You can't have a "personal relationship" with God

Great Debates
1

God is not a person. Even in human form, JC was more than human, as is also the case for human manifestations of Vishnu, Zeus, the Black Muslim version of Allah, etc.

You can’t have a personal relationship with non-people. Not with your dog, not with your car, not with whatever God you may believe in.

How can you even conceive of this as a possibility? You’re a flawed sinning worm, God is Omni-everything (at least if you hold to these belief systems); He gets it, you don’t. For you Xians out there, where is the Biblical authority suggesting it is possible/desirable/attainable?

Bucky, the Pope of Dionysus

P.S. I’ll be holding a moment of loudness to mark my religious observations–feel free to join in.

2

I don’t see why the omnipotent/non-omnipotent relationship can’t be a personal one, although it would have to be pretty one-sided. An imperfect analogy would be the relationship between a parent and an infant. It can be personal even though the infant is infinitely more ignrant than the parent. A more appropriate analogy would be the very personal relationship between a boy and his imaginary friend.

3

This is what the catholics call the protestant heresy, not that I care to take sides :smiley:

If “god” exists then you can hate it, or him, or whatever. You can hate anything. This is certaintly personal, and a relationship :wink:

4

So what you’re saying is that a unidirectional personal relationship is possible, but a reciprocal personal relationship is not.

Right?

5

Actually, the idea of a personal relationship with God is a VERY modern idea. I heard author Karen Armstrong talking about it on an interview promoting her excellent Battle For God book on NPR’s Fresh Air.

You can hear the interview on Real Audio with a 28.8 or ISDN speeds.

Yer putz,
Satan :wally

I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Two months, three weeks, 18 hours, 3 minutes and 37 seconds.
3310 cigarettes not smoked, saving $413.76.
Life saved: 1 week, 4 days, 11 hours, 50 minutes.

6

It’s very modern. But also very old. People used to look at Gods and God as very real things. How many people were impregnated by Gods? Who was it that wrestled with God in the OT?

7

Bucky, I think I see an important flaw in your reasoning.

First, you say that God (Allah, Vishnu, Kdapt, IPU) is not human.

Well, duh. No problem.

Then you say that it’s impossible to have a personal relationship with non-people. No problem there, either.

But you have equated “human” and “person.” To say that my Deity of Choice isn’t Human is one thing. But that does not establish His/Her as not being a Person.

My SO feels she has a personal relationship with her dog. Sure appears that way to me.

8

I believe the deal with this argument is that relationships are expected to be more than uni-directional. Love is a two way street and all, right?

9

Your definition of God is not a limit to His being.

Your parochial limits are not a universal rule.

Many people conceive of things that are outside of your philosophy.

See: “The New Testament”

Your pronouncements deserve little else in response, however since you are a person, beloved of the Lord, I am compelled by my respect for Him, and His love to offer you some encouragement. He is not limited to that which we understand. We are able to love. Our failure to reach the perfection of His love is not a barrier to Him. He does take it personally. He loves you. You can love Him. That is personal, if you let it be personal.

Tris

10

How personal can you get with a being you can’t even comprehend? I’m not religious, so I’m asking for information, not debate. And if you buy into the God is Love religions, doesn’t that make God a little cardboard as a person? All one thing, none of another? Again, I want information, not debate.

11

Comprehending God will not get you into heaven. Belief in him will. I don’t fully understand some of my friends here on Earth, but I still have relationships with them. Why should I understand God, who is infinite, the “Alpha and the Omega”?

12

Tris,

My reading of your post suggests that you believe that not only is a personal relationship with God possible, but that the relationship becomes more personal as one becomes more intimate with God. (Not trying to put words in your mouth, please correct me if I’m wrong.) But those who claim to have the closest relationship with God, namely the mystics, describe their relationship becoming less personal as it develops. They claim that as they become closer to God, his love dissolves their personality and they experience themselves less as a separate, unique individual and more as an expression of God himself.

