Faith in God or faith in man?

[alexiscurious]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation. So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

 

[oi_antz]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation. So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

That is not how it works. The people who wrote parts of the bible had faith in God through their belief of Him. People who have faith in God will attribute His influence in their lives to Him, whereas those who do not claim faith will attribute those same things to some other reason.

When we read and hear what people tell us about God (eg, their description of His activities or their beliefs about Him), we translate those words into an understanding. Here is where the reader can choose to trust what God is telling them, or trust some other idea.

When a person gets familiar with His voice, we do not need the bible or anything to tune our ear to Him. In prayer, He will speak to us. He also speaks to us when we don't recognise it, and we may even listen to what He tells us without knowing it is Him. I believe that some people who cannot form sufficient beliefs to have faith are such people. That in some ways, they obey God even better than others who do claim to have faith.

 

[Hawkins]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation. So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

When you read history books, you put faith on the truth of what is said. You have faith that what is said is a true event occurred in history.

Similarly, your faith is for the believing that the Bible God is true. What He said and promised is true. Your faith is in Him that His promises and what is said in the Bible will finally come true.

That's basically how a truth is conveyed through humans. That is, you put faith on a small among of humans who are believed to be in a direct contact with the truth itself to get to a truth. In the end, it will become your faith to believe that what this small group of human said is a truth. You have faith that it is a truth. It's not about whether you put faith on men or on God. It is about how a truth can be reached by humans. Generally, humans employ witnessing to get to a truth.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

The bible is not the only way to communicate with God. You can pray and talk and God will respond.

 

[aiki]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation.

The Bible tells us what we need to know about God, but it by no means tells us "everything that God is." Not even close.

So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

But Christians - at least conservative, Bible-believing Christians - do not hold that humans are the "source of all the information" in the Bible. They are "transmitters" of God's Word, not the source of it.

Is there good reason to think this? Yes. The Bible bears the mark of the divine upon it. It isn't God's Word merely because it claims to be, but because there are good reasons beyond the claims of the Bible itself that point to its divine origin.

1. Unity of themes.
2. Fulfilled prophecy.
3. Archaeological and historical accuracy.
4. Survivability.
5. Positive transforming impact upon individuals and societies.

Selah.

 

[food4thought]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation. So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

I think we need to start at the ground floor to help you understand the Christian belief in the God the Bible describes. It may take quite a few questions and answers to get where we need to go, and because I do not want to assume what you think about certain things, we'll have to go with one or two questions at a time. I'll try to get here every day to check this thread. If you're willing, here's question one:

Is "the perfect Being" a reasonable, but simplistic, definition of God? If not, why? And no, this is not an intro to the ontological argument for God (at least it shouldn't be).

 

[alexiscurious]

Is "the perfect Being" a reasonable, but simplistic, definition of God? If not, why? And no, this is not an intro to the ontological argument for God (at least it shouldn't be).

Not sure what this has to do with my question but yes that seems like an accurate title to give to God.

My question is not about who God is. It is simply stating that since everything we know about God is communicated to us from man, in a book written by man, doesn't one have to trust in man as well?

 

[alexiscurious]

But Christians - at least conservative, Bible-believing Christians - do not hold that humans are the "source of all the information" in the Bible. They are "transmitters" of God's Word, not the source of it.

Transmitters are still sources. If I recall correctly, Joseph Smith (the founder of
mormonism) wrote the Book of Mormon based on "visions" he had and private encounters with angels. He too was only a "transmitter" of what he thought he saw. You still have to have some trust in the transmitter?

 

[aiki]

Transmitters are still sources. If I recall correctly, Joseph Smith (the founder of mormonism) wrote the Book of Mormon based on "visions" he had and private encounters with angels. He too was only a "transmitter" of what he thought he saw. You still have to have some trust in the transmitter?

I don't see how a transmitter is necessarily the source of what it transmits. A USB cable transmits data from your cell phone to your PC but it is not the source of the data it is transmitting. In the same way, the wisdom, truth, and spiritual principles of the Bible are transmitted to us from God through the writers of His Word.

In the case of Joseph Smith and the things he claimed to be "transmitting from God," one must assess the validity of the claims he makes concerning the Book of Mormon just as one must do with the claims the Bible makes for itself. When one lines up the Book of Mormon against the Bible, well, one quickly realizes there is very little comparison between them. The Book of Mormon doesn't bear the marks of the divine as the Bible does.

You are quite right, though, that we must place some trust in the quality of the "transmitters" of God's Word. The New Testament writers were carefully vetted by the apostles and the Early Church community. Really, it was the Early Christian community that largely determined which books were canonical and which were not. In light of this and the superintendency of God over the affairs of His Word, I have great confidence that the contents of the New Testament have not been fouled by its writers. God would not be much of a God if He could not preserve His Word from corruption and error.

Selah.

