I've only been frequenting here for a few days. But I've already seen the claim made on several occasions by several different persons on several different topics that what a person believes has simply been revealed to them by God. This includes interpretations of the Bible.
They believe in some proposition, call it "x," because God revealed it to them. If challenged with Scripture, then God revealed to them that x is taught in Scripture. If you are having doubts about x, just pray seriously and God will show you that x is right (presumably if God doesn't show you that x is right it's because you aren't praying hard enough or are not sincere).
My question is, is there a way for us as Christians to settle disputes about x? Claiming it's secretly (or personally, if you prefer) revealed to you by God seems to be a conversation ender. After all, if *God* say's it's true, then no one could possible say otherwise. Let God be true, though every man a liar, right? This works with our interpretation of Scripture too, in so far as we claim that our interpretation is divinely inspired by God: God told me this is what it means.
Perhaps the most troubling thing is that "God" obviously didn't reveal x to everyone and some persons think God revealed to them non-x. So it begins to look like everyone's God is really just their imagination. Your own beliefs are unfalsifiable because your own personal Jesus is really just you.
Now I know this question can be more broadly applied to revelation in general: how do we know the Bible is true and not the Koran? And we can try to come up with answers for that, and I think we can come up with some good answers for that. But I'm concerned with the narrower question of how we, as Christians who are supposed to agree on who God is and, therefore, what God says, are supposed to settle disputes about what God says.
I'll not bother giving my own opinion right now.
