When is a sign from God?

With what we know about the Spanish flu epidemic now, why would we take it as a sign from God?

The Spanish Influenza was no more a sign from God than Halley's Comet. The old pastor just didn't know any better.

There are a lot of signs. But is it not a Biblical precedent that most people are not going to see them or believe them?
I think today, we can't always understand them perfectly in causality, but we don't need to have it as a perfect science of things in order to do what is required of us.
If someone thinks something is a sign, and it leads that person to recognize, renounce and/or denounce sin, and recognize and strive for Bible based virtue and obedience, then it was a sign. If other people do not receive it, that is to their own loss.

With what we know about the Spanish flu epidemic now, why would we take it as a sign from God?

I'm not suggesting that we do. This is a passage from a novel. It just got me to wondering how religious believers should determine whether or not an event or series of events is part of a divine warning.

Clearly people are uncomfortable with the very idea! that calamities could be signs of God's judgment.

I think Keillor's God's Judgments (Intervarsity Press) is an interesting discussion of this topic that could open some minds to the possibility.

Signs. Miracles. Wonders. The stock-in-trade of the prophet and the magus. The omnipotent First Cause acting through the vengeful wrath of a quasi-living virus, the impish caprice of plate tectonics, the indignant eructation of a magma chamber.

God can do such things because he is "his will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." And further: "God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry." [Benedict XVI quoting Theodore Khoury quoting Ibn Hazm on Muslim teaching, Regensburg, 2006]

Lourdes, Fatima, Knock. Then further: Medjugorje. Which are signs? Any of them?

Caesar wisely notes, fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt (as a rule, men willingly believe what they want to). And Cicero in On the nature of the gods perspicaciously remarks: Mirabile videtur quod non rideat haruspex, cum haruspicem viderit (it seems amazing that a soothsayer does laugh when he sees another soothsayer). Yet, there are more things in heavan and earth, Horatio ...

I am a Catholic Skeptic. (Full disclosure: both Catholics and Skeptics generally consider me schismatic at best.) I was born a Catholic, but my intellectual bent is Skeptical. (St. Thomas, Christian Proto-Skeptic, pray for me.) I cherish the comfort of epoche, the bliss of ataraxia.

I think there has been only one sure sign from God, one true revelation. The revelation that inspired man to create God in his own image. Man is spiritual: God is Spirit. Man is rational: God is Reason. Man loves life: God is Love. Man fears death: God is Hope. Then further, man kills: God is Jihad.

The laughter of the prophets and magi echoes still.

Gah. Should have clarified that my previous post was addressed to 'Roland de Chanson.'

That's a good question, Karen. I'll be anticipating the answers.

Jesus reportedly said (Matthew 12:38-39):

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you. He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

The sign of the prophet Jonah was the sign of God's mercy, the same sign that was shown more emphatically in Jesus. Having received the assurance of God's merciful intentions toward us, and the call to go and behave accordingly, what more is necessary? Why focus on receiving signs and wonders when we already know what we're supposed to be doing? Love the people in your life, take care of what you've been given, and do your best to add some value to this world and not do any harm while you're here. Things like where to live or what model of car to buy are interesting, but not that important in the great scheme of things. Use the brains God gave you and do your best. Aren't signs and omens really kind of a distraction from this process?

Good post, Rod. There are signs, and there are SIGNS, I think. Christ worked countless miracles during His earthly sojourn-- healing the sick and crippled, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, multiplying food for the masses, etc. And yet so many of these were done under a cloak of humility-- they weren't usually the kind of thing that could be sounded abroad with fireworks, or witnessed on live television. Most of the time you had one or two witnesses, which were often discredited by the Lord's adversaries. That's why, I think, the Lord says that the people were seeking a SIGN-- nothing like what he had been doing, but something more along the lines of a giant dazzling display. And yet they said this neither knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God-- whose signs are often only for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, so as not to violate a person's free will in choosing to believe or not.

That having been said, the preacher may have gotten it right-- I don't know. God's ways are past finding out, inscrutable and unfathomable, and it's dangerous to say: "this [disaster du jour] definitely means that [whatever message I want]". Because obviously you could be wrong.

I do think that every sign carries with it the message of repentance, not for others but for us with eyes to see and ears to hear.

The Gospel of John condemns those who will not believe unless they "see signs and wonders." But we are creatures who always seek patterns. A psychologist friend of mine, with a background in behaviorism, told me how to make a pigeon superstitious. You provide it with "reinforcements" (bits of food, usually) on a purely random basis. After a while it will figure out some pattern in the reinforcements, something it had been doing more often than not when it got the bits of food, and start doing it more and more often. The pattern of reinforcements will not change, but the pigeon will start attributing meaning to it. Different pigeons, of course, will choose different patterns, and therefore different behaviors, but the ultimate result will be the same.

I'm sure Pat Robertson could tell us. :-)

I'm with Sigaliris on this one. I recall the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, wherein the rich man in Hades begs to be allowed to return to life to warn his brothers. The reply? "They have Moses and the Prophets. If they will not hear them, neither will they believe even if one returns from the dead." We do not need signs from God to know what we have to do. If memory does not betray me, the only time in the Gospels where Jesus tells us to watch for signs is in the prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives, where He tells us that we are to look up and be glad when Things Fall Apart, because that means our redemption is getting close. (This, BTW, does not mean to be glad because Things Fall Apart. Schadenfreude is not a Christian virtue, although one would be hard pressed to know that, given the hateful rhetoric of some self-described Christians. Yes, I mean you, Robertson and Hagee and Dobson et cetera, ad nauseum.) I see signs all over the place these days, and what they mean to me is that I need to get my own house in order and get serious about loving God and my neighbor. The Greek word "metanoia", which is generally translated as "repentance" is not so much about feeling sorry for one's sins as it is about turning around one's way of thinking and living. Signs from God, which are going to be perceived differently by different people, are intended to bring us to the hard work of metanoia, not to give us titillating glimpses of things to come.

I agree with the post that mentions Steven Keillor's book "God's Judgments: Interpreting History and the Christian Faith." I just bought it for summer reading, on the recommendation of the good folks at Mars Hill Audio. Haven't started reading it yet, but the publisher's review says this: "Steven J. Keillor pursues the thesis that divine judgment can be a fruitful category for historical investigation. In fact, he argues that Christianity is an interpretation of history more than a worldview or philosophy. Grounding his thesis on a study of God's judgments in both the Old and New Testaments, the author then takes up two events in US history, the burning of Washington in 1814 and the Civil War, to explore and make his case. He concludes by suggesting the relevance of his thesis to some contemporary concerns, including the attacks of September 11." Keillor's a well-regarded historical scholar (educated at the U of Minnesota, I think), and also Garrison's brother.

I guess the subject of signs, God's intervention in history, etc. strikes me this way: for too long, intelligent Christians have let the fundies monopolize these subjects. That has allowed liberals to write off these subjects as the realm of nutcases. Now its time to take them back, and make them part of principled Christian discourse again.

As noted in other posts, Jesus did indeed speak of signs and wonders. At least once, he marvelled at how the people of his time failed to understand the signs of the times. Beginning with Keillor's book, I'm going to try to tackle these issues and see what sense I can make of them. Thanks, Rod, for focusing on this subject.

sometimes a sign is "just a sword in a field"

I may not be putting this in the right words, and I don't mean to be insulting, but I think that on a very deep level you are asking the wrong question.