 

[alexiscurious]

You are quite right, though, that we must place some trust in the quality of the "transmitters" of God's Word. The New Testament writers were carefully vetted by the apostles and the Early Church community. Really, it was the Early Christian community that largely determined which books were canonical and which were not. In light of this and the superintendency of God over the affairs of His Word, I have great confidence that the contents of the New Testament have not been fouled by its writers. God would not be much of a God if He could not preserve His Word from corruption and error.

But you never even met the writers. They are complete strangers to you. Yet they have somehow wound up dictating how you should live your entire life. I just wish a belief in God didn't have to rely on the testimony of someone else.

 

[food4thought]

Not sure what this has to do with my question but yes that seems like an accurate title to give to God.

My question is not about who God is. It is simply stating that since everything we know about God is communicated to us from man, in a book written by man, doesn't one have to trust in man as well?

I ask this because the idea of God, the perfect Being, exists in many forms throughout every culture (even the ancient oriental cultures worshiped a God or gods before Confucius and Buddha). Now that is not to say that every culture actually worshiped God, but they do or did contain the concept of "the perfect Being" as they conceived it.

We start with this concept in order to eventually answer your enigma of whether we are trusting in man or not when we put our faith in something that may be man made but claims to be of Divine origin (the Bible, the Qur'an, etc.). I am going through the process instead of answering you directly because I do not want to just assume your answers to other questions that affect what you mean when you ask it, and thus my response as well.

Your faith icon indicates to me that you believe such a Being exists (correct me if I'm wrong). So what would be the attributes of such a Being?

May I suggest a few (I'll use the Christian norm and call God He/Him because that is what I believe, and it is much simpler than writing He/She/It all the time, ok?):

1) He would be all knowing. Ignorance is not perfection, right?
2) He would be relational. Everything that is exists in some form of relationship with everything else. Also, the concept of sharing His perfection would be necessary, otherwise He would be selfish... selfishness is not perfection, right?

I'll stop there for now.

 

[alexiscurious]

Which leads me to my second question for you: do you believe that such a Being exists? I am not asking whether you think the Christian or Muslim or Hindu concept of God exists, but whether you think that "the perfect Being" exists. Yes? No? Maybe? What can we know of this Being?

I have never in my entire life believed that any other "being" existed besides God. So my answer is no? This is mainly because I've attended a Christian private school for 10+ years with chapel every week and bible class every day.

I stopped believing in God after I came to the realization that I only believed because other people told me to. In middle school/high school, I watched how my friends and other students lived their life. They didn't live as if an all-powerful being was monitoring their every move. The way everyone acted made it seem as if they weren't even convinced that God existed. And the doubt grew from there.

 

[alexiscurious]

Your faith icon indicates to me that you believe such a Being exists (correct me if I'm wrong). So what would be the attributes of such a Being?

Nah. As hard as it is to believe, I'm not a non-trinitarian-messanic from Tahiti. I know I had everyone fooled. For some reason they don't have agnostic on here so I chose randomly.

 

[aiki]

But you never even met the writers. They are complete strangers to you. Yet they have somehow wound up dictating how you should live your entire life. I just wish a belief in God didn't have to rely on the testimony of someone else.

I don't see how the fact that I have no first-hand personal experience with the writers of the Bible means - automatically - that I therefore cannot trust them. You seem to start out with the assumption that the writers of the Bible are untrustworthy. Why is that? What have they done to warrant your suspicion? I trust the makers of maps, of encyclopedias, of medical books on remedies, of, well, you name it, without ever having met the writers of these texts. But I operate under what seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable assumption that they are innocent until proven guilty. That is, unless I have good, concrete grounds to suspect the writers of falsifying or corrupting the information they have given me, I will accept their information as true. I don't see why I can't also do this with the Bible.

I would also take issue with idea that the writers of the Bible dictate how I should live my entire life. They make no comment on current politics and which party I should vote for; they make no comment on which vacuum I should use, or which car I should drive, or where or how I should vacation, which university I should attend, which spaghetti sauce is best, and so on.

Finally, I have to say that belief in God must not rely merely on the testimony of others. If God is as He is revealed in Scripture to be, you must have a personal relationship with Him, a personal experience of Him for yourself. I would go so far as to say that anyone who has not had a personal experience of God does not really know Him. Knowing about God is not the same as knowing Him personally. I know a fair amount about the writer C.S Lewis but I have never met him personally. My knowledge of him is only academic and no where near on par with, say, his son who knew C.S. Lewis as his father. You, too, must move beyond the facts about God to a personal experience of Him. When you do, you will no longer have to rely solely on the testimony of others as the means of your knowledge about your Creator.

Selah.

 

[oi_antz]

My question is not about who God is. It is simply stating that since everything we know about God is communicated to us from man, in a book written by man, doesn't one have to trust in man as well?

