[D-fendr]

This information comes through other people - we ultimately trust the message that we have received from others is truly from God. We trust that God is somehow related in our personal lives. If God came to us in the form of a personal revelation, sure, we'd have a no-brainer. But for most of us, we base our relationship on faith - on the belief that what we have been told is true.

I'm glad you included the second possibility, that of the experiential, the mystics, the contemplatives. The equation is quite different. I think everyone strives to be a mystic in their own fashion - to experience and know God directly, personally, as a real presence, connected to our being, something more than an intellectual or reasoning faith in a separate, distant, though deep, concept.

I appreciate your posts.

[jo kus]

I'm glad you included the second possibility, that of the experiential, the mystics, the contemplatives. The equation is quite different. I think everyone strives to be a mystic in their own fashion - to experience and know God directly, personally, as a real presence, connected to our being, something more than an intellectual or reasoning faith in a separate, distant, though deep, concept.

Yes, that is true. We try to put some sort of objective sense to our individual experiences - thus - the importance of the Church and her objective doctrines. Without her guidance, our subjective experiences of God have no true substance, but are dependent entirely upon one's own personality and environment, making God relativistic OR making God unknowable to man. Thus, the absolute necessity of the Church and her teachings. She grounds our subjective beliefs of our experiences in reality that is outside of ourselves. Without her, opinions rule the roost.

I appreciate your posts.

I am honored that you read my ramblings!

Regards