What do you say?
So, I had a really interesting conversation with an officemate about God and faith today. Basically, his main question was "how can I have faith in Jesus if I can't make myself believe in God?" I guess, more to the point, "how can I avoid hell if I can't make myself believe in God?" He is philosophizing, in some sense, but it's an interesting question. How does someone come to believe in God, or even a god? Now, this particular guy is looking for God to drop a billboard on him and answer all his questions. He agreed with me when I say that you can't prove God (although, in Spiegel's words, it may be rationally obligatory to believe in God), so then where do you go in the conversation from there? I told him that just because he's "prayed" before, doesn't mean God is going to answer him in an auditory voice. I have never heard God speak, but I have experienced Him in so many other ways (from dreams to speaking in tongues to a strong sense of peace to...). He seemed to think that not actually hearing God speak is a pretty big indication against His existence--he wants concrete evidence. Now, most likely, God is not going to give you some evidence where the only possible explanation is God (ie. the proverbial billboard from the sky), but how do you explain seeing God in all these other ways? How do you explain that to someone who would eagerly and quickly search for a more naturalistic explanatin for anything that would happen? At times he seems so receptive, and at others he seems completely against it.
I haven't prayed about this or anything yet, just kind of organizing my thoughts, so you get my mess. Enjoy!
I haven't prayed about this or anything yet, just kind of organizing my thoughts, so you get my mess. Enjoy!
posted by spocktongue at 8:34 PM
2 Comments:
thanks for sharing. ive been thinking about talking about faith lately. it is much easier when you have someone who already believes in God. thats the first step.
Ahh, the curse of combining a 45 minute conversation into a paragraph of text.
What I'm trying to decide was whether he was asking a lot of stuff to see if he could "cover his bases" and try to avoid hell by being good, or if it was an intellectual interest that provoked the question, or something else.
He almost seems like he *wants* to believe in a god (although, it kind of seems like it's a "fear of death" kind of thing), but can't make himself do it, whether emotionally or intellectually or whatever.
He also seems to have this concept of "justice" that the concept of hell bothers him about. He talked some about what it means to be just and whose set of rules we go by, but the whole "good people going to hell" thing seems to bother him as well.
Time tends to elapse between these conversations, though, so I'll probably have some more time to think about it before we talk again. Essentially, I need to listen to God and trust Him to give me the words my officemate needs to hear.
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