The Supernatural

Our culture is a slave to science.

The more I wrestle with my experiences and thoughts concerning God, I find more and more tension between the world around me that I can see and the world around me that I can't see. After taking Intro to Philosophy at Cedarville University (thank you, Dr. Mills) way back when, I've been okay with the idea that I can't prove God exists. That might be frightening for some people, though I hope it isn't. There is so much in our day-to-day lives that we can't prove, yet we have a body of substantial, practical evidence that suggests we can trust and live and love. There's just an element of my own perspective as a finite human that I can't escape. Think of the movie The Truman Show, and you'll get what I mean. There's no way for us to prove that our lives and the circumstances aren't an elaborate hoax or subtle deception. I can't prove that the Milky Way galaxy exists. I can't prove that my parents love me, though all the evidence points to the fact they do. I'm just saying, there's a lot that I'm learning can't be measured by science, and I'm okay with that. Science, at its best, explains how things are and move and interact, etc. Science is silent as to the question, "Why?" Why are we here? Why do I exist? Why do I wonder about what happens to me after I die if there isn't anything after we die? Science just can't answer those questions. Yet, we have pretty effectively allowed science to be the litmus test of any thought, any idea, any belief. If science says it is physically impossible to walk on water, then anyone who claims to have walked on water, or seen someone walk on water, must be crazy or a liar. That sort of thing. I think I'm getting off track...

My point was simply that I am okay with the limits of science and understand that there is something beyond what I can sense with my 5 senses. There is the metaphysical... the supernatural... the spiritual, whatever you want to call it. There's more going on beneath the surface. And the biggest thing that seems to be there is the concept and the Person of God. I'm going to sort of skip past trying to argue for God's existence or the reasons why I think He does exist... Though, that would be a worthy post in and of itself.

Instead, I'm going to question - why is it so hard for me to experience the supernatural? I hear stories upon stories about people in other third world countries and/or in books, etc. where people have experienced healings, miraculous visions and dreams, demonic activity, etc. I'm not hoping for an exorcism or anything, don't get me wrong! But it does make me wonder. Is my lack of spiritual experiences a result of this culture's post-modern brainwashing? Or is it because that stuff just really doesn't exist? If it has happened and is happening in other places around the world, I'm going to go with that evidence and say that our Western culture has effectively tamed the spiritual. We have quantified and analyzed and scrutinized and measured everything about the world around us, from millions of light years into the black void of space to sub-atomic quantum mechanics and string theories about what holds molecules together... Ghosts and UFO's are the mainstay of tabloids (which people actually do read, which really speaks to a deep truth in us that something does exist out there) and yet are completely written off by the intellectual elite of our society.

I believe God exists. I believe that our society has done a really thorough job of convincing us not to expect anything supernatural, anything too spiritual. Even our Western churches have swept away the miracles and healings and visions that were common in the early church, or so it seems, and instead, replaced them with systematic theology and doctrine. Most evangelical circles write off all that stuff easily, saying that was just for the Apostles to authentic the gospel message they preached as it went out. Maybe. That's totall possible! This post, which is getting longer and longer, is really centering around the concept of hearing from God. We have the Bible. Most people stop there. I believe that the Bible is complete and contains everything necessary for us to put our faith in this God that, most of us, have never seen. In 1 Peter 1, it says, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

I want to love God more fully, more deeply. It is difficult to love someone who is invisible. I know enough about Him to know and believe and trust that He is good, that His thoughts towards me are affectionate, kind and faithful. So how do we experience God more intimately? How do we search for Him with our whole hearts? I think of all the martyrs over the course of history... I believe George Washington existed, but I'd deny that in a heartbeat if my life was being threatened. George Washington who? How do we fall deeply in love with God to the point where it wouldn't matter if every other Christian you knew decided that God was a big hoax and didn't want anything to do with God or religion ever again? Would I still believe if my parents stopped believing? Or if Cedarville University closed down after a retraction statement apologizing for wrongly attempting to education college students about a God that doesn't exist after all? Is there anything deep in my own experience with God that is so deeply personal and true that if everyone else walked away, that I couldn't?

That's the kind of faith I want. I want to love the Person of God in such a real way that it isn't just a mental thing. But that's where this science-loving culture has made me feel awkward about asking God for deeper spiritual experiences that would help my love for Him to be true and lasting. I don't need more facts. I need more of God's Spirit interacting with me in ways I can't necessarily explain with science. If I was married, I wouldn't write down an exhaustive list of all the things I could think about my wife and carry that around with me and point at it and say, "See? See how much I love my wife? We're married. Look how much I know about her. She's real, you know, my wife.". Having that list and knowing everything about my wife isn't going to do a thing for our marriage if we never spent time together. If she never talked to me, if she never told me that she loved me, if she never communicated and encouraged me, would we really have a relationship at that point? If we just occupied the same house, slept in the same bed but never had sex, ate at the same table, but never shared conversation, knew every fact about each other, but never experienced life together to see her mannerisms and laughter and pains, etc. could I really say I had a relationship with her? Sure, we met and signed a marriage document, but realistically, to say we have a loving relationship would just be a lie, right?

Is it possible to have that kind of loving relationship with God?