Knowing of something is not knowing it. You may have heard of something, and you know that it exists, but you have no clue what it is.
Knowing God personally is a different story. Those who claim they know God personally open up a can of worms with such claims. Have you seen Him? If so, how do you know it was God? Have you heard Him? The same question follows.
Then there is a problem of credibility of such personal experiences. When challenged, the usual answer is "I swear I have" as "proof." Making such extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence or proof is foolish, self-serving and self-cenetered, and most of all not convincing.
If you don't see the truth of it I can't make you. However, the number of people you can look at who are changed is extraordinary in and of itself. That alone should indicate something has happened.
***Knowing of something is not knowing it. You may have heard of something, and you know that it exists, but you have no clue what it is.***
An ant may “speak” to a human in its fashion of communication.
Knowing of something is not knowing it. You may have heard of something, and you know that it exists, but you have no clue what it is.
Well, that isn't my relationship with God at all. I know some things about Him, but I also know Him on a personal basis BECAUSE He is a personal God. The Renaissance and (now) new theology deny the personality of God, so as to cling to the autonomy of men. The independence of man demands that God be pushed away and put into an unknowable box. In that way, absolutely all difficult questions about the reality of man's existence, for example, can be pushed under the rug. Nobody knows, it's a mystery, just believe what the men of the Church tell you. It has long been my belief that the personal relationship an Apostolic has is not with God at all. It is with the Church. The Church is the real center of the Apostolic faith, imo.
Knowing God personally is a different story. Those who claim they know God personally open up a can of worms with such claims. Have you seen Him? If so, how do you know it was God? Have you heard Him?
I have seen and heard God's work in myself, others around me, and in His creation itself. I know it is God when it matches what God's Holy word says, and other times in less specific ways. It sounds to me like you are redefining what a personal relationship is to ONLY mean something in which two physical beings meet together and touch physically. This sounds forced to me for the sole purpose of eliminating the possibility of having a "personal" relationship with God.
Do you believe that two humans could NOT develop a personal relationship by solely writing to each other, without having met in the flesh? Do you think that never happens? I won't physically meet and shake hands with Christ in this lifetime. However, He DOES speak to me and I certainly speak to Him all the time. Our relationship is deeply personal. I tell Him things I wouldn't tell anyone else because I trust Him, not because I "have to". To be honest, I can't imagine being able to love any God with whom I did not have a personal relationship. To me, that would be like saying "I love that movie". I don't understand it.
Then there is a problem of credibility of such personal experiences. When challenged, the usual answer is "I swear I have" as "proof." Making such extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence or proof is foolish, self-serving and self-cenetered, and most of all not convincing.
If God had designed our faith to be provable to all men, to whatever standard they demanded, then all men would believe. Obviously, God did not design it this way. Only those to whom God would reveal the truth would ever believe and know about themselves. Whether I can convince another of my faith, or whether I can convince him of the truth of the fruits of the Spirit that are worked through me, is irrelevant to the truth of my faith. That is something only God and I can know for sure.
On personal salvation, we simply state facts, in remarkably similar ways, as best we know them by the leading of the Holy Spirit. The truth of facts is not dependent on who or how many people agree with the facts.