatural in the extent that when He comforts them they were almost possessed in a sense by comfort and love almost in a sense how someone taking a big (but not lethal) dose of sleeping medicine will become almost possessed by drowsiness and would be something they could not fight off or control even if they tried their hardest?

You see I've been under the impression (mostly by tv preachers and charismatic Christians ) that feeling God's comfort and love would be like option number 2 instead of something more realistic like option number 1.

What you said about Brother Lawrence sounds very much like option number 1. Now granted, if I had things my way, option number 2 would not only be the way things really are, but I would be able to find out how to receive such an experience myself and receive such.

But I'm becoming more aware that option number 1 is either the way things really are or at the very least, fit the evidence in my life and the lives of people around me much more nicely.

I'm also getting to the point of becoming more sure that the only time or the absolute earliest and most likeliest time I'll experience something directly from God in the non circumstantial and pure supernatural sense is either the very next moment after my physical death or many many years after my death from where I'm basically remade and resurrected from my temporal state of nonexistence (if the idea of "soul sleep" true and biblical) and I then go be with God for eternity.

In a way I hope I'm wrong and that I'll get some kind of glimpse of the supernatural and or have a slight glimpse of a two way conversation with God before I meet Him in heaven but I'm increasingly under the impression I'll have to wait. Is that the same impression that you all here feel as well?



P.S. I do want to add this isn't about what God CAN do but what God IS doing or what God CHOOSES TO DO or seems to be choosing to do. Granted, God can do whatever He wants to at any time. I do want to point that out.

DRDS,

I went through the same phase some years ago. i was desperately trying to get close to God, praying all nights, fasting and doing all sort of stuff and I expected option no.2 to happen. As this was something I had come to believe by listening to a lot of preachers and evangelists. But in the end it was more of a stumble to me than anything else. i realized pretty late that these are not the signs which authenticate God's comfort in our hearts. Because if such is the case than Paul and Silas could not have felt that comfort via meditating while in prison in Acts 16:25

"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them."

They had been beaten before. There was no way they could pray in secret and isolation and let that presence soothe them over. But look they behave as if nothing had happened. I guess this is hope working through faith with the comfort of Christ and I think this is what is the comfort of the lord beyond our own understanding.

Very good point, I'll certainly take that into consideration. But in all intents and purposes, what DID Christ specifically mean when he said to the disciples about going away so that the "Comforter" could come? What did it mean specifically to them, and does it and if so how does it have an effect on Christians today?

Also, does this mean that the only real way we will experience any two way conversations or two way interaction with God will be when we go to be with God in heaven? From what I'm starting to see, that could very well be the case.

DRDS wrote:You know come to think of it, is there anywhere in the Bible where God sends His "presence" in order for a follower to feel loved and comforted? Is that even a true promise or thing that God claims to do for His followers? I mean, I hear about this stuff all the time in churches and on Christian tv stations, but is it truly biblical? Or, is the only way we can even get half way close to feeling God's love for us personally (other than dying and being with Him in heaven), is to just mediate or deeply think about God's general promises for all of His followers?

Rom 8: 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of[e] his Spirit who lives in you.

We don't have to ask for God to come to us. If He isn't in us already, we're not saved. That doesn't mean we feel it all the time in an emotional sense or that there aren't special times where we are more aware of it than others because the Spirit makes us aware. But it does mean we don't have to ask God to be with us. He already is.

First, about option 1, you think about God and his promises and feel better, or option 2, God overwhelms you so that you can't help but feel something, this assumes that God wishes to overwhelm anyone. For God to overwhelm, which, being so much larger and more powerfull than us God could easily do, would essentially remove our free will and make us not much more than puppets, thinking and feeling only what God wishes us to feel. However, then there would be no one for God to have a relationship with, as we would simply be an extention of Gods will and personality. All the evidence says that God operates within us with extreme sublety so that he can infuence us without overwriting our will and personality. This is stated here "1 Cor 14:32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets", here we see that when God gives someone a prophecy, they still have their own free will and can control themselves (the context is all about self control, as seen here 1 Cor 14:29 1 Cor 14:30 1 Cor 14:31 1 Cor 14:33). Thus, when you hear "charismatic" preachers say that there should be anything uncontrolled, such as everyone speaking in tongues at once (forbidden in the bible 1 Cor 14:23 1 Cor 14:27) or rolling in the isles or "laughing in the spirit", what yoiu are looking at are fake, probably mass hypnotism or something similar (only seen in those charismatic churches that don't actually read their bible and obey it, not all are bad).


There may be more than two options. First, if you are interested in this idea at all, or interested in being a follower of Christ, as some others said here, that MUST mean that the Holy Spirit caused that, it may be partially by external means (suggestions, arrainged life experiences, suggestions to someone else that then reach you) but also by inward means, very subtle ideas suggested to your mind to start a train of thought (example, C. S. Lewis started on a small trip to the zoo, when he started, he did not believe in God, when he arrived, he did, and he was not even sure how he arrived at that conclusion, probaly one small idea was "whispered" into his mind, which then brought up another idea, then another, etc, untill he had reached a conclusion). And if you do believe in Christ, then you have God actually living inside you. That means than at least sometimes, what you think and beleive is at least influenced by Godf himself, otherwise, you would not even care about God or Jesus. it may be extremely subtle so that it is in no way forced on you, so that you retain complete free will, but it is there. Thus, you may not believe that whatever comfort you recieve by, say, meditating on Gods promises may come directly from God, however, you may simply be wrong about that.


