I'm ready to go. I feel like I'm back in school running track, and right now I'm at the starting line with the race about to begin. All week long I've been running and training with my mind mentally preparing for this moment, for this event. That's what it's become for me mentally. I can't believe what started as a way to sort out a few ideas so I can get to sleep has turned into... well, "this". But there's the gunshot, it's time to go.
God is. God is powerful. I've come to the conclusion that the first statement is logical. The second statement is self evident in that any understanding of God, by any definition, would include power. Beyond that, however, I am unable to build any understanding of God by my ownmeans that would be able to pass honest scrutiny. Does that mean that beyond this simple definition God is unknowable? Yes. No. Both.
Yes, God is unknowable in that, by my own understanding, through my own reasoning and observation, I will never be able to come to a greater comprehension of who God is. No, God is not unknowable in that He is capable of making Himself known. We are able to know God if, and only if, He is willing to reveal Himself to us. The operative question now is: Is He willing?
There are four types of Revelation that I will look at and probably refer to from here on out. They are: reflective, testimonial, environmental, and experiential. Rather than (pretend to) give some great intellectual definition for them I am going to use an analogy of a truck.
I'm standing by the side of the road and as a truck drives by I feel the breeze it leaves in its wake. That's reflective revelation. The truck has just revealed itself to me, but half the time I don't recgnize it as the truck. I may feel its breeze but only on reflection do I understand its source. It is easy to reason away this revelation as one of many other reasons why I might have felt such a breeze.
In the second scenario someone tells me the truck just went by. I have a choice to believe them or not. Actually, I do have the choice to believe them in part. "Yes, a vehicle went by, but I think it was just a bicycle... or perhaps a tank." Here there are many variables in play. How honest is this person? How accurate is their memory? Did *they* encounter the truck or was it the friend of a friend? To get more pointed... how reliable is this written report of the truck? I'm guessing, in further weeks, I'll be looking at this type of revelation more closely.
In environmental revelation something actually changes in the *universe* around us. As I'm standing by the side of the road I see the truck, I can hear its horn, for a moment I am actually in the shadow of the truck. This is much harder to deny than the first two types of revelation but it is still not impossible. Also, over time the impact of this revelation is fading. The further I am removed from the event, the more it slides into the second category of revelation (my memory tells me).
One example of this happened to me this morning in the shower. I'd been up almost all night reading yesterday and I was tired. I'd just shaved my head and it was itchy. In the couple hours that I did get, I'd slept wrong and my back and neck were sore. My stomach was hurting. There were open blisters on my feet. I was in bad shape. I was in the shower working through my prayer list when I just stopped and sat down. "God I can't do this." I said, "I'm weary and I'm pulling a double. Help me get through today." Quicker than I could blink it was all gone. My back was fine. My head stopped itching. The blisters are gone. Even though I only had a couple hours of sleep I don't think I yawned all day. It's 1:15 now and I'm just starting to get tired. The truck has invaded my environment.
For me right now, this is very real proof. It is not definitive, but it confirms what I already know. To get *theological* it is not apologetics but it is epistemology. Now a year from now it will probably mean far less. "It couldn't have happened so suddenly. The blisters healed overnight and I only just noticed. I sat down too hard and it jolted me awake, etc." For you, the reader, it means even less. You can think I am making it all up to prove my point. That's fine, it's your perogative. But I know...
So, I get back to my earlier question. Is God willing to reveal Himself? Yes. Unquestioningly, without hesitation, yes. Why am I so confident in making this claim when it was so difficult (and only with hesitation) for me to even acknowledge that God is? Because for the first three weeks I was relying on what *I* can reason about God. Now I am resting on what *He* has revealed to me. I'm not just talking about the types of revelation shown above. I'm talking about experiential revelation. God has come down and impacted my life. I've been hit by the truck.
Rev. Richardson...thank you for you hearty food for thought. it was really good. thanks for challenging me and getting me to think. YOUR AWESOME...well God is anyway..((haha) talk to you later bro.
I really hate how something seemingly miraculous will happen and you're like, "wow, this is the proof I needed, now I know everything for sure". And then a month later you're like, "well... nah.. maybe now.. I don't know". Why do our brains do that, what's up with that??
I'm not a big fan of apologetics. The arguments are usually weak. And St. Augustine seems a little... fruedian... to me, if you know what I mean.
The arguments used often in apologetics usually run more to the lines of epistemology. And, well, you can almost see how Augustine had a thing for his mom.
Environmental revelation seems to be how us wiccans cast spells to affact the *universe* around us, what if instead of praying God for help I'd sit, rub some herbs where I hurt, and I feel better. Is God in the herbs? in my intention to get rid of my affliction? or maybe how I like to put it: some kind of psychological conditioning of the mind, where I think that the action that I'm doing (a prayer, spell, witchcraft, maybe a reiky session, etc, etc, etc) hmm... where I think that what I'm doing is actually going to work, so my mind takes the affliction away. I don't hurt, whatever I was praying for worked, or I casted a spell, or made a sacrifice, whatever we've came up with. I might be all in our heads, My leap of faith: God works in misterious ways...
