Can Religious Experience Show That There is a God?
The Bible reports many direct experiences of God. As we read in the OT, for example, Moses came across a burning bush in the desert, and God commanded him to return to Egypt to free his people (Ex 3–4). The Angel of the Lord promised Gideon divine deliverance from Israel’s enemy the Midianites (Jdg 6:11–8:32). In Abraham’s old age, and despite his having no children, the Lord promised Abraham that he and his aged wife, Sarah, would have a son through whom Abraham would become the father of a great nation (Gn 12 and 28). In 1 and 2 Kings God appears to kings and prophets with numerous warnings and promises.
In the New Testament we read of the experiences surrounding the birth announcements of Jesus and John the Baptist (Lk 1:5-38); the transfiguration (Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2-8; Lk 9:28-36); Paul’s conversion while on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians (Ac 9:1-19); and Peter’s decision, motivated by a vision, to take the gospel to the household of Cornelius (Ac 10). There are many other reports of this kind in the Bible—but the record does not end there. Every generation of believers has testified to the immediate presence of God in various ways.
Admittedly, in most cases, these religious experiences occurred in people who already believed in God. The experiences often were intended to impart reliable information or divine guidance and were frequently accompanied by miraculous confirming events. On the other hand, these experiences confirmed the participants in their belief in God, led them to testify to the existence and supremacy of the Lord, and emboldened them to act on the information and guidance they received.
This raises an important question: does religious experience provide grounds for believing that God exists? It is reasonable to think so, and here’s why.
A basic principle of rationality is that how things appear in our experience is good grounds for believing that that is how things are, unless there is a good a reason to think that how things appear to us is actually mistaken. If I seem to see an orange tree in my garden, then, in general, I have good grounds for believing there is an orange tree there. But suppose that, during the past 10 years, I’ve never seen an orange tree there, I did not arrange for an orange tree to be planted there, my wife now looks and says she does not see an orange tree there, and I’ve recently been prescribed medication known for its hallucinogenic side-effects. These considerations now make it very unlikely that I am seeing what I seem to be seeing. And thus I have no good grounds for believing an orange tree is in the garden.
While alleged religious experiences do not involve the five senses, they do correspond to perceptual experiences of things like orange trees. An entity (an object or a person) is present to the consciousness of some person. So if I seem to be directly aware of God’s presence, and if there are no overriding reasons why things are not as they seem, then I have good grounds for believing that God is present and hence for believing that God exists (since God would not be present if God did not exist).
But now we must ask, would my experience be evidence for others if I reported my experience to them? Is testimony about an experience of God good grounds for believing that God exists?
A basic principle is that the testimony of an experience should be trusted unless there is at least as good a reason to think that it is mistaken. If I report to others that I saw a particular orange tree, then, in general, recipients of my testimony have good grounds for believing that I saw it and hence that that particular orange tree exists. But if I have a reputation for clowning around or telling lies, or if I have no idea what an orange tree looks like, or if recipients of my testimony have strong independent reasons for denying that there is an orange tree in the garden, then it would not be so reasonable for them to accept my testimony.
Similarly, if I report a personal experience of God, then this will be grounds for others to believe that God exists if what I report is plausible, if it is likely that my faculties are adequate for such an experience, and if I have a reputation for honesty.
In general it seems rational that, for those who have had the experience, belief in God may be grounded in an experience of God. Also, testimony about the experience may even provide grounds for belief in God for those who do not have such experiences themselves. In combination with other evidences for God’s existence, direct religious experience and testimony about such an experience may provide strong motivation for believing in God. It should at least provide motivation for exploring other evidence for God’s existence.
Are Miracles Believable?
Miracles are essential to the historic Christian faith. If Jesus Christ was not God incarnate, and if Jesus did not rise bodily from the grave, then the Christian faith as we know it from history and the Scriptures would not—could not—be true (see Rm 10:9-10). It is, then, easy to see why enemies of the Christian faith direct many of their attacks against these two miracles of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection in particular and against the possibility of miracles in general.