I’m not talking about the “oceanic experience” that Freud described when he looked at Eastern meditative practices. I’m thinking more of St. John of the Cross and, more recently, Bernadette Roberts. They talk about a unitive experience in which personal relationship is impossible—that is, since their soul has been completely absorbed by God, there is no personality for God to have a relationship with. I realize this is heretical in some sects and, for the time being, I’m not interested in orthodox dogma; I’d just like to get your take on this.

When mystics look back at the time when they had a personal relationship with God, they view it as almost trivial, and sometimes even as a stumbling block on the path. And of course, this experience is not unique to Christianity: the Sufis, Buddhists, and some Hindus describe quite similar experiences. Doesn’t this suggest to you that while it may be possible to engage God in a personal relationship, it shouldn’t be the primary goal of religious life?

13

Triskadecamus was right, if rather too concise. If I can dust off my memory from Sys Theo. 100…

Person does not equal human. All humans are persons, but not all persons are human. The exact list of what qualifies for personhood is debated, but it generally goes with things like: a person knows, a person feels, a person wills a person acts, etc.

Of course, God is not JUST a person, he is also the infinite ground of all being, the unmoved mover, the uncreated creator, and so on and so forth. But he has the option of only showing us as much of himself as we can handle. Perhaps like a famous person who surfs the web under a psudonym cause he doesn’t want people getting all weirded out. Or like a father explaining sex to a four year old–there’s no need to screw the kid up by overloading him with too much information, so you just say that they come from mommy’s tummy. When he’s older, and ready, you tell him progressively more.

That’s the Incarnation: God voluntarily took on human flesh; he limited himself, doing so because he wanted us to have the pleasure of knowing him, and he knew that if he showed us even a thousandth part of his glory, our heads would explode. See the passage in Exodus where God says to
Moses “no man may look upon me and live.”
OX-(And did you pick that handle as a reference to Luther?)

I don’t see why one has to choose. I was raised southern baptist, very much oriented towards a “personal” faith, however I now attend a episcopal church because I enjoy the solemnity, the ritual, the reverence of a high-church service. (Smells ‘n’ bells) My own personal theology embraces a great deal of Christian mysticism, but at times I also cherish the intensely personal relationship with God. (As do some other mystics) Furthermore many people who are far more mature in their faith than I am–as measured by real godliness in their lives–have no desire or need for the sort of aesthetic awe that is an integral part of mmy worship experience. Different strokes…

14

I am not Christian. I am nothing even remotely RESEMBLING Christian. If you asked me for my background, I’d tell you I was half Jewish and half Agnostic. If you asked me for my religion, I’d tell you I was a half-Jewish lapsed Pagan.

However…I have a personal relationship with God. It’s my relationship. I don’t go to prayer meetings, I don’t “witness,” and I definitely don’t think anyone has to believe in God the way I do to be my friend or be a good person. No one has to understand why I feel the way I do, and no one has to agree with my philosophy.

In my (not particularly humble) opinion, a personal relationship with God doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a particular religion, or a particular belief system. I had my own personal revelation back in 1989, but it had not a DAMNED thing to do with any Christian, Jewish or Pagan (or anything else, for that matter) belief system I’ve ever heard of. It didn’t make me change my lifestyle; it just made me look at things in a slightly different way and, quite frankly, made me feel sort of as though I was “getting” a joke that most folks didn’t know was being told.

But that’s JUST ME. I think that people who ADVERTISE a “personal relationship with God” (Jehovah’s Witnesses and Born-Againers leap instantly to mind) have completely missed the point.

15

Agreed with your post and this line especially. More than missing the point, they are flat-out wrong I think, because most of those who you speak of are less likely to think for themselves and let the consensus view on a single text “tell” them what to think about God.

I mean, if I have a personal relationship with someone, I don’t spend my time listening to others speak of that person, and talk about how great they are.

I kinda listen to THEM once in a while, you know?

16

andros wrote:

But of course, her dog knows the real truth. Your SO is really the alpha wolf in the dog’s wolf-pack. And the dog is kinda confused as to why your SO won’t let it sniff other wolves’ crotches.

