It is reasonable to believe that such a revelation happened, because that is the only means by which we can know the truth.  Jesus said the desire of God is for us to know the truth.  But the life of Jesus is the culmination point of a broader revelation that began many hundreds of years before his birth.  That revelation is found in the writings of the ancient Hebrew people.  It is the only revelation of this type to be found in the history of humanity.  There are no others.  Only one word begins to describe the existence of the Hebrew people and that word is supernatural.

There are a few awkward problems but it works.  At this point I have made an educated guess about the nature of the machine and I am getting results, although they are not perfect.  About six months later a friend drops by as I am loading some clothes into the machine and inquires about my objective.  I report that I am about to wash some clothes.  Then, my friend tells me the machine is a dishwasher.  At that point I have experienced a revelation.

In this silly little example we can find some truth.  I was not ignorant in assuming the dishwasher was for clothing.  I made a careful study of the machine, observing its parts and characteristics.  The conclusion I reached was validated by the fact that my clothes came out cleaner than when they went in.  I assumed I was correct because it worked reasonably well.

The point is this:  The mere fact that something appears to work does not necessarily mean it is the truth.  It only means it appears to work.  It took a revelation from my friend to get me straightened out and allow me to properly use the machine.  The truth about the machine transcended what I believed about the machine.  Even though it worked reasonably well for washing clothes, it was still a dishwasher.

Man made religions arise out of human evaluations of the natural world and reach flawed conclusions.  Authenticated, supernatural revelation provides true information about the nature of God and His eternity.  Jesus came to describe the dishwasher!

Humanly crafted reincarnation theories are an example.  Live a bad life?  No problem.  You will have an infinite number of chances to do better.  Reincarnation allows a person to believe they will always have another chance to be perfect.  This allows a person to live a life driven by their personal opinions and is the reason a person may come to believe they can determine their own truth.  However, variable truth is an impossibility.  In the absence of natural evidence, any knowledge of eternity and the conditions that exist in eternity must be revealed by some other means.  If eternity is supernatural, the revealing of eternity must be supernatural also.

Knowing the details about eternity involves the same principle.  Only one who has experienced eternity can accurately express eternity.  I may be convinced of the existence of eternity, but that in no way means I will be able to figure out the details.  The details must be revealed by something eternal, and there is a big difference between true revelation and an educated guess.  True revelation, by its very nature would surprise us and be unexpected, but the information would be superior to anything we may have come to believe as a result of our own thinking and reasoning.

The Incarnation of God in the man Jesus provided the exact, true revelation humanity needed concerning eternity.

Fear impacts the honesty of the thought processes.  Fear moves to protect us, but it can also lead us into error-filled thinking.  The greater the fear, the more likely we will accept error if the error seems to provide security and protection.  With respect to theology, religion, and philosophy fear can really get out of hand.  Nothing is as fearful as the Numinous and its implied supernatural omnipotence when it is linked to human morality.

Any humanly created theology will discount human behavior and create a God that will go along with whatever man wants to do.  In which case, no spiritual penalty for violation of the supernatural code of morality would exist.  C. S. Lewis accurately observed that a perfect human concept of deity would be a benevolent grandfather type who sits back and wishes a good time to be had by all.

The God created in such a theology is then reduced to the role of a cosmic assistant that can be manipulated.  At the point a human being sees eternity and the power of the God who must own and occupy it, religions created and developed by human beings evaporate, and are exposed for what they are: Rationalized attempts to justify the continued reign of human self-will.

Revelation is a Requirement

C. S. Lewis discussed this fear, or awe, at length in his book, “The Problem of Pain.”  He pointed out that two facts have always accompanied the thinking of human beings:

1.  An instinctive sense of the concept of morality, and; 2.  An awareness of the Numinous, or all powerful eternal deity.

Lewis also said the last thing man is willing to do is admit a link between this eternal omnipotence and the concept of morality.

The moral codes created and established by human beings cannot be perfectly fulfilled and humanity knows this to be true.  That is why there have always been laws or cultural standards of behavior.  Humans have always made provisions for punishment, imprisonment and other methods that exclude “violators” from the rest of society.

The possibility of an absolute standard of morality is a fearful thought when linked to an eternal God.   Lewis makes the astute observation that the link between morality and deity, if it exists, would have to be brought to light by revelation.  It is the last thing humans would include in a theology of their own making.

