Personal Evidence for the Existence and Activity of God, graciously provided (I believe) by God
God knows me well, and He knows I'm basically a "scientist" in the way I think. What does this mean? I place a high value on the logical reality checks that are the foundation of scientific method. We do a scientific reality check whenever we ask, in science or everyday life, an important question: How closely does "the way I think the world is" match my observations of "the way the world really is"?
God is gracious, and He provided enough evidence to persuade me (thinking as a scientist) to become a Christian. How? In my page asking "Why isn't God more obvious?)" here is a brief summary: "For me, all four sources [historical, scientific, personal, interpersonal] have provided
strong reasons to believe. For example, before becoming a Christian
I had concluded — based on my study of the
origin of life (it seems
highly unlikely that natural
process could produce life) and the many amazing life-allowing
properties of the universe — that
life and the universe probably had been designed and created
by a designer/creator whose intelligence and power far exceeds our ability
to comprehend. Also, God provided evidence (in many personal
experiences) that He exists and is active in my life. I remain a Christian
because I'm confident that The Gospel of Jesus is true,
and
because I
want the
grace
and
life offered
by God. * But others can claim..."
Do I think MY experiences should persuade YOU? No. Why?
First, my experiences are not your experiences. This is important because even though I'm certain that I'm telling the truth, you don't know this. This is just the way it is, because — just like me — each of you trusts your own first-hand experiences (because it happened to YOU) more than you trust the second-hand experiences of others, because these experiences happened to THEM, not YOU, so you have to trust that they are telling the truth about it, and we cannot fully trust.
Second, even though the personal evidence has been persuasive (for me) it is not compelling. In fact, following my personal summary (*) is a recognition that "others can claim that these
four kinds of evidence, when combined, give them reasons to not believe." I think there is no proof for (or against) the existence and activity of God. But I'm not a religious agnostic because "despite the impossibility
of proof, evidence (personal, interpersonal, historical, scientific) can
affect our estimates for the plausibility of various worldviews," and even though "a moderate intellectual agnosticism is justified, a commitment agnosticism seems unwise. I'm merely suggesting that we humbly
recognize the limits of logical persuasion and the impossibility of proof,
and
see our world as an environment that permits free decisions and provides opportunities
for living by faith in whatever worldview a person has decided to construct
and accept."
What you see below is some "personal evidence" from my own experiences, before I became a Christian and during the first two years after that decision:
Before I made a decision, in January 1983, to become a Christian, I read the Bible and listened to a Christian radio station in Seattle; twice, while walking on the campus of UW with my portable transistor radio, without looking at the radio's tuning dial I turned it from another station (near the opposite end of the FM dial) while asking God to "help me find the station" and when I turned on the sound the radio was exactly tuned to the Christian station.
It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie, partly for its artistic value (plot, dialogue, acting,...) but mainly for the message: Each of us affects other people, and life is better if we affect others in a way that is beneficial for them. The movie's climax (do you want to watch it?) occurs when George prays, "I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again." After watching this movie one evening in December 1982, I thought that God might want to show me something through this movie. The 700 Club, a Christian TV show, was on at midnight, so while praying I closed my eyes and pressed the "time" setting on the alarm of my watch for awhile, then released it, and opened my eyes. I watched the program and about halfway through it, while a guest was telling the story of his pre-Christian life, the alarm beeped and at exactly the same time the guest said "God, I want to live" in his prayer asking God to help him avoid suicide. His prayer was answered and, it seemed to me, so was mine.
After becoming a Christian, I listened to ministry tapes from Calvary Fellowship in Seattle (affiliated with Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa) and after listening to the concluding prayer of a tape that was especially meaningful to me, I thought "this is worth listening to again" so I pressed REWIND and began doing something else (looking for things to take with me on a trip) and then I remembered the tape and thought "oops, it will be way past the beginning of the prayer by now." So I stopped the rewind, pressed PLAY, and heard "Father,..." at the beginning of the prayer. Then I "tried it again" and the same thing happened. But not always. I checked this tape out of the library twice more during the next two years, and 8 times I tried the rewind-stop-play; 4 times this worked (with the tape stopping at the beginning of the prayer) but 4 times it didn't.
A similar thing happened in my experience with Wonderful Life. Earlier in the evening, before The 700 Club, I listened to Night Sounds (with Bill Pearce, a wise Christian host and virtuoso trombone player) and I chose a time to make my watch alarm beep during the program to "see what would happen" and what I heard was... nothing special. Why? This is speculation, of course, but it seems that God is willing to provide personally customized special evidence (especially for stubborn "scientists" like me, who require evidence for faith?) and He will do this sometimes but not too often, and not always when we ask.
I.O.U. — I'll work on this page occasionally, and later (maybe by mid-October?) there will be more here, including the polishing of the "rough notes to myself" that you see below:
google [Thomas Gideon faith] --> Nancy Smith writing about questioning, personal evidence, and faith that endures:
"While doubt has its dark side, it can be the starting path to true, unshakable belief. A time of doubt and questioning, if handled properly, can bring us to greater belief and to life-long obedience. That is what it doubt did for Thomas. In our “show me the nail prints” society how do we know the difference between good doubt and bad doubt? More importantly, how can we use questioning to strengthen instead of tearing down our belief?
include scanned photo from Gregg's comics (how to crop it?)
conclusion is not "Night Sounds less worthy than 700 Club," there just wasn't anything "special" that night
page 42 of book, baptized in Holy Spirit with "evidence of speaking in tongues" (still not for me, although I think it's a valid and valuable spiritual experience that God gives some people, God doesn't give it to all of his people, because it isn't essential for a full Christian experience; God wanted me to focus on essentials of what is most important, so later that night I thought "what I really need is more love" and also "I should look on page 42 of a booklet (a followup to The Four Spiritual Laws) that said LOVE is the goal that all Christians should seek, as in the Two Great Commandments of Jesus (Matthew 22)
Mark 8 (take up your cross - quote it here) in three sermons on same Sunday, in Summer 1984, one for me, one for two friends had been in San Diego, and once (they called attention to this coincidence) at our local church, --> they prayed for healing of oncoming cold (at stage past any previous recovery for me, and it was healed)
interpersonal reports from friends I trusted / also reading Cross and the Switchblade, YWAM with their "coincidences" in terms of missions
chemical evolution (plus design of universe -- see multiverse/anthropic for "no proof" since then)
Summer 1984 -- 90 minutes of prayer, finger touched alarm clock and instantly the alarm went off
many more, before and after