At the most we have to believe that someone is not lying. But what we think we know about God can only be compared to what others think they know about Him. Then the perceived authority of the one claiming is questioned (more so with you than with some others). Ultimately, if what someone says about God is true then it cannot be proven false. Unless you have such proof, any objection can only be opinion due to preference.

I would love to know if there is proof against biblical truths, because I haven't seen it yet. Do you think it is likely to be possible?

 

[food4thought]

I have never in my entire life believed that any other "being" existed besides God. So my answer is no? This is mainly because I've attended a Christian private school for 10+ years with chapel every week and bible class every day.

So in all those years you never had an experience that you attribute to anything beyond normal human experience? As Aiki pointed out, the basis of real faith is real relationship with God.

I stopped believing in God after I came to the realization that I only believed because other people told me to. In middle school/high school, I watched how my friends and other students lived their life. They didn't live as if an all-powerful being was monitoring their every move. The way everyone acted made it seem as if they weren't even convinced that God existed. And the doubt grew from there.

It seems strange to me that you are unwilling to base belief in God on others testimony, but your unbelief was instigated, at least in part, on the testimony of others' actions. I know that many Christian's lives do not line up with their professed beliefs, but there are many who do live out their faith consistently. Did you not know any of these people? Sounds to me like the church you went to was sorely lacking in many ways.

So now I have a better idea of where you are at, and I can better answer your question. The Bible holds more than the testimony of faithful believers, it also bears the marks of inspiration by a Being who is outside our time-space domain. Contrary to popular belief, people cannot reliably predict future events. Also, Bible prophecy is not mostly comprised of cryptic generalisms that can easily be applied to many different situations (like Nostradomus). It makes specific claims about specific future events, and many of these events have come to pass. How do you deal with that reality?

 

[TheyCallMeDavid]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation. So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

What you are speaking of here, is Humanism....with Man at the Center of all Things void of God. If you want to see how Humanism plays out in Society by wrongfully putting MAN over God, then read this Formal Debate I had with a Humanist a while back on CF and youll see a couple examples of Humanist affirmations and how they've served to morally degrade American Society especially : http://www.christianforums.com/t7841230 . Moral degradation is the fallout from putting man on top instead of Gods rightful place.

If you want to see a simple chart showing the differences between The CHristian Faith (God) and Humanism , then scroll down here : http://www.aboundingjoy.com/humanism_chart.htm

 

[itdepends]

I don't fully understand what Christians mean when they say "have faith in God and trust in God."

Essentially everything we know about God has been communicated through man. Thousands of years ago men compiled a book that tells us everything that God is. It tells us that he is loving, faithful, forgiving, all-powerful, eternal and our only hope for salvation. So when Christians ask a skeptic to put their faith in God, who are they really asking the skeptic to put their faith in? God or man? Doesn't a person need to first put their trust into the source of all this information (man himself)?

I can see what you mean here, however I believe there is a misnomer in the phrasing of your question: it **seems** to presume that God has had no direct contact with any human being, and thus all the information there is about "God" exists due to mankind spreading the word to each other, more or less.

You probably would agree that Obama is a real, living person, who actually is the current POTUS. Thus, it's possible to know him personally, meet with him, etc. The chances of you getting to do that may be slim, however it is **possible**. Also, there are those who act under his orders, who speak on his behalf to varying degrees (which he either approves or doesn't approves), etc.

Now, if no one had ever seen Obama, and all we had to go on was the word of others, documents with his signature and quotes by him, etc ... you would have a group of people who believed he existed, and those who do not. In fact, I'm sure there is a group of people who probably believe he doesn't exist, he's just an actor, or perhaps a digital creation, etc (think conspiracy theory, like faking moon landings, etc). However if no one had laid eyes on him, and all we had was the word of others and things in his name but never the man himself ... then people's beliefs would largely rest upon each other and what little evidence there was even for his existence. However, since there is a man running around named Obama who many have met, with lots of historical evidence testifying to his existence and role as POTUS ... it doesn't take a huge stretch to believe he actually exists. It's essentially on the level of fact. I mean, I've never personally met Obama or seen him in person, but I'm going to say that I assume he actually exists lol.

In your question, it seems like your presumption is that no one has ever seen or interacted with God personally. All they have are letters, the words of others, a belief He either exists or He doesn't exist, etc, but no personal experience. However there are plenty of people all throughout history who claim to have personal interaction with an entity they recognize or call "God", or experiences or personal interactions with things they attribute to the supernatural/paranormal/etc that sometimes get attributed to a version of God as well. For those people, one could argue they are not placing their faith in something they have only heard about through others, rather they are witnesses to **something** that they either chose to believe was "God" for some reason, OR WHAT THEY EXPERIENCED CLAIMED TO BE GOD with them. Obviously some of those experiences are more mundane and harder to attribute extraordinary explanations to than others, and some of them contradict each other as well, but regardless, they are there and there are people who claim such things, regardless of what their claims turn out to be or not, and whether they end up explained or remained unexplained by the majority.