Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Faith on feelings? Message-ID: Date: 15 Dec 89 06:39:05 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article mauls@warwick.ac.uk (The Chief Slime Monster) writes: >... Can we trust our feelings and take it for granted that we >are not kidding ourselves and that our subconsciouses are not playing tricks >on us? It is a very difficult question, but, as every philosopher or thinker >who has trodden on this ground knows, as soon as you start doubting the input >of your senses you end up with the only knowable fact being your existance. I, for one, trust neither my senses nor my thoughts. If I were to trust my senses then I would involve myself in all sorts of sinful living. If I were to trust my thoughts then I would make up all sorts of things about God which would be more appealing to me, probably eliminating concepts like eternal damnation and God's hatred of sinners altogether because they are exceedingly unpleasant things to think about. I might even convince myself that I am not a sinner after all because who really enjoys honestly facing up to the insidious filth and wrottenness that dwells within his very being. Unlike those philosophers and thinkers which you referred to, however, I know far more than the mere fact that I exist. I know the truth about reality which God has been gracious enough to reveal to me via His Word, the Bible. It, and it alone, is what I trust. Its words are unchangeable, full of wisdom and knowledge, and profound proclaimers of the truth and revealers of the nature of God Himself. I know not only that I exist but also why I exist. This is something that even the greatest philosopher or thinker, without the Bible, has never been able to figure out. Their big mistake was thinking that they could rely on their own thinking. Man's thoughts are tainted by sin. God's sinless thoughts are the only ones worth probing. I feel very, very sorry for those people who are basing their salvation on some sort of really neat emotional experience which happened to them. Ones own emotions can induce drug-like, immensely pleasing sensations which many people delude themselves into being of divine origin. It is even entirely possible, though these people never want to contemplate the possibility, that such emotional experiences were induced by Satan himself in order to give them exactly what they were seeking, i.e. good earthly feelings rather than a sincere relationship with God. The only way for a person to be sure of his salvation is for him to study the Bible. He will then be able to see if he has an on-going and sincere desire to be obedient to the commandments of God or not. God tells us that one of the ways that we can know if we love Him is if we want, from the heart, to be obedient to Him at any cost. 1 John 2:3-5 says "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.". Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3