Also, what I said about "Brother Lawrence", he at least believed that it came directly from God. After all, if there IS a God, who IS inside you, at least SOME of what you think and feel WILL be at least influenced by God. The people around him all said he acted different, which is evidence of something different going on inside him than in others. Also, he did not have physical reason to feel comfort, since he had been injured in a war when he was younger, and was in constant pain, and at least partially crippled, so it must have come from somewhere. Brother Lawrance simply went all day with a constant awareness that God was with him and inside him, and was in a constatn conversation with God, not formal "prayers" or anything, just simple conversation and small prayers of the most simple kind. The idea is simple, if you talk to God and acknowledge him, he will talk back, if you ignore him, don't be suprised if you don't hear from him. After all, who do you think God is most likely to talk to, someone who wants to converse with him, or someone who ignores him all day? Also, just because you don't know that God is talking to you doesn't mean he isn't, you may think you thought of all that on your own and be wrong, or you could be ignoring him, or there may be some sin between you and him and he wants to talk about THAT, which you may not wish to hear (perhaps he is not saying what you want to hear). Also, God may have his own agenda besides just "comfort", after all, if that were his only agenda, what are you doing here, why does he not take you straight to heaven, plently of "comfort" there, after all. Perhaps you have work to do here, perhaps (ok, fur sure) he wants to make you better suited to live in heaven by making you a better person here, the process of which may not be all that comfortable.


Plus, you will I expect have to accept at least in part that you will not experience God here as you will in heaven, as seen here 1 Cor 13:12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. God, of course, can know you 100%, however, you may not know him so well simply because you are not yet fully ready to. However, some, like Brother Lawrence, came a lot closer than most others, so it is possible.


Also, it may take a while. Example, the pastor of my church used to be a missionary. he wanted to go to the mid east, but it did not seem like a good time and he was not sure if he should go, or should wait. Some older missionaries, who had been doing what God had asked them to do for many years (a married couple) came to them and told them that God said they should go as in right now hurry. So they went, they witnessed, some where saved, went back to their own countries, witnessed there, and very shortly many of those countries were closed to missionaries, so that if he had not gone immediatly no one would have heard the gospel in those countries. In this case, the old couple had been following and listening to Gods will and doing it (if your not going to do it why should he say it?) for many many years and so were familiar with Gods voice and perhaps even more importantly, asking for and listening for it. Thus, if you want some inner witness, for God to speak to you, it may take many years. It may take that long because God has to prepare you first, or to change you so that you are willing to listen (example, God had to prepare Moses for 80 long years before God spoke to him).


Lastly, I think I metnioned this before, God may not relate to you as he does to some others, some he may sent emtional comfort, some not. Look at, say, Moses. when God spoke to him, he said Exo 4:13 But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." And look at Jonah, he didn't want to do it, he even ran away when asked to prophecy to Nineveh, and it was because he ran away, was thrown overboard and had a storm suddenly stop, and was swallowed by a whale and so became bleached white (quite noticable as he went throughout the city prophecying) that he was such an effective prophet (many beleived). And then there is Jacob, who, when he finally saw God (well, jesus to be exact( face to face, actually attacked him, yet was renamed "Israel" and became the father of the Jewish nation. Thus we see that some who did not feel "comforted" and were even rather ornery caracters at times were greatly used by God and even had direct personal contact with him. The conclusion, God may not treat you the same as others, some may report "comfort", God may or may not treat you the same as he treats them.


Lastly, just because some say that everyone should feel this "comfort" all the time doesn't mean everyone should. If the bible does not say all will all the time, well, than if some "teacher" says so, there is no reason to believe them. They may simply be saying that you will feel good all the time simply because that way they hope to get you into their church, hoping that thus you will at least show up, or perhaps they just want your money. Just because some teachers say something that may not be entirely true, or are even evil, does not mean that the basic idea is wrong (that God can send some personal communication at least some of the time). It is Satans basic tactic to take what God has made or said and twist it, rather than making up anything new on his own (God being the creator and Satan not being the creator), plus, people can sometimes simply be wrong (even without Satans help). Psalm 22 says that sometimes we may not see "comfort", and psalm 23 says that sometimes we may.

As a Christian, I'd have to say I've never seen or heard of a credible supernatural miracle in my life. And that's both God and Evil based ones.
But consider what Christ had to say.
In Mark, chapter 8:11->
And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him.
And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

He always taught in parables, never did He teach otherwise. For it was not given for all to know and understand. Only those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. None come to Him except those who are chosen, called according to His purpose.
Besides, we are saved by our FAITH. Faith is a belief in something unseen. If there were miracles happening, the whole faith-based system would be rendered pointless. You can't have it both ways.

So, for this age, we have no miracles, and we are saved by simply hearing the Word, and responding to it. Those who do are the 'first fruits'.
After this age, He returns, and EVERY eye will see Him. No denying it then, He's God and it isn't about faith anymore.

We are the prodigal sons of the Most High.

rain