"Can We Know God?"
Good evidence for God.
Sermon Preached by
The Reverend J.W. David McMaster
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Text: II Timothy 1:12
Not long ago, one of my children purchased the DVD of Wolfgang Petersen's recent film, Troy, a film based loosely on the events described in Homer's The Iliad. After I viewed it, my first thoughts were that in the midst of the prevalent violence, the writers seemed to go out of their way to portray the gods in a poor light. It was as though the gods of Troy and Greece were no gods at all - irrelevant, powerless, fictitious even - in the eyes of the characters.
While a Christian may argue that that depiction is true, the portrayal of the gods may not be that different than the way many perceive God in our society. A generation or two ago, God was revered, churches were everywhere and they were full. Now, the pervading thought appears to be that God is largely absent from, and irrelevant to, 21st-century life. Most live as though God were not, and church attendance is in decline all over the western world.
When we face the facts, there are a lot of people out there who make light of God. Society has been affected by modern, hard science with its ideas of cause and effect that all but exclude the possibility of the supernatural. The so-called soft sciences would tell us that religious stories are nothing but myths, and religious thoughts mere wishful thinking. Not a few would argue against the existence of God simply because they can't see him. They desire some proof, some hard evidence for things spiritual - like the medical student who complained that he had dissected many bodies but found no trace of a soul. These sorts of things have led that marvellous source of theological wit, George Carlin, to utter, “I am not an atheist, I am not an agnostic, I think I'm an acrostic; the whole thing puzzles me.”
But what makes this question of knowing God so acute is the claim by some to actually know him and to know him very well. Two thousand years ago, St. Paul wrote the words that Daniel Whittle used in the chorus of his well-known hymn, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able, to keep that which I've committed, unto him against that day (II Tim.1:12).” But it is not just saints, apostles and hymn-writers who make the claim, “I know whom I have believed.” I still remember sitting in awe of theologian J.I. Packer, who wrote a book titled Knowing God, 30 years ago. On the first page of the book, Packer set himself off from many other theologians with the claim to actually know God. Some of us are much more comfortable with terms like “I think I know…,” “I hope to know…,” “I feel that I know…,” but Packer laid it right out there: “I know God.”
It is an extraordinary thing to say, “I know God,” to be certain. The claim is quite staggering! I recall a young man who was about to go out to the mission field. He gave a talk to our youth group at Emmanuel United Church in Brampton many years ago, and he told us that the Lord had led him to go to the mission field. Being an inquisitive type, I asked, “How do you know the Lord said that to you?” I don't recall all of his answer, but he affirmed that he knew God and that he had an inner certainty and assurance that this was what God wanted of him. The claim shook me. Yet, he is one of many otherwise quite rational people who are certain about God.
I have since had my own moments with God, but let's speak this morning about the reliability of this awareness of God. I want to speak to those who are unsure, who are searching, or who are concerned about deceiving themselves. Perhaps you have gone to church all of your life, been involved, but are still asking, “Is God really there? Can he be known?”
There are several things that can lead us to acknowledge the existence of God and the possibility of knowing him. There are, for instance, a number of complex theological arguments with great names: the ontological argument, the teleological argument, and the cosmological argument, and if you are interested, I can point you to these. But here I think I can be of more help if we focus on the personal aspect of religion: specifically, that individual, people claim to have experienced God. There are those who claim to know God in a real way. How can we test whether what they say is true? How can we prove that they are not deceiving themselves and us?
A number of years ago, the great English preacher, Dr. William Sangster said that it seemed to him that the possibility of knowing God could be established as probable on the grounds of religious experience. He wondered how we could affirm this. And he thought that if we answer three questions affirmatively, together they represent good evidence that we, as human beings, may actually know God. The three questions were:
• Are the people who claim to have fellowship with God sufficiently numerous for us to believe that all human beings might share it?
• Are the witnesses dependable?
• Are the reports that they bring mutually consistent?
First, are the reporters who claim to know God sufficiently numerous for us to believe that all human beings might share this knowing? There are some things that can exist in the world yet be so rare that they have no special significance for humanity as a whole. If you remember the film A Beautiful Mind, you may remember the main character, John Nash, picked up a Nobel Prize for economic theory in 1993. He was skilled in mathematics like no other. He also suffered terribly from paranoid schizophrenia, but he had a brilliant mind for mathematics. Brilliant minds like that of Nash or Albert Einstein, do occur in the world, but they are rare. Brain capacities like theirs exist, yet their existence doesn't tell us much about the capacities of ordinary folk. We want to talk about ordinary people here: Is the religious experience that leads people to say that they know God common?
The fact is, there are many ordinary people who claim to have an awareness of the sustaining love of God and to enjoy the presence of the divine Companion. Without audible voices or describable visions, millions are willing to say with St. Paul, “I know whom I have believed.”
