God and the role of the prophet (Jesus, Creator, Earth)

[angellous_evangellous]

This thread is to address a question specifically asked to myself on another thread.

Originally Posted by mr.guy

What compels god to reveal himself to prophets? (Why "must" he?)

From the Christian perspective, God is the Creator. Everything that God created is the creation. Being utterly outside of creation, God is not a product of human reason, so God is unreachable by philosophy. Being utterly outside of creation, God is not reviewable by our scientific tools that we develop to review and classify nature.

That's why there is no rational argument for God. No science experiment will ever find God because God is not a part of nature, so there is no evidence to insert into abstract models, because we can only reason with what we can know.

Everything that we discover via our tools we can determine how we relate to it. God, however, if we are to know God, must reveal God. In other words, if the Christian God exists, God must tell us. A prophet is one to whom God reveals God.

That's why we must have faith in order to believe in God.

[Terrywoodenpic]

I actually have some trouble with the concept of prophets.

Throughout the ages there have been people who are said to be prophets. all religions seem to have had them.
They speak for god and foretell the future. some times the say if you don't do this that will happen.
Their speciality in the past was to foretell the future in a rather cryptic way, so what ever turned out to be the case , they could say that the had foretold it.

a case in point is the prophecies regarding the coming of the messiah.
To day the Jews deny that this was about Jesus and Christians say it was. The prophecies are vague enough for either viewpoint to be right.

I prefer to put my faith in actual happenings. I don't doubt the coming of Jesus,
That he might not have been the person the Jews were expecting. does not bother me at all.
My faith is in Jesus, not in people who may or may not have foretold his coming.

Prophets who speak for God in the here and now, rather than about the future, are another matter.
I think it quite possible for God to speak through who ever he choses, If that is one man at a time as the LDS believe I don't know,
For me it could be one or many.
The problem will always be, how do we know the truth when we hear it.

Terry_______________________
Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall behold their God.

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

But Angelous,

Doesn't that get us back to the problem of whether to beleive the Prophet, or not? If the Prophet is just telling us a story, or building upon, and slightly changing the stories of previous prophets, none of which is based upon reality, then where does that leave us?

B.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by MdmSzdWhtGuy

But Angelous,

Doesn't that get us back to the problem of whether to beleive the Prophet, or not? If the Prophet is just telling us a story, or building upon, and slightly changing the stories of previous prophets, none of which is based upon reality, then where does that leave us?

B.

Prophets speak, at least in part, to the people they live among. The word of a living prophet, in my opinion, would always take precedence over the word of a prophet who has died. If this were not the case, there would be little point in their having been a long string of Biblical prophets. God could just have easily filled in the first one on everything that He wanted us to know from the first day of man's existence until the last. If I were going to go to war against an opposing enemy and were to be given the choice between having at my disposal a library full of information on military strategy, etc. and having, in addition to that library, a living General whose knowledge of the enemy's tactics was based on up-to-date information, I'd go with the second choice.

[Master Vigil]

I have a problem with prophets. Simply because, which prophets are we to believe? How many people out there are preaching fire and brimstone? Should we believe them? How many out there are preaching peace, tolerance, and unification of all life on earth? Should we believe them? If god sends a prophet that is not of your religion, would you believe them? Etc...