God’s heart

With respect to the first need (the need to know God’s heart), we must go beyond what reason can reveal. Though we may be able to affirm God’s love and goodness from the transcendentals and near-death experiences, there are many unanswered questions. For example, is God’s love unconditional? How does God define “love”? Does that love entail responsibilities? Is it commensurate with our freedom? Does God have feelings of empathy? Affection? Compassion? If so, how do these characteristics manifest themselves?

With respect to the second need (the need to know how to pray and worship), we will want to know how best to respond to the heart of God. If we assume that God has a heart – particularly a heart of unconditional love – then we will want to know how we might open ourselves to Him. If persons are truly interpersonal, then we can never become fully alive, have full meaning, or even be fully aware of ourselves, without being in relationship with other people. The same holds true for God. Yet how can we be in relationship with Him so that we might find full meaning in life and come alive through Him? If prayer is the context for a relationship with God, then we will want to know how to pray – how to pray privately, publicly, how to meditate, contemplate; how to relate to one another through God, and how to relate to God through one another. These matters go far beyond the domain of a-posteriori or a-priori evidence and so if we are to understand them, we will need some form of revelation.

With respect to the third need (the need for specific revelation), there are certain dogmas and ethical precepts that are beyond the domain of reason. There are many doctrines that can be known by reason – the uniqueness and unrestrictedness of God, the transmateriality of human beings, and the importance of love for the meaning of life. Though reason can take us a long way, it cannot probe more specifically and deeply into the divine essence. For example, in Christianity, the Trinity, the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, and the Eucharist cannot be proven by assembling a–posteriori and a-priori evidence. These truths are simply beyond our empirical world, our experience, and even the domain of the principle of non-contradiction. Yet these inspired truths are important because they tell us about God’s interpersonal nature and interpersonal love, and this view of God can have a profound effect on the way we view ourselves and the way we live our lives.

Furthermore, inasmuch as ethics flows from the essence or heart of God, then inspired dogmas about God will shed light upon ethics and morality. Though reason can go a long way in the domain of ethics (probing what is good and how to achieve it), it cannot reach the fullness of ethical truth by itself. This can be seen with respect to the four cardinal virtues of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (prudence, justice, courage, and temperance). Though they are remarkable in their power to guide and discipline human thought and action, they do not reach the level of self-sacrificial and compassionate love (agape). This most important ethical precept comes to Christians through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, though reason can come to a partial definition of “love,” it falls quite short of the beatitudes, which are revelations (of Jesus).

Finally, there are a host of ethical precepts that follow upon this definition of love, and go beyond the domain of natural reason (such as the golden rule). We may see this in the context of the silver rule: “do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you, that is, avoid unnecessary harm to others, but if a harm is unavoidable, minimize it.” The silver rule probably comes from natural reason because it is to be found in virtually every culture, religion, and secular legal system. The silver rule is considered ethical minimalism because it is the foundation for all other ethical precepts, and furthermore, if someone does not believe it, they are likely to lack conscience (and be sociopathic).

The golden rule goes far beyond the silver rule and is considered ethical maximalism (or altruism) because it declares, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you; that is, do the good for others that you would want done unto you.” This good goes far beyond merely avoiding harm. This rule does not come from a philosopher or poet, but rather, from Jesus, who considers it to be an extension of His teaching about the primacy of love. How could Christians have known that this was the fullest expression of ethics – unless they linked ethics to love? And how could they have known to link ethics to love – unless they knew that love was the highest commandment, and that this highest commandment reflected the very essence of God? And how could they have known this fundamental truth? By reason alone? I do not think so. Ethical reflection over hundreds of years was incapable of discovering either the primacy of love, the altruistic definition of love (the beatitudes – agape), or even the golden rule. Without the revelation of Jesus Christ, it seems doubtful that this essential fulfillment of ethics would have ever been discovered.

This need for revelation continues to the present day, for we need to know how the ethical issues we confront with modern technologies and circumstances can be resolved in light of the beatitudes, the primacy of love, and God’s unconditional love. This is not the domain of reason and it is not the domain of simple intuition or feeling but rather the domain of God’s inspiration working through our minds and hearts – the domain of revelation.

