I do indeed understand your point. You believe that God cannot be understood, only felt. You have limited God. You believe that He cannot use words to convey Himself, if He so chooses. You have presupposed that words and thoughts are inferior to emotion.
Since God is a spirit (
John 4:24), He cannot be "felt" or experienced by the 5 physical senses, unless He physically manifests Himself (
Luke 24:36-43). On this, I think we agree.
Outside of the 5 physical senses, I know of only 2 other paths to achieve awareness: mental and emotional. Do you know another? (Incidentally, each of these rely on information gathered through the five sense, before they can produce a higher level of awareness.)
You should know that Christianity recognizes both as part of spiritual life, and Christians operate in both spheres (
II Timothy 3:16-17; Romans 14:17). However, Christianity does not offer a teacher's emotion as the proof to persuade or power to convert. God used a message, words, and thoughts, which when we read or hear, we can then understand, gain comfort, wisdom, and direction (
Romans 1:16; I Thessalonians 4:18; Ephesians 3:3-5). Therefore, Christianity is fundamentally a rational, reasonable religion (
Isaiah 1:18; Romans 12:1). Emotion arises from that understanding, not the other way around.
I also feel and emotionally experience God, but I do not offer it as proof, because I know emotional experience is highly subjective and easily deceived. For example, consider all the religions around the world, whose members "feel" they are
exclusively right. Yet, they cannot be all right, because they unabashedly exclude the others. Therefore, emotion has led some of them, if not all of them, astray. Furthermore, certain songs can make me
feel very young, vivacious, and fleet, but when my feet touch the floor and strain to accelerate, I am forced to accept that those days have passed, regardless of how I
feel. In short, just because I feel something, that does not make it true. This is self-evident.
If all you offer is an experience to emotionally feel your god, then you cannot persuade me. If you will not accept thoughts and words as a vehicle to persuade, then we are operating from two irreconcilable platforms.
It is ironic to me that you use words to argue with me, and we both understand what each other is saying, even in respect to our differences. ... If words are so weak, then why do you use them, especially in arguments about the infinite? ... Incidentally, how would your life work (assuming your are not a professional preacher of your religion), if you operated in life this way? What if you detected, communicated, and verified truth through emotion? How would that work?
Thanks you for your time, energy, and compassion.
May God help us to have a sincere love of truth,
m273p15c
BTW, in reference to the verses you quoted (
Romans 8:6-7), please notice that both attitudes depend on our "minds" (
"carnally minded" versus
"spiritually minded"). The contrast is between priority (this world versus the next), not means of awareness (mental versus emotional). Otherwise, we would expect to see contrasts between "carnally
minded" and "spiritually
feeling". You see, when you read, you can understand -- if you want to understand (
II Thessalonians 2:9-12).