DIANAC,
Please define that "certain phenomenon in one's life". As I read your post, I understand that your question stems from certain experiences. Intrusion on your privacy is not intended. But additional expalnation is required for possibly proper answer.
That phenomenon can be anything, depending on the person and circumstances.
A parted sea, rain in the desert, a job, a smile on someone's face, a visitation by an angel, ...
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jnhofzinser,
Too often, the oh-so-very-important-to-me-at-the-time "quarters" that I want in my life can keep me from recognizing the love of God.
I see your point. But some discernment is necessary. Or is that too much to ask?
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bluedart,
Another great question! Well, there is a difference between blind faith and faith based on reason and evidence. Many of our religious beliefs are a result of conditioning or socialization. If we grow up in a family that is Buddhist we will probably be Buddhist and so on. If I grew up in a mostly Islamic country that would greatly affect my first perceptions of God and it would be likely that I would be a Muslim. Well, were I am going with this is that we need to make sure we are not just believing because our parents or society believes. We need to really question what we believe and seek out the evidence. That is what takes us from blind faith (which is dangerous) to faith based on reason.
I think this is wrong. This way, a person ends up believing in the reasonability of his arguments for beliving in God, but doesn't believe in God per se.
When I looked at Christianity with an open mind and compared and studied the other religions I saw that Christianity had some backbone. Jesus did exist and die on the cross. This is a historical fact that most historians all agree on. His body was missing. That is a fact as well. He fulfilled hundreds of prophecies in his life, death and resurrection. The Bible is written by 66 different authors and does not have contradictions. It appears to be divine and from God. Other scriptures from other religions have contradictions and mistakes. When we put all this together it makes sense to put our faith in Christ just like it made sense for Neo to trust Morpheus.
One, there is "evidence" for anything.
Two, no amount of evidence is ever finite, and thus, the possibility exists that new evidence can be found which contradicts previous findings. All "compelling evidence" is ultimately arbitrary.
Three, faith is a matter of devotion to God. God is the only one for Whom, per definition (as He is omnipresent), no evidence is needed to have faith in, ie. be devoted to.
Well if we choose to believe in Christ because it makes sense.
Then we only believe in our sense-making explanation of Christ, but not in Christ per se.
Then we choose to believe what the Bible says about God.
Why do we choose so?
Because you are believing in the fact that Jesus died for you and loves you you are living in reality. Whether you feel it or not is irrelevant.
How can that be irrelevant?!
How can that be irrelevant?
Remember once you do the research and things add up you are demonstrating not blind faith but faith based on reason and logic.
Then I only have faith in reason in logic. But not necessarily in God.
And God promises to give each believer His Holy Spirit. This is the proof that we are in Him (this you will experience in time). (1 John 4:13; Romans 8:14-17).
What is the proof that one has received the Holy Spirit?
Also remember that Neo could not have experienced the real had he not taken a leap of faith.
That was not a leap of FAITH. That was a "Let's see what hapens".
Faith is essential to experiencing a spiritual awakening. An abused child may believe that the parent loves her. But things don't add up and this is what could be called blind faith. Faith with reason says love does not abuse me physically, mentally, etc.
Do you have a finite list or some other way to recognize this "faith with reason"?
How is a young child who fell and broke his leg to know that what the parents do (move him, put the leg in braces -- this means a lot of additional pain) are doing it out of love?
But how do you know that you are loved? Because you believe it?
And why do you believe it? Because if you hadn't believed it, there'd be no love for you to feel?
We know that we are loved because the Bible tells us and we know that it is trustworthy.
If you do not believe this yet then test the Bible to see if it is the word of God.
You do realize that if I take the path of collecting evidence, this can take me the whole life, and leave me as frustrated as I started off?
We never have faith in God based on evidence; to have faith in God based on evidence is ultimately relativism.
When you are confident in in then live by faith and act on what it says. It says that we are loved by God. Again we believe it because we have researched it and we have faith that is based on reason and evidence.
Does an infant do research into whether its mother loves it or do infants not do such things?
If we don't believe that God loves us we will not experience that He loves us because we won't allow ourselves to. Yet, God does love us regardless cause scripture tells us this.
I think it is more like: "We live, therefore, we must be having a meaning to life, even though we may not be presently aware of this meaning. We may think our lives are worthless or meaningless, but if it so happens that we keep waking up in the mornings, this means that God allows this. For some reason. From here on, there are only two options: Either God is a sick snob and enjoys watching us suffer -- in which case such a god is not to be worshipped anyway, and he can go mind his own business. Or it is that God has a special affinity to us."
I can come to the same conclusion as you, but without the Bible.
The Bible says that God is love. If you want to discover what love is the best way to do this is to read the Bible and the scriptures that describe and define love for us.
Love is to be found in books? Really?
1 John 3:16 states, "The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."
1 John 4:7-21 expands on this. It tells us that Jesus sacrificing his life for us on the cross is the ultimate expression of love. Someone dying for someone who is an enemy of God (a sinner). Now that's love!
No, I think this is a very romantic explanation.
That God wants to have a relationship with us and be our best friend - that's love.
When we in faith accept this (not blindly) we find and identify love. The Bible tells us that if we seek we shall find. Be encouraged and keep seeking and asking great questions!
I apologize if I have come across harsh.
While I could not say that my faith in God is strong, I constantly see that I must stand up for myself and not just blindly accept what any believer tells me.
I am not strong enough to fend for myself when it comes to faith, but I am aware that some of the paths suggested to me are misleading -- and I feel I must warn those purporting such paths.
All this "collecting evidence and then making an informed decision" this is not crucial for how one comes to faith. People who think they have come to their faith this way are not seeing what can be obvious to an outside observer: The essence of faith in God is in being devoted to God. While you were doing all your research, you were in fact already practicing devotion. One can do so directly, without any research.
If "collecting evidence and then making an informed decision" were indeed any proper way to come to faith in God, then how come that there are two outcomes of this process:
On one hand, those with faith in God.
On the other, those without faith in God.
Those without -- what is wrong with them? Have they been rebelling against God? No. They have put their devotion into studying and gathering evidence, they have not put their devotion into God. They are not to be blamed; theists themselves have told them to do so.
That you were "collecting evidence and then making an informed decision" is in fact accidental and redundant in your coming to your faith in God.
"Collecting evidence and then making an informed decision" has to do with the wisdom of man, not with the wisdom of God.
What matters is *that* you were doing something with the intention to move towards God, but it doesn't matter much *what* exactly it was that you were doing.
