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    12 Ways To Know God

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    chidi_orji_3
    Peter Kreeft outlines 12 ways that one can know God according to the Bible and Christian tradition. The first three ways are supernatural - through Jesus Christ, the Church, and Scripture. The next three are natural - through nature, art, and conscience. Reason, experience, history and tradition, the saints, doing God's will, and prayer are also listed as ways of knowing God. Kreeft argues that Christians should view these not as competing ways but as complementary, and that exploring different ways can help one to better know and glorify God.

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    12 Ways To Know God

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    chidi_orji_3
    247 views2 pages
    Peter Kreeft outlines 12 ways that one can know God according to the Bible and Christian tradition. The first three ways are supernatural - through Jesus Christ, the Church, and Scripture. The next three are natural - through nature, art, and conscience. Reason, experience, history and tradition, the saints, doing God's will, and prayer are also listed as ways of knowing God. Kreeft argues that Christians should view these not as competing ways but as complementary, and that exploring different ways can help one to better know and glorify God.

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    An article on coming to know God, published by Peter Kreeft on his website

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    12 Ways to Know God

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    Peter Kreeft outlines 12 ways that one can know God according to the Bible and Christian tradition. The first three ways are supernatural - through Jesus Christ, the Church, and Scripture. The next three are natural - through nature, art, and conscience. Reason, experience, history and tradition, the saints, doing God's will, and prayer are also listed as ways of knowing God. Kreeft argues that Christians should view these not as competing ways but as complementary, and that exploring different ways can help one to better know and glorify God.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    247 views2 pages

    12 Ways To Know God

    Uploaded by

    chidi_orji_3
    Peter Kreeft outlines 12 ways that one can know God according to the Bible and Christian tradition. The first three ways are supernatural - through Jesus Christ, the Church, and Scripture. The next three are natural - through nature, art, and conscience. Reason, experience, history and tradition, the saints, doing God's will, and prayer are also listed as ways of knowing God. Kreeft argues that Christians should view these not as competing ways but as complementary, and that exploring different ways can help one to better know and glorify God.

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    12 Ways to Know God by Peter Kreeft

    http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/12-ways.htm

    Twelve Ways to Know God


    Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God (Jn 17:3). What are the ways? In how many different ways can we know God, and thus know eternal life? When I take an inventory, I find twelve. 1. The final, complete, definitive way, of course, is Christ, God himself in human flesh. 2. His church is his body, so we know God also through the church. 3. The Scriptures are the church's book. This book, like Christ himself, is called "The Word of God." 4. Scripture also says we can know God in nature see Romans 1. This is an innate, spontaneous, natural knowledge. I think no one who lives by the sea, or by a little river, can be an atheist. 5. Art also reveals God. I know three ex-atheists who say, "There is the music of Bach, therefore there must be a God." This too is immediate. 6. Conscience is the voice of God. It speaks absolutely, with no ifs, ands, or buts. This too is immediate. [The last three ways of knowing God (4-6) are natural, while the first three are supernatural. The last three reveal three attributes of God, the three things the human spirit wants most: truth, beauty, and goodness. God has filled his creation with these three things. Here are six more ways in which we can and do know God.] 7. Reason, reflecting on nature, art, or conscience, can know God by good philosophical arguments. 8. Experience , life, your story, can also reveal God. You can see the hand of Providence there. 9. The collective experience of the race, embodied in history and tradition, expressed in literature, also reveals God. You can know God through others' stories, through great literature. 10. The saints reveal God. They are advertisements, mirrors, little Christs. They are perhaps the most effective of all means of convincing and converting people. 11. Our ordinary daily experience of doing God's will will reveal God. God becomes clearer to see when the eye of the heart is purified: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." 12. Prayer meets Godordinary prayer. You learn more of God from a few minutes of prayerful repentance than through a lifetime in a library. Unfortunately, Christians sometimes have family fights about these ways, and treat them as either/or instead of both/and. They all support each other, and nothing could be more foolish than treating them as rivalsfor example, finding God in the church versus finding God in nature, or reason versus experience, or Christ versus art. If you have neglected any of these ways, it would be an excellent idea to explore them. For instance, pray using great music. Or take an hour to review your life some time to

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    12 Ways to Know God by Peter Kreeft

    http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/12-ways.htm

    see God's role in your past. Read a great book to better meet and know and glorify God. Pray about it first. Add to this list, if you can. There are more ways of finding and knowing God than any one essay can contain. Or any one world.

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    03/04/2013 08:03

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