Can one arrive at a personal Certainty of God?

 

 

"I hear the message well, but I have no faith!" (Heinrich Faust)

 

The Christian message - about Jesus to God - has spread worldwide. There may be people who may never have heard or understood this message. But I think that a large part of humanity feels the same way as Heinrich Faust did in Goethe's tragedy. You heard the message and somehow understood it, but you remained unbelieving.

     This can have several reasons, but the most obvious is of course that there is no clear (objective) proof of the existence of the biblical God. There is only the assertion of His existence and experience in the earth space.

    But how resilient is this assertion. Can such reported experiences of God not also be lies and deception? Can there really be such a point of subjective certainty of God, beyond wishful thinking and misinterpretations?

   But, I think that experiences can become unambiguous, that other imaginable interpretations fade completely behind them. To illustrate this now, I would like to refer back to a biblical story. It doesn't matter whether it really happened or not. We assume it - as a working hypothesis - simply to be true

 

 

The judgment of God on Carmel

 

   (1.Kings 18)

 

All the people of Israel had gathered on Mount Carmel:

   And Elijah said unto the people, I am left only a prophet of the LORD: but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men.

  Now therefore give us two young bulls, and let them choose one bull, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire on it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire on it.

    And call ye the name of your God, and I will call upon the name of the LORD. Which God then shall answer with fire is he God. And all the people answered and said, This is right.

    After the Baal priests had called upon their God for many hours in vain, Elijah came to his sacrificial animal:

"LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and I thy servant, and that I have done all this according to thy word.

    Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that their hearts are returned to you.

    And the fire of the LORD came down, and devoured burnt offerings, and wood, and stones, and earth, and licked up the water in the ditch.

   When all the people saw them, they fell on their faces and said: The LORD is God, the LORD is God.

 

So much for history. Now my question: "Assuming that history really took place in this way, would there be the slightest reasonable doubt that the biblical God has answered?

    Anyone who would experience something like this, especially at a time when there were no great technical aids, would probably be convinced. The evidence of the divine is obvious, one could also speak of a revelation of God.

    Of course, here too a hard-boiled eyewitness and skeptic could claim: "This is not objective proof. It could also be something magically mystical, Elijah could only bring energies to compression and discharge, etc. "There are no limits to the inventiveness of a skeptic who simply does not want to believe. The normal person sees, understands and believes after such an event.

   In this sense, I mean that, provided that God really exists, one can also arrive at a personal certainty of God. Anyone who experiences such a clear revelation of God will no longer be able to hold on to his unbelief with a clear conscience.

   All well and good, some people may think, if I would have such an experience of God, I would also be able to believe. But I did not!

   This is indeed a weighty argument, because without a personal experience of God there is also no (subjective) certainty of God. So everything remains the same?

    I think that it does not have to be like this. Of course one cannot force God to reveal himself. Or to give you a revival experience. It is and always will be a sovereign act of grace of God.

    But personally I am convinced that one can certainly increase the probability of such a personal revelation. "He who seeks finds. He who knocks will be opened" . Jesus gave this promise in the Sermon on the Mount. And many people are of the opinion that they have actually experienced this. So I can only encourage you to make such an attempt ... and then to wait what happens!

 

Here an personal experience: The five Clouds