Personal Incredulity and The Spirit: Why Experience Matters in Discernment
Several years ago, a widely circulated video surfaced of a Scottish man interrupting pastor John MacArthur while he was preaching at the Reformed Baptist Grace Community Church. The man in question, John O’Neill, claimed to be a modern prophet and specifically called out that MacArthur’s belief that certain gifts of the Holy Spirit had ceased (a view known as Cessationism) was in error. The man was escorted from the premises but not before a security guard asked him a fascinating question that was reiterated by executive director of Grace to You Phil Johnson in a later interview:
“Does God always speak to you in a Scottish accent?”
O’Neill is reported to have answered in the affirmative.
Many online took to making fun of O’Neill’s antics, stating that he was a false prophet, that he did not follow biblical precedents on rebuking an elder of the Church (1 Tim 5:1), or that he was delusional for thinking God spoke to him (especially in a Scottish accent).
The question of whether this self-proclaimed prophet was out of line or a genuine messenger of God are not my concern here. Rather, I wish to focus on the knee-jerk reaction of those who laughed at O’Neill’s response to the security guard and the implications it poses for issues of discernment, especially as they relate to manifestations, miracles, and ministry.
Personal Incredulity
Have you ever been in an argument with someone about an interpretation of Scripture or a miraculous claim only to be greeted with any of these counterpoints:
“That seems farfetched to me.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“I’ve never heard that before.”
These are examples of a logical fallacy known as “personal incredulity.” Personal incredulity is an a priori judgment on the inherent value of an argument or position based on what seems rational to one’s own sensibilities.[1] In the context of interpreting the Bible, personal incredulity can be as obvious as one disagreeing with certain practices because they’ve seen abuse in the Church or claiming that no “reputable” or “meaningful” scholar could agree with the argument you are presenting.
In addition to personal incredulity being logically problematic, it is also inherently subjective. What you personally find a “convincing” argument will rely heavily on factors such as emotional maturity, personal experience, and education on the topics at hand. One who is not knowledgeable about ancient writing conventions and literary genres, for example, might find it difficult to accept those that do not adopt a futuristic interpretation of Revelation. Likewise, someone who has experienced first-hand abuses by certain denominational leaders may be prone to dismiss anything they hear from that perspective out of a need for self-preservation rather than genuine cognitive reasoning.
Turning back to O’Neill, whether or not one is convinced that God can speak to someone in a Scottish accent is not an argument per se, at least, not one that contains strong explanatory power. Setting aside the fact that, presumably, God spoke to people in Biblical times with languages they immediately understood (and potentially in an accent of that geographical region), whether one is convinced or not that God “can” do something is irrelevant to whether the supposed event took place.
Such issues of personal incredulity are not limited to in-house Christian discussion. People universally hold to various truth claims based on a plethora of subjective factors. Shamanic healing is viewed as a placebo effect by outsiders but as genuine medical treatment by animistic adherents. Exorcists of various religious traditions view their rituals as means of dealing with evil spirits while atheists see it as superstitious nonsense and some psychologists as a genuine means of delivering people from neurological issues. Prayers are sometimes interpreted as causing real change in the material world while others see it as a game of chance and special pleading. Thus, whether healing, exorcism, or prayer are “real” to an individual is contingent on one’s worldview and the data sets available to demonstrate their veracity.
How then does one discern whether or not something in modern times actually happened? What criteria could we possibly use to prove or disprove that God spoke to O’Neill at all, let alone in a Scottish accent?
Unfalsifiable Claims
In logical discourse, these issues are referred to as “unfalsifiable” claims.[2] That is, there is no way to deduce whether or not something is true or false based on available technology, data, or methods. One such example might be the subjective experiences of those recorded in Scripture. We do not have a way to travel to the past to confirm one way or another that Jesus walked on water. What possible methodology could we use to determine that this happened? Indeed, while we take such narratives as a matter of faith, one must address the subjective nature of adopting these truth-claims.