What one believes about the possibility of miracles comes from that person’s worldview. On the question of miracles the critical worldview distinction is between naturalism and supernaturalism. For a naturalist, the universe is analogous to a closed box. Everything that happens inside the box is caused by, or is explicable in terms of, other things that exist within the box. Nothing (including God) exists outside the box; therefore, nothing outside the box we call the universe or nature can have any causal effect within the box. To quote the famous naturalist Carl Sagan, the cosmos is all that is or ever has been or ever will be. The major reason, then, why naturalists do not believe in miracles is because their worldview prevents them from believing.
If a naturalist suddenly begins to consider the possibility that miracles are really possible, he has begun to move away from naturalism and toward a different worldview. Any person with a naturalistic worldview could not consistently believe in miracles. No arguments on behalf of the miraculous can possibly succeed with such a person. The proper way to address the unbelief of such a person is to begin by challenging his naturalism.
The worldview of Christian theism affirms the existence of a personal God who transcends nature, who exists “outside the box.” Christian supernaturalism denies the eternity of nature. God created the world freely and ex nihilo (out of nothing). The universe is contingent in the sense that it would not have begun to exist without God’s creative act and it could not continue to exist without God’s sustaining activity. The very laws of the cosmos that naturalists believe make miracles impossible were created by this God. Indeed one of naturalism’s major problems is explaining how mindless forces could give rise to minds, knowledge, and sound reasoning.
Is the Old Testament Ethical?
by Christopher Wright
The prevailing prejudice against Scripture is that the Old Testament portrays a violent God of a violent people and is filled with narratives recounting horrendous events with disreputable people playing major roles. Is the Old Testament ethical? Here are some reasons why it is.
It was ethical enough for Jesus. Jesus accepted the truth and ethical validity of the OT (“the Scriptures”) in His own life, mission, and teaching. His noted “you have heard that it was said . . . but I tell you” (see Mt 6–7) sayings don’t contradict or criticize the OT but either deepen its demands or correct distorted popular inferences. “Love your neighbor” meant “Hate your enemy” to many in Jesus’ day, even though the OT never says any such thing. Jesus reminded His hearers that the same chapter (Lv 19) also says, “Love the alien as yourself,” extending this to include “Love your enemy.” Jesus thus affirmed and strengthened the OT ethic.
Narratives describe what happened, not what was necessarily approved. We assume wrongly that if a story is in Scripture it must be “what God wanted.” But biblical narrators dealt with the real world and described it as it was, with all its corrupt and fallen ambiguity. We shouldn’t mistake realism for ethical approval. Old Testament stories often challenge us to wonder at God’s amazing grace and patience in continually working out His purpose through such morally compromised people and to be discerning in evaluating their conduct according to standards the OT itself provides.
The conquest of Canaan must be understood for what it was. This event, rightly, is troubling to sensitive readers. We can’t ignore its horror, but some perspectives can help us evaluate it ethically.
• It was a limited event. The conquest narratives describe one particular period of Israel’s long history. Many of the other wars that occur in the OT narrative had no divine sanction, and some were clearly condemned as the actions of proud, greedy kings or military rivals.
• We must allow for the exaggerated language of warfare. Israel, like other ancient Near East nations whose documents we possess, had a rhetoric of war that often exceeded reality.
• It was an act of God’s justice and punishment on a morally degraded society. The conquest shouldn’t be portrayed as random genocide or ethnic cleansing. The wickedness of Canaanite society was anticipated (Gn 15:16) and described in moral and social terms (Lv 18:24; 20:23; Dt 9:5; 12:29-31). This interpretation is accepted in the NT (e.g., Heb 11:31 speaks of the Canaanites as “those who disobeyed,” implying awareness of choosing to persist in sin—as the Bible affirms of all human beings). There’s a huge moral difference between violence that’s arbitrary and violence inflicted within the moral framework of punishment (this is true in human society as much as in divine perspective). It doesn’t make it “nice,” but it changes the ethical evaluation significantly.
