"Hearing God"

I’m going to comment on Moreland’s argument:

http://www.jpmoreland.com/2011/11/29/hearing-god-a-biblical-case/

Sometimes I am asked to provide a biblical case for my belief that everyday believers can regularly hear God speak to them in various ways.

That’s equivocal. Moreland’s contention isn’t merely that everyday believers can regularly hear God speak to them in various ways, but that Christians must cultivate the ability to hear God’s voice through trial-and-error and practice.

Thus, the examples of God speaking to people (including ordinary people—Gen 25:23, Acts 6:5, and 8:6, Acts 19:1-7, esp. v. 6) throughout both Testaments are meant to teach us how we can expect God to speak (without, of course, expecting God to continue to give authoritative scripture to the whole church).

i) God doesn’t speak to anyone in Acts 6:5 and 8:6. Why is Moreland so careless?

ii) God doesn’t speak to anyone in Acts 19:6. Rather, they prophesy and speak in tongues. Perhaps Moreland considers that equivalent to God speaking to them.

But even if some Christians prophesy in Acts 19:6, that hardly warrants the “belief that everyday believers can regularly hear God speak to them in various ways.” Even in Acts, every Christian is not a prophet.

iii) Rebekah is not an “ordinary person.” Rather, she’s a key link in the chain of redemptive history.

Moreover, the oracle in Gen 25:23 isn’t only or primarily for her benefit. That oracle figures in the narrative arc. And it is there for the benefit of the reader, so that he can track God’s unfolding plan.

God speaks to us to give us guidance (Isaiah 30:21, John 10:3,4,16,27, Acts 13:2, 16:6, James 1:5).  In the John texts, Jesus says his sheep hear his voice.  Some have understood the context to imply that this means that the unsaved hear God’s effectual call to come to salvation.  But this has the odd result that we can hear God’s speech/drawing/prompting before we are saved but not afterwards.

i) Jas 1:5 doesn’t say God speaks to Christians. Why is Moreland so careless?

ii) Acts 16:6 doesn’t say God spoke to anyone. It doesn’t specify how God restrained them. Why is Moreland so careless?

And even if it were a word from God, God speaking to Paul hardly warrants the “belief that everyday believers can regularly hear God speak to them in various ways.” Ditto: Acts 13:2.

iii) Moreland seems to be assuming that Isa 30:21 denotes the unmediated voice of God. But God normally speaks through prophets. Indeed, Isaiah is a case in point: God conveys this promise through the mouth of his prophet Isaiah.

iv) Moreland seems to think Jn 10 denotes literal divine speech. But in context, that’s part of the parable. The sheep hear the shepherd calling to them.

There’s no more reason to take the voice literally than taking the sheep or shepherd literally. That’s all a part of the parabolic world story.

Jesus explicitly says that we will do greater works than he did (John 14:12). 

How does that comparison apply to his claim that “many believers are mistaken about what exactly is God’s biblical speech”? Was Jesus mistaken about what exactly is God’s biblical speech? Did Jesus have to perfect hearing God’s voice through trial-and-effort and constant practice?

God sometimes speaks by placing impressions in our minds (Nehemiah 2:12) and through a still small voice (I Kings 19:12).

i) There’s more than one way to render Neh 2:12.

ii) The fact that God made his will known to Nehemiah hardly warrants the “belief that everyday believers can regularly hear God speak to them in various ways.”

iii) Likewise, the fact that God “whispered” to Elijah hardly warrants the “belief that everyday believers can regularly hear God speak to them in various ways.”

These are individual descriptions, not general promises.

Regarding the claim that when God speaks, it is clear and we don’t have to learn to hear his voice, (A) it seems that Samuel needed to learn to distinguish/hear God’s voice (I Sam 3:1-21);

I’ve discussed this before, but I’ll say a bit more:

i) There’s no justification for extrapolating from this case to believers in general. It’s not a promise. And Samuel was not an “everyday” believer.

ii) In this account, God initiates contact with Samuel. And God intensifies contact until Samuel recognizes God. God first speaks to Samuel, then appears to Samuel–in what I take to be an angelophany.

This has nothing to do with Samuel having to cultivate the ability to hear God’s voice. The success of the divine communication is not contingent on Samuel. God unilaterally controls the transaction. God determines the outcome. And this is true of Moreland’s other examples.

(B) there was a school of prophets in the Old Testament and, among other things, it would seem natural to think that they were learning to discern/hear God’s voice;

Moreland offers no reason to agree with his claim.

 (C) In the NT, prophesy is a gift that, as will other gifts like teaching or evangelism, grows and develops with time and experience as one learn to enter more fully into the practice of that gift.

Moreland offers no reason to think prophecy is the sort of gift that grows and develops if you practice that gift. Why think prophecy is something you can “practice”? Do we dictate to God when, where, and how often he reveals himself to us?  Do we compel God?

That is why there were tests of prophesy (I Cor 14:29, I Thes 5:19-22), viz., that as people learned to hear God, they sometimes made mistakes and gave words sincerely though they were mistaken.

That’s equivocal.

i) Does it mean knowing whether God has spoken?

ii) Does it mean God is unclear even when he speaks?

iii) Does it mean we are unclear on how to apply a prophecy?

(D) We have to learn God’s most authoritative speech, the Bible, through hermeneutics, exegetical practice and so forth, and many believers are mistaken about what exactly is God’s biblical speech (in debates in textual criticism and differences between Catholics and Protestants about which books belong in the canon). If God has allowed there to be differences about what belongs in Holy Scripture and we have to work hard to learn to rightly divide it, why can’t there be differences about whether a personal communication was/was not from God and effort needed to learn how to understand such communication?

Catholics and Protestants don’t differ over the scope of the canon because it’s hard to rightly divide it. Rather, they differ over the scope of the canon because Catholics have a dogmatic precommitment to whatever their denomination formally teaches–evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.