Stigmata And Other Signs

Asking for signs from God can be a tricky business.  It is not so simple as asking to see somebody's ID, which is a sort of sign.  A sign that the somebody is the person they claim to be.  This sort of thing won't work with God. ID always has an issuer.  Some authority that verifies peoples' identities.  If we trust the issuer, we trust the ID.  But who will verify God's identity?  Who has that authority?

Obviously, nobody.  If there were such an authority, God wouldn't be God, because there would be some higher power.  There's no asking God to show ID.  Everybody should know this, of course.  So when sensible people ask for signs, they usually ask to see something that only God could do.   Not necessarily something physically impossible, but just something real, that they wouldn't expect to happen naturally, and that correlates in some way to their inner experiences that caused them to want the sign in the first place.  These kinds of experiences can be very personal, and very powerful to those who believe.  But if you think about it, all the power of even the most incredible sign comes entirely from faith.  Faith, which to the skeptic is mere gullibility, or wishful thinking.

Ultimately, there's no sure way to prove that God has played any part in forming one's experiences, no matter how amazing.  Parting the Red Sea.  Raising the dead.  Predicting the future.  All of these things are conceptually possible without the involvement of an ultimate Deity.  Magicians and wizards might do them, or aliens possessing superior technology.   Thank God for that.  Signs are not useful for proving anything.  Proof is not the proper purpose of signs.

People are people all the same.  People have language.  They cannot really believe in a Deity that is mute.  How could a Creator God lack the power of language?   The proper purpose of divine signs is the same as language.  Communication.  From God's heart to yours, and back again.

It is written that the Messiah said, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find."  In keeping with this promise, some ask for signs, and are given them.  Some seek signs and find them.  Others are given signs they did not ask for, and find signs that they were not looking for.  These unexpected signs can be life changing.  Saul experienced such an unexpected sign on the road to Damascus, and became the Apostle Paul.  It was a sign he could not ignore -- or more precisely, choose not to ignore.  History, or history as it once was, is full of such examples.

Like it or not, we live in the age of SPU, not in the age of the apostles, and not in any age less comprehensively regulated and enlightened by experts than the present one.  In the age of SPU, theology is a licensed vocation, subjugating thoughts of more transcendent moralities to the humanitarian needs of SPU and its committees.   Idle writings about deities are illegal as soon as any authority or power of salvation is claimed.  The Board respects this reality, and claims no authority, knowledge or power of salvation.  Nor does it write fiction.  It writes instead of personal muses, day-dreams, hopes, beliefs, memories, reliable or not.  Not unlike a teenager scrawling "OMG" all over her diary -- the Board's writings of signs and miracles are just as meaningless and harmless, to the cool rational eyes of SPU's technicians.  No one could possibly take an interest in such folderol, let alone be swayed from faith in SPU because of it.

In the age of SPU, one would not expect to find stigmata, unless in the dungeon of some sadomasochist.  One would not expect to find stigmata as a supernatural sign from God.  The Board reports that stigmata and other signs can still be found. Smudge has testified to the Board, with a witness.  Details to follow, including selected banalities.