• God threatened to do the same to Israel—and He did. In the conquest God used Israel as the agent of punishment on the Canaanites. God warned Israel that if they behaved like the Canaanites, He would treat them as His enemy in the same way and inflict the same punishment on them using other nations (Lv 26:17; Dt 28:25-68). In the course of Israel’s long history in OT times, God repeatedly did so, demonstrating His moral consistency in international justice. It wasn’t a matter of favoritism. If anything, Israel’s status as God’s chosen people, the OT argues, exposed them more to God’s judgment and historical punishment than the Canaanites who experienced the conquest. Those choosing to live as God’s enemies eventually face God’s judgment.
• The conquest anticipated the final judgment. Like the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah and the flood, the story of Canaan’s conquest stands in Scripture as a prototypical narrative, or one that foreshadows what is to come. Scripture affirms that ultimately, in the final judgment, the wicked will face the awful reality of God’s wrath through exclusion, punishment, and destruction. Then God’s ethical justice will finally be vindicated. But at certain points in history, such as during the conquest period, God demonstrates the power of His judgment. Rahab’s story, set in the midst of the conquest narrative, also demonstrates the power of repentance, faith, and God’s willingness to spare His enemies when they choose to identify with God’s people. Rahab thus enters the NT hall of fame—and faith (Heb 11:31; Jms 2:25).
An eye for an eye is remarkably humane. Unfortunately this phrase sums up for many what OT law and ethics are all about. Even then they misunderstand that this expression—almost certainly metaphorical, not literal—wasn’t a license for unlimited vengeance but precisely the opposite: it established the fundamental legal principle of proportionality; that is, punishment mustn’t exceed the gravity of the offense. The rest of OT law, when compared with law codes from contemporary ancient societies (e.g., Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite), shows a remarkable humanitarian concern, especially for the socially weak, poor, and marginalized (the classic trio of “the widow, the orphan, and the alien”). Israel’s laws operated with ethical priorities of human life above material property and of human needs over legal rights. Not surprisingly, then, Jesus (who clearly endorsed the same priorities) could affirm that He had no intention of abolishing the Law and the Prophets but rather of fulfilling them.
The Uniqueness of Israel's Religion
by E. Ray Clendenen
Biblical scholars have been jubilant over the discovery of law tablets and other literature from the ancient Near East as well as the ruins of structures such as multichambered temples. Such discoveries have done much to help us understand the cultural and literary climate in which Israel and its Scripture arose and developed. But with these advances comes a nagging question. Why would a religion based on revelation have so much in common with religions that are only products of human imagination?
First, paganism is a corruption of an earlier, pure religion. The worship of the only true God did not develop from animism (the belief in many spirits) to ethical monotheism (the one-God belief of the Jews) according to an evolutionary scheme, as modernists claim. The Bible teaches that paganism began to develop when sin corrupted the worship of the true God (Rm 1:18-23). Thus some of the similarities between paganism and biblical faith could result from a common memory (however faulty) of early events and an earlier legitimate worship that lingers in human personality and culture.
Second, the nations, peoples, and cultures of the world, in spite of their rejection of God, have not developed independently of the Lord’s supervision (Dt 2:5,9,19; Am 1:3–2:16; 9:7). On the contrary, their course of departure has been within divinely decreed limits, and they have been included from the beginning in God’s redemptive purposes (Gn 12:1-3). Thus, just as God prepared the NT world for the proclamation of the gospel, so also He prepared the ancient Near East culturally for the revelation of the divine name in Israel. That is, the forms that Israel shared with the surrounding peoples were products of God’s common grace, though perverted in the nations’ case (and frequently in Israel) by paganism.