Think, for instance, of Christians in the various churches. In the United churches, the Lutheran churches, the Roman Catholic churches, in Orthodox churches and Baptist churches, many will say, “I know God.” Think of the whole nation of Canada. Sociologist Reginald Bibby said some 20 years ago that 30 per cent of the population went to church weekly. Think of the United States, of Europe and of the other continents. Millions of people all over the world go to church and many of them would testify that they know God and that God knows them. Countless numbers! Millions of reporters, ordinary people, would say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed.”
Are they dependable? Sangster's second question is, “Are the witnesses dependable?” Well, we are all aware of those who would say anything to sell you something. Are these people like that? Maybe a few are, but not many. Most of the people who claim to know God are plain ordinary folk, and some of them are the finest souls our race has produced. Those who testify, for the most part, are people of high moral character. The woman we knew as Mother Theresa, for instance. She came from humble beginnings and worked to help those with even less on the streets of Calcutta. This ordinary woman with an extraordinary mission knew God, she wrote this prayer that reveals something of her character:
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.
She was but one, among many who are the best, the most honest and the most honourable souls this planet has produced. They cry out confidently, “We know whom we have believed...”
The third question was, Are the reports consistent? Yes, I could put before you the testimony of men and women who lived hundreds of years apart, who came from different cultures and races, and who grew up in different church communions and you would find an essential coherence in it all. St. Augustine of the early Church, Aquinas in the Middle Ages, Martin Luther in the years of Reformation, John Fletcher the Methodist, John Bunyan the Independent, Charles Spurgeon the Baptist, C. S. Lewis the literary giant, John Paul II, the recent beloved head of the Roman Catholic church. They may not agree on all things, but together they would join with one voice and say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord, conceived by the holy Ghost …,” and the rest of the Apostles' Creed that represents the core of Christian belief.
In today's world, we could think of hockey player Paul Henderson or Ron Ellis, Toronto Argonaut coach Pinball Clemens, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, one of the first to step onto the moon, Apollo XI astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, South African archbishop and social activist Desmond Tutu. All of these people would join in one chorus and agree together, “we know whom we have believed...”.
I recall a time, before I was convinced myself, when a friend of the family, an anaesthetist, was showing off a collection of special seashells that he had gathered. As he did, he spoke to me about the beauty of God's creation. He knew God. In my former churches I have known successful businessmen, lawyers, physicians, accountants, a school board treasurer, educators, bus drivers, carpenters, electricians, mechanics, employed people, unemployed people, married people, single people, single parents, old people and young people. They all would say with one voice “we know whom we have believed...”.
What a weight of testimony, from all sectors of society! It seems to me that the person who sets out to prove that this experience is an illusion has taken on a more difficult task than he/she may think. Many of these individuals are the salt of the earth. Many are both educated and rational. What a weight of testimony! Can you resist it? Would you brush it all aside and say that there's nothing to it?
I would invite you, this morning to open yourself up to the possibility of knowing God. I would invite you to seek out what many others have already discovered. Perhaps you could talk to someone you know about it. Perhaps you could pick up a Bible and begin to read one of the Gospels, then perhaps one of Paul's writings. Read them, read them slowly. Seek out God as you read. Do not hurry or rush through, give God an unhurried trial.
I say give God an unhurried trial because sometimes we are too busy, too caught up in things of the world to see God. A few years ago, I was up at a minister's prayer retreat. The ministers came together for a general session at first and were invited to go off by themselves to pray. I had been particularly busy before the retreat and had a lot on my mind as I approached God. I couldn't. I remember struggling through some “surface” prayers of the “God bless Mary” variety, but I had no deeper contact with God.
As I went back to the next general session, however, darkness had fallen and nature revealed a valuable truth to me. The sky was very, very clear at Silver Lake that evening, much clearer than the city skies I was used to, and I could see hundreds of stars. As I walked up to the lodge I was mesmerized by these stars and I stopped for a while to look at them. The amazing thing I found, as I looked up on that clear night was this: The longer I looked the more stars I saw. As my eyes adjusted, what were hundreds of stars became thousands of stars. What were thousand became tens of thousands, as I began to be able to see groupings of stars, galaxies, the Milky Way. It was beautiful, but not only beautiful, it was informative; as I looked it was as if someone said to me, “The longer you look the more you will see.” I, a Christian minister, busy with all the business of ministry, was struggling to come into God's presence in prayer, and here were these words, “The longer you ”˜look' the more you will see.”
The more we seek God, the greater the depths and beauty of divinity we will uncover. The psalmist did not write, “Be still and know that I am God,” for nothing. Enter into stillness and see your eyes open up to the experience of God and you, too, will join in the chorus of countless others saying, “I know whom I have believed.”
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.