We are trying
to come up with an answer to the following question (an “experiment”):
“What would
Jesus have to do to prove to you that He is still alive, still God, still
active in people’s lives, and can be known by those who seek Him; proof sufficient that you would live the
rest of your life on His terms?”
…and we
recognized <previously> that we need to figure out what God wants to do. Essentially we need to find something that
God wants to do that is also sufficient for us as a personal answer to the
question above. Then we can begin the
experiment and see if God/Jesus shows Himself to be real.
What does God
want to do? Previously we said that one
way you might figure out what another person wanted to do is to read their
letters, diary, etc. It might not be
right to read someone else’s diary, but we don’t have any such concerns about
God. If He’s written anything, and we
find it, we can be sure He didn’t accidentally leave it lying around – it was
surely intentional.
So, of course
I’m going to suggest looking into the Bible as a way of finding out what God
wants. But again, this is a “such a” issue <see here>. In the experiment I’ve been talking about,
we’re testing “such a” God as appears in the Christian Bible – namely
Jesus. You could certainly conceive of a
similar line of reasoning that might test, for example, the existence of Allah
or Brahma or anyone else or anything else.
However, as we’ve discussed, the trick is that whatever god you choose
has to be personally involved in the experiment, and that severely limits what
you can do. It’s not obvious to me that
there are qualities of “non-Jesus gods” that would allow an experiment to be
conducted. But, to be honest, I haven’t spent as much time reading the writings
attributed to those gods as I have spent reading the Bible, so I certainly
can’t exclude the possibility that you could figure out a match between what
those gods “want” to do and what you would find convincing in an experiment. If you know of such opportunities, it would
be worth discussing. But, since I get to
decide, we will focus on Jesus.
If Jesus is
“such a” God as described in the New Testament, then we have a wealth of
writing that might help us identify what He might want to do. It is, of course, possible that the Bible
does not accurately describe what God wants.
Therefore, if we include the Bible to help in figuring out our
experiment, then we are, to a lesser extent, not only testing God, but also the
Bible – or at least the Bible’s description of God. That’s not really much of a problem except
that if we don’t observe any response when we conduct our experiment, we could
conclude that it was the Bible’s description that was misleading, not God
Himself. But that’s just something we have to keep in
mind.
So, just as a
suggestion, I’m going to present two short statements from the Bible and attempt
to use them to design an experiment (we’ll take other approaches in the
future). I have to say first that taking
random statements
out of the middle of the Bible is not recommended, and is definitely not the
way to conduct an experiment. The
reality is, you have to get the whole context and you really have to study the
words to make sure you know what they mean.
This adds a significant level of complexity to the whole process, but it
does not make it impossible. The Bible is readable. I would strongly encourage you, if you have
any real interest in conducting an experiment, to read the Bible in its
entirety.
Anyway, here
are two statements that describe a couple of things God wants:
Hebrews 11:6
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to
him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek
him.”
2 Peter 3:9
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is
patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to
repentance.”
So, I take
from these two statements that the God of the Christian Bible, who is also
Jesus, wants human beings to do or have the following things: “believe that He exists” and “come to
repentance”. That latter phrase, “come
to repentance”, requires some study, and I would encourage you to look into it
yourself. But, for expediency’s sake, I
will present a definition: a personal
recognition that you have done things that are wrong; that you need to make all
of those things right; that you have no chance of making all of those things
right; and therefore you are completely hopeless before any judge, particularly
God. It involves more than just an
acknowledgement of guilt. It involves
the desire to change and turn from that guilt.
But it also involves the recognition that you, in your own strength, are
helpless to do that. You keep failing. And you keep saying “I’ll do better tomorrow”
– but you don’t.
A third statement
we’ve already discussed, but I’ll quote it here again:
Matthew
7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and
the door will be opened to you. For
everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door
will be opened.”
Based on what
I see, Jesus is “such a” God as one who wants people to repent and believe. He also says “ask and it will be given.” How can you turn these observations into an
experiment? Well, here’s my hypothesis
for the experiment:
If
Jesus is…
· still active in people’s lives today,
· still cares about individual human beings,
· really wants me to repent and believe in Him,
· and really is powerful enough to do what He wants…
then:
·
He will somehow cause me to repent
and believe if I ask Him to change my mind in that way.
There is much to say about this,
but first I need to emphasize the intensely personal context of the experiment. Remember that, if this happens, we are
committed to a complete change of thinking and total allegiance to Jesus, as we
have discussed previously <here>.
So, in my opinion, I wouldn’t attempt an experiment around the
hypothesis above unless I was totally, 100% certain that I will never believe in God (specifically
Jesus), no matter how accidental or fleeting.
This would have to be, as far as I was concerned, a total miracle in my
life. For example, if you were Oprah
Winfrey, who seems to believe in everything and nothing and change her beliefs
on a whim, this would be a very bad experiment for you. Remember, the personal risk here is extremely
high. So, you really have to be as
convinced as you can be that this would be sufficient evidence for a total life
change. You’d have to say to yourself
something like the following:
“One day if I wake up and find myself
believing in God, or I take a walk in the woods and find myself believing in
God, or I find myself in difficulty or tragedy and find myself reaching out to
God in faith, or I become so overwhelmed with my own failures that I cry out to
God…this I will consider a personal miracle…something that, as I stand here
right now is absolutely and totally
impossible…and so, if Jesus does give me that belief, even if for a moment,
then I will consider the experiment resolved and accept the hypothesis and live
my life on God/Jesus’ terms.”
It’s got to
be so unlikely that, if it happens, it is life-changing. We’re looking for an atomic explosion here,
not a little puff of smoke.
Well, if the
hypothesis seems sufficiently impossible to fit your own personal criteria, how
do you actually conduct the experiment?
I think you probably have to work that out yourself, but here are a
couple of suggestions:
1. First, write down your current “status” as
you start the experiment. Recording your
observations is critical in an experiment.
I would encourage you to write down just how impossible and unlikely the
hypothesis seems to you. Should anything
ever happen, you want your new self to be convinced by your old self that it
really was impossible when you started.
The tendency of all humans is, after the fact, to say “oh, that wasn’t
so surprising.” So, write it out and
then sign and date it.
2.
Start asking the non-existent/dead Jesus to give you belief in Him. He says “ask and it will be given to you”, so
I don’t think it ought to be more complicated than that. If you’re serious about conducting the
experiment, I’d “ask” every day, but I’m not sure that is a requirement. I mean, presumably, Jesus isn’t hard of
hearing so that you have to repeat yourself, or isn’t so forgetful that you
have to keep reminding Him of your request.
No, but I think that the
continual asking on our part helps us
to remember. We’re the ones who forget! If a miracle were to occur, you want to be
ready and aware. To be honest, it just
depends on how serious you are.
I don’t know
that there’s much else to it. I’ll have
more suggested experiments to follow, but I hope at least now you get the
general concept. We’ll have to talk
about some of the pitfalls and limitations too.
But all in good time.
Before I end
this post, I must admit that this proposed experiment is a bit circular: if God
makes me believe, then I will believe.
But, to be honest, that happens a lot for those who live as
Christians. There’s always a “chicken
and egg” problem. Did you have faith
first, or did God give it to you? My
personal experience is that you’ll never know…at least not in this life.