The possibility of a supernatural cause for the natural universe introduces very interesting questions.  Is it coincidental that this supernatural occupant of eternity has always been the primary focus of the ideas and fears of the human race?  Is it coincidental that significant portions of human history involve religion and rituals that attempt to bring mankind into relationship with this eternal entity?

Somehow, I don’t think so.  These are the instincts of a spiritual being in search of its creator.

If eternity exists it rises above all we can see and swallows the known universe like a huge whale gulping a single plankton.  If eternity is a reality and has spiritual characteristics, how presumptuous am I to demand that it be understood and interpreted in natural terms alone?  That is like studying the behavior of fleas to learn more about the nature of elephants.  How presumptuous is the notion that the natural and the supernatural cannot touch each other?  That is like saying we cannot be touched by a bullet we do not see.

The idea that the natural cannot penetrate the supernatural in no way precludes the supernatural from invading the natural.  To say such a thing would mean we have a complete understanding of the supernatural and fathom its limits.  Because we do not understand the supernatural, it is sometimes easier to assert that supernatural activity in a natural world is an impossibility.  This is a huge presupposition and merely an opinion.  If I hold such a position and refuse to evaluate my thinking on the subject, I can forget about understanding spiritual concepts and go on with whatever I would rather be doing.

Spiritual truth and concepts of God must eventually be related to an eternal condition.  If God was not eternal in nature, God would not be God.  If the life of God had a beginning something else would have caused God to exist and God would cease being God at that point.  Natural things that have beginnings eventually have endings.  If God could cease to exist, God would not be God.  Science must function on the basis of cause and effect, but eternity rises above cause and effect.  And the God who occupies eternity cannot be limited or interpreted solely by what we can observe or prove in the natural world.

The study of animal life in the natural world reveals natural explanations for their behavior and the way they live.  Everything an animal does is driven by some natural cause or need.  Every animal’s energy and life is targeted at survival and reproduction.  I use the term animal to include all life forms we see on earth, with one exception.

Human beings break the mold of this model because our behavior is driven as much by what we believe as what we need.  The things we believe drive our thinking; our thoughts produce emotions that influence our choices; and our choices determine what we do and how we live.  In this respect, the human engine is driven by faith as well as the natural environment.

Human beings have the need for hope and the ability to love.  Human beings will give their lives for intangible ideas and principles.  Human beings spend their lives seeking things that will make them “happy” and provide a state of internal peace and serenity.  These qualities move the human being out of the animal kingdom and add another dimension to their nature.  These are spiritual qualities, not biological traits.  Jesus confirmed this idea and said we are capable of attaining and receiving eternal life.

Jesus also demonstrated that human qualities of faith, love, and hope are spiritual characteristics directly linked to eternity.  If eternity is supernatural these human characteristics can be considered to be supernatural as well, and they are not found in other species that live in the natural world.

What I am feebly attempting to describe is existence in its purest form.  It involves a constant state of being that has no beginning and no end.  If eternity exists, it exists to accommodate whatever occupies its “space.”  Anything that requires a timeless environment to accommodate its existence is entitled to be called God.  And if God fully occupies eternity, characteristics of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence become logical characteristics of that God.

A God who is eternal would pre-exist everything else  in time (the natural universe), and God would be the creator and cause of all things.  Anything created by God would be subordinate to Him and dependent on Him for life and existence.

The details of eternity and the nature of things that exist in eternity cannot be known factually through reasoning or scientific observation.   The issues involved are truly supernatural and to deny the reality of the supernatural is not logical.

If the cause of time is beyond a natural explanation it is probable that there are at least two conditions on the other side of the beginning of time:  eternity and the supernatural.  It seems reasonable to propose that eternity and the supernatural are logically bound up together, and that eternity is occupied by something with supernatural characteristics.

In natural terms, anything that exists occupies a certain amount of space.  A fourteen foot couch will not fit in a room that is 10 x 10.  If space is not occupied, it is empty.  The physical size of an item determines the amount of space it requires, and it fully occupies the space it needs.  A box that is 2ft x 2ft x 2ft occupies 8 cubic feet of space and 8 cubic feet of space is the amount of room required to accommodate the box.  With respect to things that may exist in eternity we face a huge concept for the mind to grasp.  What could be significant enough to require accommodations as large as eternity?  God?