Well yeah, but you’re basically defining out the validity of the Biblical precept to ‘test the spirits.’
You’re saying you’re accepting the assumptions of Christianity, then turning around and building in other assumptions that nullify them.
If you accept the existence of the Biblical God and Satan, then being able to tell the difference between one and the other is straightforward. There is no love in Satan. He can’t imitate love well because he doesn’t grok love.
And sufficiently powerful third parties who are not agents of one or the other, in the Biblical world-view, don’t exist. If there are very powerful space aliens out there, they can certainly come across as extremely powerful beings, but power is only one of the attributes of God. It’s like saying that just because you can program every bit as well as this computer-geek friend of mine, you can fool me into thinking you are him. That makes no sense at all.
Right, but even so, if we want to adapt ourselves to the scenario under discussion, we ought to do it right - we can’t pretend to be theists while still incorporating and using the knowledge and understandings that make it impossible for us to hold such beliefs in real life.
Hmm, the real problem with approach is that you’re excluding the possibility that God might know something you dont, which would makes his stupid-sounding advice actually really good, only you don’t know it. As we (necessarily) lack knowledge that we don’t have, filtering exclusively based on analytical assessment of the ‘value’ of the revelation would prevent you from accepting the really useful prophecies, like “move a step to the left” right before a cinderblack falls through your head - or any other situation where you couldn’t possibly act to your best personal benefit due to personal lack of information.
Which is why I argue for the “Invite God over for a few beers and get to know him first” approach - once you have a feel for God’s mannerisms and speech style (and/or etherial glow or feeling of peace or whatever you can sense from a revelation), you can screen out at least the incompetent imitators. Thus allowing you to at least consider that it might really be god when he’s telling you to do something stupid like hang around sick cows.
My reading of the NT tells me there is a way. It’s called the fruits of the spirit.
There’s also the description of love and mercy in 1 Cor 13.
What is stressed is that no matter what we give lip service to or how good we think we are, our actions and the desire behind them reveal who we really are.
and we see what is expected to be the fruits of the spirit. IMO that’s the way we recognize what spirit is moving us or someone else.
I’d agree with this but add that we can’t always see the long term results of what happens. Standing up for beliefs can bring persecution. That might seem like a pretty bad result in the short term but might have good results in the long term.
I think we can with effort judge the spirit behind the actions of ourselves and others. Or, to express it in more secular terms, the sincere motive behind the action.
Just to clarify, are you saying we should decide what the source of a revelation is by assessing the results of acting on it? Biblical or no, that doesn’t seem like an idea that can be carried very far in practice. If I get some excellent dating advice from a drinking buddy that hooks me up with an excellent girl who fills my life with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, that doesn’t mean my buddy is God. Does it? Couldn’t other things besides God (and love, and mercy) also have those same fruits, without conflicting with or contradicting the biblical statement that God has them?
And then of course we’re back to the problem that you have to actually do the advised activity to assess its results. That’s okay when the revelation is about which brand of peas to buy, but if your revelation is telling you to snort the heroin, kill your neighbor, or drink the cool-aid, a “try it and see” approach seems a little risky.
I’m saying we may not be sure of the source of certain strong feeling or percieved guidence. We will interpret it through the lens of our own experience and preconcieved notions. However, it it seems to bear the fruit of the spirit we might discern it’s the right direction. If it encourages those traits in us and/or others it would seem we’re following a positive path rather than a negative one. Or, God rather than the Devil, in stricter Biblical terms.
I meant this in response to comments that we couldn’t tell the difference.
If God is the well from which all love is drawn then it doesn’t matter if you thank God or your buddy. If those qualities are genuine there’s no need for religious jargon. Some just like to use it.
That’s not what I meant. I would think snorting heroin or killing your neighbor would seem the opposite of those qualities with just casually thinking about it.
A person might be very possessive and mistake it for love. Possessive actions wouldn’t bare that fruit they would hopefully be able to sort the possessive part from the real love.
Certainly. One cannot be fully certain of anything, not even in the everyday way that folks whose thinking is mirrored back to them by the people around them agreeing with them, but it also makes no sense to sit there paralyzed by the fact of one’s uncertainty.
One acts, one wonders if one is batshit crazy, retains a measure of sanity by the very act of wondering that and comes to realize the importance of doing so, often and in earnest.
