I think that is the definition of Faith for starters, but my answer is that Abraham would never suspect Satan since he didn't know about him. As I said in a previous post of yours, Satan is a New Testement creation, and Abraham had only even known God for a decade or so at the time, and knew almost nothing about him. God literally remained nameless until the time of Moses, when he claimed the name that we usally translate as Lord, but which is actually a derivation of the Hebrew words for I am. Prior to that, he was referred to only as the God of Abraham.
What is interesting about this question is that Abraham grew up in a world of many gods. He lived in Sumeria, a culture ruled by gods who were patrons of the various city states, and reorganized themselves in the pantheon based on the relative power of those states. Abraham was from Ur, and the Patron of Ur was Nanna, a female goddess of the Moon (interestly called Sin in Akkadian). When approached by a god who refused to name himself, but was definately not Nanna, He most likely assumed it was another Sumerian god who feared retribution from Nanna for violating her territory, if he were discovered.
His only clue to the identity of the god was that he was the greatest god there was. There is dispute as to when exactly Abraham lived, but depending on time he would likely associate the greatest god as being either Enlil or Marduk, who were both considered the head of the Sumerian Pantheon at one point in history. There is biblical evidence that he did in fact come to this conclusion, or a similar one, since he incorporated the Sumerian creation myth (at the time assocciated one of those two gods) into the mythology of his new religion and it is written in Genisis, although it was amended during or shortly after the exile (most probably by Ezra or Nehamiah) to exclude the referance to Tiamat, and the names of the other gods, allowing us to assume they are simply angels.
To bring this back around to the original topic, since Abraham lived in a polytheistic world, and his god refused to either identify himself, or show himself, how could Abraham know it was the same god?
Maybe he had a very distinctive voice, but it seems that could be easily faked by a true imposter god. More likely he just assumed no other god would bother talking to him. Even if they did, what was he going to do, not obey them? The lot of people who don't do what the gods say is death or worse (at least such was the Sumerian attitude).
That answers it for Abraham but what about us? You rarely ever hear of people actually HEARING God's voice. Normally you just feel pushed in a certain direction. As deceitful as Satan is, how can we know if these spiritual nudgings are benevolent? I don't think it's as easy as saying it's just faith. I'm pretty sure most Christians will tell you they have felt Satan trying to do something in their lives. Is it so easy to tell what the source is?
For that matter how do you even know the "nudgings" are supernatural at all? If you acknowledge that they may not come from God, then you should also acknowledge that they are just as likely to come from you as Him, or any other power, Satan included. For Christianity this is where faith has to come in. You are supposed to trust that God will take care of you, despite any errors on your part in perception of his will.
That's part of why I stopped being Christian. You can never get any real answer to these sorts of questions, and the doctrine discourages curiosity about such matters because the only answer you ever receive is "just have faith and it will work out." I never was able to "just have faith." Not for an extended period anyway, and I don't think I ever could.
I at least agree with your first paragraph. This is what is meant by faith, and although I feel your view of faith expressed in the second paragraph is a bit cynical, I hae nothing at hand that I feel would sway you in particular. I would like to add though that even if you can't say this about all Christians, not that I feel you need to be able to, that you are talking to a group of Christians who faith is at least in part derived from and solidly rooted in historical understanding of the Bible.
I would be inclined to think, Biblically, that if you see the angel of God or have a similarly overwhelming experience then you would be sure of it's source. However after posting my first reply to this thread I was thinking about the Mormonism issue, and I remembered what Mormons tell you have they give you a copy of the book of Mormon to read. They tell you to search your heart and ask God it it's true. All other evidence would force me to conclude that it is not, but clearly people do believe it. So I wonder, is this action inviting Satan for a chance to trick you, or are all of our notions subject to an attack of this nature. I guess for lack of a better answer I can only continue to say that you have to trust Christ to light the way for you, but it certainly is a scary thought and something worth discussing further.
In fact maybe the lesson to the Abraham story is the very idea that if you trust God absolutely he won't let you be fooled in that sort of catastrophic way?
What is interesting about this question is that Abraham grew up in a world of many gods. He lived in Sumeria, a culture ruled by gods who were patrons of the various city states, and reorganized themselves in the pantheon based on the relative power of those states. Abraham was from Ur, and the Patron of Ur was Nanna, a female goddess of the Moon (interestly called Sin in Akkadian). When approached by a god who refused to name himself, but was definately not Nanna, He most likely assumed it was another Sumerian god who feared retribution from Nanna for violating her territory, if he were discovered.
His only clue to the identity of the god was that he was the greatest god there was. There is dispute as to when exactly Abraham lived, but depending on time he would likely associate the greatest god as being either Enlil or Marduk, who were both considered the head of the Sumerian Pantheon at one point in history. There is biblical evidence that he did in fact come to this conclusion, or a similar one, since he incorporated the Sumerian creation myth (at the time assocciated one of those two gods) into the mythology of his new religion and it is written in Genisis, although it was amended during or shortly after the exile (most probably by Ezra or Nehamiah) to exclude the referance to Tiamat, and the names of the other gods, allowing us to assume they are simply angels.
To bring this back around to the original topic, since Abraham lived in a polytheistic world, and his god refused to either identify himself, or show himself, how could Abraham know it was the same god?
Maybe he had a very distinctive voice, but it seems that could be easily faked by a true imposter god. More likely he just assumed no other god would bother talking to him. Even if they did, what was he going to do, not obey them? The lot of people who don't do what the gods say is death or worse (at least such was the Sumerian attitude).
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That's part of why I stopped being Christian. You can never get any real answer to these sorts of questions, and the doctrine discourages curiosity about such matters because the only answer you ever receive is "just have faith and it will work out." I never was able to "just have faith." Not for an extended period anyway, and I don't think I ever could.
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