Does God really speak? Part 1 of 3

Link to Beginning of Explanation.

Part I: Does God really speak?

God speaks? To be a Christian is to believe this underlying notion: God speaks. In fact, if everyone believed that God actually speaks, and if everyone actually heard God speak, there wouldn't be many agnostics in the world, right? So, starting with the third question first, and the most crucial of the three, Does God talk as 'direct communication'?

To follow William Abraham's treatment of the subject, we need a little bit of common, in-this-world sense. When you and I speak, as long as our hearing is good and we're not deaf, we can hear the words directly from you to me. That's direct communication. I can ask questions of you, and you have the opportunity to respond with answers. I can hear those answers.

Now, of course, we know that communication is more than words: body language, intensity and "feel" of the words, speed of the words, the interpretation of slang used, etc. I may need to ask some clarifying questions back to understand what you are saying and meaning. But you are present for me to ask and to hear. The bottom line: you communicate with me and I hear you. I hear you through physically hearing the words; I hear you through 'reading' your body; I hear you in a very physical way. Over the internet, I "hear" you. I read your words. I can (usually) ask questions and will (usually) get/want a response from you. There's some sort of physical back and forth taking place. You reveal yourself to me. I reveal myself to you.

So, let's get onto hearing from God! Oh, you mean it's different? God is not a physical form (usually)?

Hence, the "problem." Even if we use our ears, even if we use our lips, there seems to be a God-side problem. If God is really there, wouldn't we hear and speak just like we do with a person? (That's question number one: "the modality" - later for that.)

We are not used to thinking of the fact that the activity we're involved in (talking together) goes deeper than "communication" and enters the territory of "revealing." If I could make a simple delineation. Communication is more about the "physicality of the process." Revealing is more about the "sharing of personhood in the process." God's primary objective is the revealing side; the physicality side comes as a result of the primary objective.

This may be to oversimplify it, but to put it into descriptions of personality we may be accustomed to: God is a people relating first "guy/gal" (sharing, revealing, creating community) who then becomes "task-oriented" (physicality, stuff that can be physically touched and heard, tasks to be done together, the context). Isn't that amusing to put God into our personality categories?

That does not mean that we have God without the physicality/context side of sharing/revealing. (more on that in Part 2). God does not have a "body" as you and I. So, it makes no sense to expect God's communication to be limited to our "bodily" expectations. God doesn't wear shoes, drink coffee with us or stuff letters into our post office boxes. However, that doesn't mean God can't speak - doesn't communicate - doesn't reveal.

For the initial question, "Can we hear God speak?", we want to keep focus on the fact that the point of communicating (real communicating) is to say something that tells us something about you or I. For God, it's the same. And, theologically, what we are then discussing about God's communication is the ideas of revelation. There is an experience at stake here that is more than subject-object talking activity, but is also about purpose, direction, communion together, looking to the future, and transforming who we are, to name a few experiences that happen in revelation.

To quote Abraham, "It is only because God has spoken His word that we can have any assurance about what He has done in creation and history and about His intentions and purposes in acting in creation and history. Without His word, the alternative is not just a tentative, carefully qualified guessing at what God is doing, but a radical agnosticism." (p. 21 in Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism by William J. Abraham)

Within the Bible, we have accounts of people claiming to hear God's voice. Jeremiah hears God call and telling him to pass on messages. Paul is struck dumb and hears Jesus Christ speak to him directly on the Damascus Road (Acts 9). The Disciples hear Jesus Christ speak and "experience" it as God-with-them speaking. Here is what Jesus is quoted as saying: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." (John 10:27)

To be more specific, we are making the claim that hearing God speak is more than "pious human speaking." To quote Abraham again, "Divine revelation is not a pious way of doing justice to the genius of human discovery." (p. 19)

This is not human imagination or genius, but God speaking. It is the testimony of people who wrote the Bible, quoted God's speech to others, and saw events change before their eyes. It is the testimony of people today. The testimony is to say that people have told what they saw and heard from a first-person standpoint. Others have passed on what was heard and seen.

To be clear, people throughout history have said they heard God speak, not themselves.

But, I am also not saying that the Bible is a word-for-word account of God's dialogue with us! The Bible has been used in that way - "God said it right here" as people choose and select what is appropriate for their "cause." "It conjures up the image of a flat Bible dictated by a literalist God who gives inside information on the workings of nature and the details of history (science)." (Abraham, p. 22)

To deal with God's speaking and people's testimonies, we need this understanding of revelation: God has, is ready, and will continue to reveal Himself. God's purpose is to be known, like two people getting to know one another. We will have to allow for the "intellectual possibility" that God speaks - rather than begin with any proposition creating the impossiblity for God to exist or speak. In simpler terms, if we don't look for God speaking, we won't hear God speak, the same as if you decided this blog didn't exist and didn't look, you would not have found it either.

First, taking seriously what people say they've heard is investigating the evidence that God speaks.

