Does God Speak To People?

We frequently hear Christians say things like, "God spoke to me" or "I sensed God saying to me . . ." or "I'm learning to hear God's voice" or "We need to listen to God." We often pray for an answer to a specific question, expecting that God will, in some way, give us a specific answer. Are these ways of talking based on bad theology?

What would it mean for God to speak to me? In cases of human communication, a simple model involves four parts: sender, message, medium and receiver. On this simple model, God is the sender, the message is various and I am the receiver. But what is the medium? There seem to be several possible answers to this question.

If God does "speak" to humans, there are several means or mediums by which God might do so. First, we see in the Bible cases where it appears that God spoke in an audible voice with human language. For instance, the prophen Habakkuk writes that "the LORD answered me and said, 'Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets . . .'" Of course, it is possible that God spoke directly to his mind and bypassed the ears altogether. I'm not sure it matters, though. The important thing to note is that the "speaking" was linguistic and readily understandable. I would also include dreams and visions in this category. The instances I am referring to are not just vague "feelings" or "senses" that God was saying something, but clear linguistic communication.

Second, God speaks through the medium of written language. Certainly God's Word is, indirectly, God speaking. God has brought it about that his intentions, commands, thoughts, etc. are communicated to us by means of written language. This is perhaps the easiest medium to accept.

Third, I think God speaks to believers intuitively. By this I mean to capture things like impressions during prayer, or when God speaks personally through the Word. When we experience intuitive communication, we sometimes say that we have a sense of God's leading or his direction on a matter. We don't hear or see any language, but we just know. Sometimes this is called tacit knowing. You may not know how you know, but you just know. Perhaps an example of this is in Acts when the elders of the church said that "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . ."

Fourth, God can speak to us through other people. This one is akin to the first, since it generally involves hearing an audible voice, but not God's voice. It is a linguistic and propositional form of communication. The prophets are good examples of this type, as are angels. God once got his message across to Balam by means of a donkey! Recall, though, that it was the donkey's words, not God being "channeled" through the donkey.

Fifth, I think God can speak to us through circumstances or through creation. "Dat to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." (Ps. 19) This is metaphorical, but the idea is that God is attempting to say something by means of creation. There is content. They tell of the glory of God. My favorite example is Jonah and the vine. God causes the vine to grow and perish overnight in order to get a message across to Jonah. The vine was not the message, but it was meant to get his attention and reveal to him the dark places in his soul. God may also "close a door" or cause some other event that is meant to signal his desire for us.

So, all these examples are well and good, but does God still speak to us today, as he did in the Bible? I think the answer has to be "yes," but with one caveat. The content of God's message in the act of communication is almost always going to be of a certain sort. Let's distinguish between two kinds of information or message-content that God might transmit to us. I will call the first "gnostic" information and the second "biblical" (you can see where this is going). Most people are wary of "speaking" talk because of abuses that generally involve gnostic information. What I mean by "gnostic" is secret, privileged information that God gives to a very limited number of persons. Gnostic information consists of propositions that are not contained in, nor can be inferred from the Bible. In fact, they may even be contrary to the Bible. Moreover, gnostic information is allegedly given to one person or a small group of people. I do not believe that God speaks in this way, with very few exceptions.

Biblical information, on the other hand, is intended to be public, consistent with and very often echoing Scripture. Paul's conclusion in the dispute over the communicative gifts is this: "Let all things be done for edification." God's speaking to a person should not be considered strictly a private matter, but ultimately for the building up of the body as a whole community. I am extremely skeptical of any alleged "divine message," the content of which is something that no Christian could ever have known or discerned apart from the revelation of the message. That is, I believe that when God speaks, he will simply be recapitulating what he has already said, in one way or another. This is what the entire ministry of the Old Testament prophets consisted in. They simply recapitulated or rehashed the Mosaic law and covenant, with all its promises and warnings.

So, I probably have not said enough here to draw a sound conclusion. More distinctions need to be drawn, more terms defined, more Scriptures explored. That will be for a later post. Of course, if I get absolutely no comments on this, I won't be terribly motivated to write more. I'll let the "free market" decide.