Why is God Silent?

To many, serving an invisible God that only answers in subjective, non-verifiable ways, is pure superstition at best.  And while I understand this line of reasoning, it is not altogether sound because there is MUCH we can verify about God through what is made. 

But regarding the silence of God, there are a few possible explanations for this. 

1. The most important is Romans 10:17

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

I interpret it this way. Faith comes from the ability to hear God.
But the ability to hear God comes from understanding the gospel message
and the scriptures.

If you’ve ever taken a communication class, you know that we often
say one thing, but someone else may hear something other than what we
meant because they have their own filter of beliefs that they hear
through. However, the more they think like us, the clearer they
understand our communication.

It is the same with God. Almost all of us think in worldly patterns
that involve doubt, unbelief, wrong ideas about ourselves and God, and
so even when God does speak, we often miss it or misinterpret it.

But the more our thinking conforms to the scriptures, the easier it
will be for us to understand God. It’s like tuning in a radio – once
you get the frequency lined up, the static is diminished and it is much
easier to hear.

2. The second important thing in hearing God is to understand how God speaks

If you survey the bible, you will see that God speaks to us in many
ways. Through dreams, angels, nature, voices, other people (both
spiritual and not), and through the written words of scripture, and
through our conscience.

However, in all these things, there is room for doubt and mistake,
and we must rely on our own convictions – if you are not convinced
inwardly, you can’t really go along.

3. Passion, Compassion, and the Voice of God

I actually intend to write a book by this title, but a brief view is
that God guides us through our natural passions and abilities (as long
as they don’t openly contradict scripture), our compassions (whom or
what does your heart go out to in wanting to help), and through what we
think God is saying to us. The latter is the area in which we all
struggle against the silence, and must be careful.

But "hearing" the voice of God is something learned by trial and error!  If you read the end of Hebrews 5,
you’ll see that spiritual maturity comes through *practice*. It’s like
discovering you had a new talent, but it’s undeveloped. Hearing God
takes practice.

4. The Dark Night of the Soul

If you look at the lives of any of the great prophets or saints, you
will see that they had periods of "God’s silence" which they suffered
through to get to a new level of faith. For the mature xian, intimacy
with God may not be an unbroken fellowship. There are times of
Darkness. Even Jesus had a few.

5. Scripture, Doctrine, Experience

Traditionally, it has been taught that the three items above are the
spiritual authorities in the life of a Christian. Protestants teach
that scripture has the highest authority, followed by church doctrine,
and lastly, my own experience – although some protestant doctrine may
switch the last two, or make them co-equal.

One of the things that the Protestants complained about re: the
Catholics was that they elevated church doctrine above scripture, which
produced all kinds of anti-biblical doctrines to be taught and
practiced. This is one reason why the reformers cried "sola scriptura"
(or "sola biblia").

But needless to say, when considering what you are "hearing" from
God in your own experience, you should bang it up against scripture and
doctrine (official church teachings that have been distilled from the
scriptures).

Anyway, that’s my input on the voice of God. Ultimately, there is a
subjective component, but we are not left to fend for ourselves,
wandering in a world of subjectivity – we have our own convictions and
conscience, the real world that will push back on us if we believe
something crazy, and the scriptures, to help us determine if what we
are subjectively hearing is whacko or not.