How do we know if God has spoken to someone? Consider the popular saying that God speaks to people in a “still small voice” (1 Kgs 19:11-12). Ironically, this passage is often used by opponents of the Charismatic movement to suggest that we neither need nor should expect spectacular miracles for God to speak to us today. Rather, we should rely on some kind of innate (mystical?) encounter with God that broadly confirms directions in life and calling or some other generic understanding of guidance or reassurance. Such an interpretation is strange, considering how this is the only example we have of God communicating this way, God still talks to Elijah audibly, and the meaning of the Hebrew phrase translated as “still small voice” (קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה) has been debated.[3] What is particularly odd with those using this passage to argue against Charismatics literally hearing from God is that this “still small voice” is much more subjective than God manipulating the forces of nature (which he does before Elijah anyway).
In another instance, Jesus speaks directly to the inability for people to understand subjective experiences. While talking to Nicodemus, Jesus tells him that “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Jesus’ meaning here is that people are born again by the invisible work of the Holy Spirit, yet there are tangible ways of recognizing his work. The analogy between spirit and wind breaks down in some respects to modern readers. One can both hear and perceive the direction of the wind. Yet, in ancient times, the wind was thought to originate and return to a place that was inaccessible to humans, usually through celestial portals or gates.[4] Jesus is therefore making a point that despite being able to “hear” the wind, the origins and ultimate meaning of the wind’s noise is imperceptible to those who have not been born again.
On another level, this is also true of discerning manifestations. We may see the effects of the Holy Spirit’s moving, but without reliance on the Spirit’s illumination, we cannot determine its true origins and meaning. This is not to suggest that people who disagree with strange manifestations have not been born again. Rather, that this could potentially be a symptom of quenching the Holy Spirit or an exercise in human rationalism.
Hearing God’s Accent
Due to overfamiliarity with the biblical text, Christians often overlook strange phenomena in the distant past. As a result, they are quick to dismiss an event in a modern setting because it seems too bizarre to rationally hold as credible in our contemporary context. Despite believing in talking donkeys (Num 22:21-38), dismembered hands writing messages (Dan 5:5), superhuman strength (1 Sam 14-16), multiplying food (Matt 14:17-21), and God commanding people to sacrifice their children (Gen 22), modern Christians somehow cannot fathom the idea that God can still do incredible and, quite frankly, weird things today.
This is not only an issue of Cessationism vs. Continuationism. Both groups hold that God can and still does miracles to some extent. Yet the limits of acceptance differ from person to person based on subjective factors such as those considered above. Indeed, it is something of an amusing mystery that modern Christians are certain that God can open the mouth of a donkey, but not speak to someone in a Scottish accent.
May I suggest that part of the reason we believers suffer as much as we do from radical skepticism when it comes to modern miracles is that we’ve not become accustomed to God’s accent. Jesus’ sheep “hear his voice” (John 10:27). Naturally, Jesus is not referring to hearing an audible voice. But the essence of the passage is that those who believe in Christ are able to distinguish his voice from the enemy. Yet, some Christians find themselves so paranoid that they will be misled that they don’t hear any voice.
Consider some of the following passages:
“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly.” (Psalm 85:8)
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 3:22)
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
“Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:47)
“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” (Isaiah 30:21)
I am not suggesting one needs to hear audible voices, etc. to be obedient. Nor am I suggesting that one needs to have some kind of perpetual inner dialogue that they interpret as being God. Rather, I am saying that if one is governed by fear and the possibility of being deceived, they may be living with a “spirit of fear” (2 Tim 1:7) rather than trust in God being able to deliver them from any deception.