There is one other ethical dimension of revelation that should be considered, namely, the binding nature of moral or ethical precepts. The problem that John Locke elucidated in Reasonableness of Christianity was that the reflection of all moral philosophers throughout the ages does not have any moral authority to bind our minds or consciousness. This binding authority, this sense of ethical duty, needs to have a divine source, and for this reason, without divine authorization, the sense of obligation or duty seems to dissipate. Once again (as Locke discerned) we seem to be in need of revelation, and without this revelation, our responsibility to do what is good, and even our awareness of what is good seems to be significantly diminished.

The fourth need (specifics about inspiration, providence, and suffering) is beyond the domain of reason. Though reason can point to the existence, goodness, and love of God, it cannot derive from this how God works to inspire us, guide us, and redeem our suffering. These areas are essential for the way in which we view ourselves and live our lives. Does God bring good out of our suffering – for us, others, or the community? How does God work? What is His ultimate goal in redeeming suffering? Is suffering inconsistent or consistent with God’s love? Is it devoid of meaning or does it us lead us to deeper virtue, meaning, and love? Does God inspire us? Does He give us interior experiences of Himself – His joy, home, or love? Does God guide us? If so, how does He guide us? What are the signs of that guidance? How can we best follow those signs? Does He guide us in conjunction with others? Does He form a “conspiracy” of grace around us? All of these questions are beyond the domain of reason – they cannot be experienced from the world or deduced from first principles. If we are to get answers we will have to turn to a source of revelation, and put our faith in it. When we do, the proof of the pudding should be in the tasting; for authentic teaching in this area should bear fruit – in the long term.

With respect to the fifth need (the need for religious community), there is considerable evidence that religious community supports the faith and worship of individual members, forms a common ethos through which God can act and teach, and creates a common “face” through which the group can interact with the world.^[1] Yet how can a religious community do all these things without making reference to the other four areas of revelation mentioned above. Now inasmuch as these other four areas of revelation are integral to religious community, and inasmuch as they are beyond the domain of reason, then there will be dimensions of religious community which can only come from a common source of revelation. This common source will have to set up structures, authority, and designate the custodians of the group, its ethos, and its common teaching (doctrine). Evidently, joining a religious community has a very significant impact on the way we view ourselves and live our lives. If we have faith, this decision will be one of the most important we make, and is likely to shape our journey into the eternal.

The above five needs go beyond the scope of reason. Even if one affirms the goodness and love of God in the transcendentals and the specifics of near-death experiences, (e.g. encountering a loving white light or Jesus), one still does not have a clear sense of any of these five important areas of knowledge. Yet each of these areas is exceedingly important in living an authentic, good, and loving life.

We might say that these five areas (the domain of revelation) tell us who God is, and in light of this, how we ought to live, however, the domain of reason cannot go this far – it can tell that God exists and what His attributes are, but it is quite vague on who God is and the how of life. Reason can point to Gods goodness and love. It does not create empathy with God, feelings for God, or an awareness of God’s healing and guiding “hand.” Though reason can give us natural ethics (e.g. the four cardinal virtues), it leaves the specific interpretation of these natural precepts to us.

This gives rise to a fundamental question. If the five areas of revelation are essential to living a life of full meaning, love, and efficacy, and these five areas cannot be known by the light of reason alone, then would a loving God deprive us of this vital information? Even Christian deists (such as John Locke) affirmed that a loving God would not deny to us what we need to live a full, meaningful, and loving life. It would be inconsistent with His love, and inconsistent with reason itself.

What does this mean? If God would not leave us without the essential revelation of himself, then that revelation must be available and accessible to us in some form, and if it is, then it is incumbent upon us to discover it and its proper interpretation so that we might complement the truths of reason and allow ourselves to live a life with the fullest horizon of meaning, love, and efficacy. Failure to do so would be like relegating ourselves to a life of incompleteness and superficiality which would be at best a partial waste, and at worst, a betrayal of self.

So what can we do to avoid this? We must once again use the critical tools of reason, and also the intuitive tools of the heart, to find the source of revelation which fits the requirements of both.

Where can we begin such an enterprise? I would submit that it could begin with exploring the nature of love; for as will be seen, this one power holds out the possibility of being purely positive, the meaning of life, the source of peaceful coexistence with others, and the fulfillment of human authenticity and joy. In my view, there is no other power or virtue which holds out this potential, and so I believe that it can lead us to the source of revelation and the heart of God. In order to explore this great potential, we will want to begin with probing its essential characteristics.