Secondly, listening for God's speech is a primary activity every Christian - or seeker - needs to do. You can hear God speak. Run your own experiment. Sit down and ask God to speak in a way that you can hear. Then, take notice (observe) and write down what you see and hear. Gather the data later. Focus on observing and notekeeping first.

(For more help on hearing, see Part 2 on how God reveals)

Later ... Part 2.

Books that help think about "Does God speak?"

An older book, but a theological "goodie": Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism by William J. Abraham.

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God by Dallas Willard.

What are some books you've found helpful?

Does God really speak? Explanation begins.

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Does God really speak?

You may have heard people say: "I heard God tell me ..." and wondered how they knew it was God? You, like me, may hear people saying they've heard "God" speak and then watch them do aweful things, like the terrorists of 9-11? This issue of hearing God speak, hearing accurately, and deciding whether God speaks - today - may be gnawing at you. It gnaws at me - especially some days.

There are several "questions" around this subject. I'll talk through my thoughts in several posts here. First question: When we say "God speaks" what do we mean? Do we hear voices? Is it a feeling? Is it our imagination? Do we make guesses? Is it tangible or imagination?

I asked a question among "church leaders" lately, "Where have you seen Christ this week?" There was a long, long, long silence. One person offered up: "Well, if you mean where have I seen people do things like Christ, then I can answer that. But if you mean, where did I see Christ, with my eyes, then I can't answer that question."

What do we mean when we ask: Where have I seen - where have I heard Christ speak this week? Some people become strangely silent, while others jump in with all sorts of information - from "clues" to Christ's presence to actually hearing voices to feelings felt that gave special knowledge of Christ's presence and movement in the world.

I want to make three distinctions here about what I mean.

First, God speaking means there must be some identifiable means by which God speaks - "the modality." And second, God speaking means there's a receiving end - that it's heard by someone.

Third, God speaking means fundamentally, that it is direct communication - like you or I speaking with one another over coffee - rather than indirect/non-specific/possible communication. The next three posts will deal with each of those questions, one at a time.

Send me your questions about "God speaking" by "comment" here. I can't wait to hear!

"Thomas Hawk" captures interesting people and "normal life." This one of a woman crossing a street caught my attention.

I think it's a woman Jesus would have noticed as well - in normal everyday life.

"God could have sent a full-blown adult to be the savior of the world. Instead, the Son of God entered history inside a tiny human frame bound by time, space, and a baby's survival needs. By placing his son in a family, having him progress developmentally as a human child, giving him opportunities to engage in business dealings with people and be on the receiving end of contemporary Jewish religious instruction, God ensured that Jesus would be shaped by community and the commonplace. . . .

Jesus learned a lot as he watched them in his father's shop, and as he visited their homes and fields. He saw how they treated the land and how they treated one another. He witnessed their business dealings. He listened to their heart hopes. He haggled prices with them, and had to collect on bad debts. He learned how to judge character. At some point, Jesus took over the family business. He assumed leadership in his home by providing for his mother and younger siblings.

The concerns about meeting basic life necessities played an important role in sensitizing Jesus to the life concerns of people. . . . He belonged to the people who hammered, fished, and farmed."

(from Reggie McNeal, A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), pp. 55-56.

What is faith?

I've noticed how we all operate on some level purely on "faith." For example, when I was raising my kids, and especially as they became teenagers (yeah, uh-huh), I believed there was something they would grow up to be, some stage they would grow out of, and some unique ways that they would become strong in themselves and who they were. I relied on that picture for the future for them - in belief that it was attainable - and in the knowledge that I had a part to play in their future life. But I also knew there would be choices they made along the way - that were their choices to make. So, the bottom line - I believed firmly in something so much that it was part of the fabric of who I was. I still have that same "faith" - that more is in store for them, Although, they are purely making their own decisions now, I believe I still have a part in their life - of encouraging, of praying, of believing there's more. And they have a part in my life - of praying, of encouraging and of believing. We impact one another's future very strongly.

I think that's, in a nutshell, what faith is. To be part of a journey where everything isn't "tangible and tastable" right this instant - but on the horizon. And as part of that journey, that we can believe and hope for good things, even better than now, because there is an all-powerful force at operation - pulling us towards the goodness, sweetness of life. I've discovered that we don't hope in vain, but as humans we are "programmed" to hope - something innately within us points us right-side up to hope for good things.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (from the book of Hebrews in the Bible, Chapter 11, the first sentence - verse 1). There is much we hope for - because we know to be human is to hope. There is much we find conviction about - a lasting kind of conviction about some things - rather than an "anything goes" about everything. Our human experience teaches us to reach for more than is possible or seen right now. And this human experience is where God's very nature of goodness intersects with us in a very personal way. We would not have this hope - but for God's intersection. We would not have rational belief - but for God's intersection with our life.

A rE-eDited pastor? God is constantly "re-editing" my life and asking me to "re-publish" who a pastor is called to be, what the church is called to do and be, and how everyday life offers new opportunities for learning new and intriguing skills - from sewing canvas for the sailboat and learning what it is to "live aboard" a sailboat to learning web design.