God’s accent is one of divine otherness that often requires a suspension of human reasoning. We often cite Isaiah 55:8 which says that “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” Yet the context of this passage has to do with God pouring out compassion on his people. It is about establishing a trustworthy relationship in spite of what seems unfathomable. It is about believing in the impossible when faith seems so nonsensical. Even Mary, who saw her virgin conception as utterly impossible is greeted with the following: “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
Experience and Discernment
People often scoff at using personal experience to discern or interpret the meaning of scripture or contemporary events that claim to be of a miraculous nature. On the one hand, I see their point. Building theological systems off of modern experiences can lead to egregious and legion errors. On the other hand, the truth claims made in the Bible are subjective experiences that are only true to us in the sense that we choose to believe them as accurate depictions of past events and present realities.
We see instances of this playing out in the New Testament itself.
When Paul preaches to the people in the Areopagus we read that “when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this” (Acts 17:32). Paul was preaching a message of repentance before God’s final judgment, yet to some listeners this was nonsense. Likewise, Nicodemus asks the basic question “How can these things be?” (John 3:9). An excellent question indeed. Evidently, the answer to this question is not in giving compelling logical arguments. Rather, it assumes that some truths are only accessible by means of the impartation of a new disposition towards understanding. Thus, Paul can state elsewhere that “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).
The experience of the Holy Spirit helps make sense of unfalsifiable claims in spiritual contexts. We cannot use a measuring rod to determine the veracity of all claimed phenomena and while Scripture can give us some guidelines to accept or reject certain manifestations, the frustrating reality is that there is a certain amount of subjective and experiential happenstance that must occur for verisimilitude to be achieved.
Conclusion
Based on these things, can we know for certain that John O’Neill heard from God (and in a Scottish accent no less)? No. Neither can we know that he did not. But then again, how did the early Israelites know that what a prophet told them was true or not? If something was prophesied to happen decades in the future, it would be difficult in the moment to make judgment calls about the truthfulness of their utterances. Without qualities such as abject false teaching and ethically questionable conduct on behalf of the speaker, it is difficult to assess the claims made by someone other than to search through Scripture for principles and potential criteria for evaluation. But in instances where this is not possible; we must accept the frustrating reality that such things are discerned at a metaphysical level that transcends human cognition.
Blessings,
Merrill G. Greene
Notes
[1] Lawrence Hubert and Howard Wainer, A Statistical Guide for the Ethically Perplexed (London: CRC Press, 2013), 484.
[2] This concept was popularized in an important work by the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper in his work The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934). See, however, Gerhard Schurz and Georg J. W. Dorn, “Why Popper's Basic Statements Are Not Falsifiable: Some Paradoxes in Popper's "Logic of Scientific Discovery"” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 19.1 (1988): 124-143.
[3] The exact interpretation of God’s method here is debated. See, for example, Paul R. House, 1, 2 Kings (The New American Commentary, Vol. 8; Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 223-224: “He receives this word in “a gentle whisper.” Perhaps the Lord attempts to teach Elijah not to expect always the miraculous and wondrous deliverance from problems. Maybe God wants “to signify to the prophet that He did not work in His earthly kingdom with the destroying zeal of wrath, or with the pitiless severity of judgment.” Or the Lord may simply try to explain to Elijah that he works in small ways at this time. God speaks in a quiet voice here to a prophet drained of strength. The next passage will reveal still further the Lord’s willingness to labor with relatively limited human resources. Regardless of the meaning of the natural wonders, however, it is God’s word alone that will heal the prophet in this moment of crisis.”
[4] 1 Enoch 60:11–13: “And the other angel who went with me and showed me what was hidden told me what is first and last in the heaven in the height, and beneath the earth in the depth, and at the ends of the heaven, and on the foundation of the heaven. And the chambers of the winds, and how the winds are divided, and how they are weighed, and (how) the portals of the winds are reckoned, each according to the power of the wind, and the power of the lights of the moon, and according to the power that is fitting: and the divisions of the stars according to their names, and how all the divisions are divided.” See also Rev 7:1, 1 Enoch 41:3, and 2 Baruch 48:3–5.