Third, however the forms of paganism arose, when God began revealing to the patriarchs and early generations of Israel how He was to be worshiped, it was only reasonable that He would employ forms that would have some meaning to them. That would mean using familiar events, symbols, and practices that could be redirected and filled with new meaning. Thus, while the forms of Israel’s faith shared many elements with their pagan neighbors, the substance or heart of Yahweh worship could diverge drastically.
Old Testament faith had five main distinctives. First and foremost, it was to be monotheistic and exclusivistic. Cities in the ancient Near East were often filled with temples to various gods. Each of Babylon’s nine city gates was dedicated to a different god. Practitioners of other religions often expended great effort in either identifying their gods with those of other nations or demonstrating the subordination of other gods to their patron deity. But Israel’s God demanded not a special place in a pantheon but exclusive allegiance. In the context of ancient Near Eastern polytheism, the call of Deuteronomy 6:4 to the worship of Yahweh as the one true God would have seemed revolutionary.
Monotheism also differed from polytheism in the nature of worship itself. By definition, polytheism precluded wholehearted devotion and loyalty to one god. If divine power existed in many gods, none could possess unlimited wisdom or power, and the activities of one god could often be counteracted by the activities of another. The divine will was thus fragmented so that a person could never be safe from divine displeasure and punishment since the will of one god may very well conflict with that of another. But if there is only one God, we can be wholehearted in our devotion to him, as Deuteronomy 6:5 goes on to demand.
The second distinctive was that the God of Israel was transcendent and self-sufficient. He was not the personification of nature with a sovereignty limited to the earth, the heavens, or the underworld. He did not need to be tended or fed in his temple like a Babylonian or Egyptian god. Nor did He need other divine or human assistance through religious rites to maintain cosmic and political order and agricultural productivity. Egyptian temple rituals were the means by which the people contributed to holding the forces of chaos at bay, and Canaanite fertility rites ensured continuing agricultural and human productivity. Yahweh is rather the transcendent One who created an inanimate universe of nature out of nothing and who continually maintains and controls it for His glory. “The profoundest insight of Hebrew religion,” John Oswalt declares, may be that “Whatever God is, he is not the world around us.” This means that magic has no part in biblical worship.
The third distinctive is that although God is transcendent, He has not kept His character or His will hidden as did the gods of other peoples. T. Jacobsen describes the Babylonian god Enlil this way: “Man can never be fully at ease with Enlil, can never know what he has in mind. . . . In his wild moods of destructiveness he is unreachable, deaf to all appeals.” Where the other peoples had to search continually for the divine will through divination, try to awaken divine interest through bodily mutilation (1 Kg 18:26-29), and avoid misfortune through incantations and the wearing of amulets, the Lord had revealed His will in His written Word (Dt 4:6-8).
The fourth distinctive was the nature of the relationship between God and His people. Israel’s relationship with Yahweh was based on divine election in which God established in history a covenant with His people. No other ancient people in that part of the world had a covenantal relationship with their god. The Bible presents mankind as the “crown of creation” and the natural world as theirs to oversee and enjoy. But the foreign gods were primarily feudal gods of the land, which they had created for themselves. People were little more than serfs, a necessary nuisance seldom receiving more than a brief expression of pity or remorse for their grievous situation. But the Lord had formed a people, bound them to each other and to Himself by covenant, and pledged to shepherd them faithfully forever by His grace and to guard jealously their relationship to Him.
Finally, while the Lord ordained the use of ritual in worship, He abhorred ritual that aimed at divine manipulation. The only actions that pleased God were those that arose from the heart (Hs 6:4-6), and true worship was to be accompanied by joy in the Lord (Dt 12:12,18). Thus biblical religion gives at the same time a higher view of humanity and a higher view of God—omnipotent, undivided, purposeful, merciful, uniformly righteous, and deserving of our undivided love. Israel was to be a kingdom of priests, singing to the Lord and declaring His glory among the nations day after day (1 Ch 16:23).
