How does God talk to us?
This is a religious question but it has philosophical elements worth exploring. Most people assume that this has to do with prayer, but a more fundamental aspect is how we recognize God’s messages to us in everyday life
Most believers would answer this question by saying that we hear God speak through His word in the Bible, or as Muslims believe, the Qur’an, or the Jews with the Torah’. Still others would say that it’s through Jesus’s word in the New Testament. Although many Christians consider the Bible as being the world of God, as do the Muslims for the Qur’an, there is some disagreement that the Bible is the direct word of the creator of everything. The Bible’s origins are steeped in historical, archeological and theological discusions by thousands of experts that stretch over centuries. There’s no doubt that there are many things in the Bible that reflect God’s teachings, but it’s difficult to tell what is and what isn’t. For one thing, the Bible tends to convey different descriptions of the same event. When Christ gave His famous sermon, was he on a hill, halfway down or at the bottom? How did the story about Jesus’ forty days and forty nights alone in the desert and His encounter with temptation by the devil get into the Bible? Did He tell someone about it? What about the miracles, especially the casting out of demon spirits? Were these real or just interpretations?
The Qur’an is believed to be the world of God as revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a 23-year period. Several companions of Muhammad wrote these revelations down and this is the origin of the Qur’an. There are many references in the Qur’an to accounts in the Bible, including Jesus, who Muslims consider a prophet.
The Bible also contradicts itself in places. The four synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke differ somewhat in describing what Jesus said, and the gospel of John is almost in a class by itself. This is to be expected when people try to relate what they saw and heard long after the event. It’s almost certain that the four authors of the gospels didn’t write them. They were conveyed by word of mouth for many years before some disciple of theirs wrote it down, and even then the manuscripts were edited and things added and subtracted before they were finalized and made canonical during the reign of Emperor Constantine. As you know, several other gospels were summarily tossed out and disregarded. How did ‘they’ decide that these weren’t God’s word?
The best thing we can say about the Bible is that it is the declaration of faith from true believers, even if they didn’t witness the events themselves. They obviously believed strongly in what they wrote. I suppose you could argue that this is God speaking to us. Fair enough.
God also speaks to us through other believers. Their faith gives us reason to believe and in some cases can inspire us to learn more about faith in God. One could argue that a minister, a priest, an Imam, a rabbi, or a deacon fulfill God’s promise to help us stay faithful to Him. They are believers by choice and profession. But, is that good enough?
I believe that the best source of God’s message is in creation itself. We admire the beauty and the majesty of nature and how it often inspires us to contemplate the spiritual realm. I pity those who don’t believe in God and say that all the universe and we are an accident. That makes us humans completely insignificant and without purpose and all creation just an artifact of a mindless cosmos that is without a soul.
I don’t know about you, but I find that idea depressing. God’s message is written in the diversity and the wonder of all the creatures on Earth. His word is loud and clear in the universe’s amazing wonders spread out in the heavens for us to admire. All we have to do is listen.
Thank you for reading.