17

Interesting point made that we listen to people tell us about God when supposedly we have a personal relationship with Him, but in all fairness, you’re not approaching this with an adequete understanding of Christian doctrine. You can’t bash the way Christians do things without understanding why.

The Christian worldview sees man as follows: designed to be perfect and in communion with God, but given free will (becuase “friendship” with automatons, presumably, wouldn’t mean anything to God) we chose instead to rebel and do things He explicitly told us not to do, and which harm us because they are in contradiction to our own design. (Remember, Christians believe that the same One who designed us gave us our moral code, so the code reflects our own needs as well.)

Since then, in order to know God, we must come to Him not merely as broken or sick people who need healing, but as rebels who need to lay down arms. There is a distance between us and Him that lies partially in the condition of our souls, and partially in the ingrained habits of our thought, behavior, etc.

Christianity holds that the sacrifice of Christ served to pay for our sins and make a return to God possible, but that even after the initial “salvation,” we are not instantly perfect, and therefore cannot instantly have perfect communion with God.

(If you do not agree with these statements, or find them illogical, that’s fine, I’m just explaining Christian doctrine.)

All that being said, it is, then, helpful to hear from others who are traveling the same road, dealing with the same struggles, overcoming the same personal hurdles to better know and serve God. Not only that, but the New Testament concerns in great part the Church and the “fellowship of believers,” even commanding that believers meet and encourage, admonish, teach, and help each other, and join each other in carrying the message of salvation to the rest of the world.

That’s why Christians go to church and listen to a preacher talk about this God they’re supposed to know themselves.

As to whether a personal relationship with God is possible, I say it is first reasonable to define a “person” before saying that God isn’t or couldn’t be one.

18

I think we are laboring under a misconception. Demonstrating that God is a person is not sufficient to demonstrate that a personal relationship is possible. A personal relationship is not an interaction between persons, it is an interaction between personalities. To the extent that infants do not yet have personalities, they cannot engage in personal relationships, even though they are persons. [Note: I did not say they cannot have human relationships, rewarding relationships, etc.] Likewise, I do not have a personal relationship with the bank teller who cashed my last paycheck. We interacted as persons, but our relationship was based on business, not personality.
furt

Aquinas, actually. :wink:

I am not talking about mystical experiences, per se. I am referring to the nature of the relationship that some contemplatives and mystics claim to have with God. They say that as their relationship develops, it becomes less personal. Some of them consciously try to extinguish their “self” or personality in an effort to become closer to God. “The Dark Night of the Soul” is the phrase St. John of the Cross used to describe the culmination of this process.
Hamadryad

I think many of the people who advertise the loudest are compensating for the fact that they only have a relationship with an inadequate idea of God. I’m wondering whether all personal relationships with God are really relationships with an idea of God, and whether seeking a personal relationship is a necessity, a hindrance, or just one step on the path.

19

Andros, if your SO “felt” she had a personal relationship with a table, we would call her delusional; I’ll say that if she really does feel that her relationship with her dog is “personal” she either needs to refine her definitions or seek therapy.

Tris–QUOTE THE PART OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WHERE GOD INVITES US ALL TO HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. Moreover, your statements of God do not equal definition or argument. You claim we can’t understand God yet claim to know he loves us. How can both be true? What if the love is the kind my mom used to have for spiders? (she would still crush them if they got on her food.) Your answers are predictable–“I believe I can have a personal relationship, so I don’t have to be able to explain it.”

20

I just wanted to clarify…the God of which I spoke in my post is not Jesus. Nor is it the heavy-handed God of the Bible. Nor is it some sort of Mystical Sparkling Being, or Otherworldly Aura, not ever the “spirits of the plants and creatures which have gone before us.” It comforts me to know its there, and because of the particular peculiar personal relationship I have with it, I know I amuse it. I don’t pray to it. I don’t offer it sacrifice, nor do I feel the need to make other people believe in it.

How can anyone believe in any sort of a higher power without having a personal relationship with it?