Does the Bible Affirm Open Theism?
by John M. Frame
A group of thinkers known as “open theists,” such as Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, Gregory Boyd, and William Hasker, seek to do justice to the give-and-take in Scripture between God and human beings. For example, in Exodus 32:7-10, God tells Moses He will destroy Israel for worshiping the golden calf and raise up a new nation from Moses himself. Moses intercedes, however, and in verse 14 God “changed His mind.” God also seems to change his mind in several places, such as in Isaiah 38:1-5, where Isaiah prophesies that King Hezekiah will die, but in response to Hezekiah’s repentance adds 15 years to his life. Another example is Jonah 3–4, where God retracts an announcement of judgment in response to Nineveh’s repentance.
From these and other such passages, the open theists infer that God is a temporal being (not “above time,” as in much traditional theology, but within time), that He changes His mind, that His plans are influenced by creatures, that He sometimes regrets actions that He has performed (as Gn 6:6), and that He does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future. In their view, God’s regretting and relenting come about because free human decisions are utterly undetermined and unpredictable. Therefore, God must adjust His plans to the free choices of human beings.
We should not ignore these “relenting” passages. On the other hand, we should also not forget the pervasive biblical emphasis on God’s sovereign control of the world and His exhaustive knowledge of past, present, and future. God brings about natural events (Ps 65:9-11; 135:5-7), even apparently random ones (Pr 16:33). He controls the smallest details of nature (Mt 10:29-30). He governs human history (Is 10:5-12; 14:24-27; Ac 17:26). If someone dies accidentally, it is because “God caused it to happen” (Ex 21:12-13). Contrary to open theism, God brings about human free decisions, even sinful ones (Gn 45:5-8; Jdg 14:4; 2 Sm 24; Is 44:28; Lk 22:22; Ac 2:23-24; Rv 17:17). He hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex 4:21; 7:3), and others as well (Dt 2:30; Jos 11:18-20; 1 Sm 2:25; 2 Ch 25:20), for His own purposes (Rm 9:17). He is also the source of human faith (Jn 6:37,44,65; Ac 13:48; 16:14-15; 18:27; Eph 2:4-10; 2 Tm 1:9) and repentance (Zch 12:10; Ac 5:31; 11:18). So human freedom is not indeterminate as open theists maintain. We are free in that we do what we want to do, but behind our plans and desires are those of God (Jms 4:13-16).
In general, God “works out everything in agreement with the decision of His will” (Eph 1:11; cp. Lm 3:37-38; Rm 8:28; 11:33-36). And God cannot fail at anything He seeks to do (Ps 33:11; 115:3; 135:6; Pr 21:30; Is 14:27; 43:13; 46:10; 55:11; Dn 4:35; Rv 3:7).
Since God controls everything, He knows everything, including the future. Knowing the future is a test of a true prophet (Dt 18:22) and indeed of a true God (Is 41:21-23; 42:9; 43:9-12; 44:7; 48:3-7). Through His prophets God often predicts the future centuries in advance (as Gn 9:26-27). Contrary to the open theists, who think God cannot anticipate human free decisions, He often predicts human behavior in detail (1 Sm 10:1-7; Jr 37:6-10; Mt 26:34). He predicts the behavior and character of human beings in the distant future (1 Kg 13:1-4; Is 44:28–45:13).
How, then, should we understand God’s “relenting”? For one thing, God states as a general policy in Jeremiah 18:5-10 that if He announces judgment and people repent, He will relent; He will do the same if He pronounces blessing and people do evil. In other words, relenting is part of God’s unchanging plan, not a change forced on Him by His ignorance. Further, God is not only transcendent (beyond our experience) but also immanent (involved in our experience). He has dwelled on earth in the tabernacle and temple, in Christ, and in His general omnipresence (Ps 139:7-12). When God interacts with people in time, He does one thing, then another. He curses, then He blesses. His actions are in temporal sequence and are therefore, in one sense, changing. But these changes are the outworking of God’s eternal plan, which does not change.
It is important, then, to see God as working from both above and below, in eternity and in time, and not only within time, as open theists propose.