Spirit-filled believers hearing voices

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Timmy

Well, I'll try. Let's see now. Here's what you said:

First of all, someone that is "hearing voices" due to a mental illness, is not just hearing a voice once in a great while, but often.

Not sure if this is true or not, but I'll give you the benefit of doubt. So, OK, let's say it is true. Are you also implying that when there are other reasons for hearing voices, or at least when it is God talking, it is infrequent? And can we therefore conclude that if one is hearing voices often, then it is not God speaking? With that, I do not agree. That is to say, if I believed God speaks to people, I would not agree. God would talk whenever He wanted to talk, and as often as He wanted to.

Given the biblical data, God does not frequently speak to persons in an audible voice, so if someone is hearing voices often I would doubt that is God

And they probably exhibit other symptoms like paranoia and other delusions.

That seems likely, so sure, I can agree with that one. And again, are you implying that if one exhibits other symptoms, then the voices are not God's voice? You don't believe that God will speak to someone with symptoms of mental illness? Again, I would think that God would speak to whomever He wanted to, regardless of their state of health.

If someone is exhibiting other signs of schizophrenia I would doubt they are hearing from God

If God spoke to someone in an audible voice, or an angel, it would not contradict the word of God.

This, too, seems likely. I can agree that God would not contradict Himself, and angels (the ones on God's side, at least) would not contradict God, either. But what if a message doesn't contradict the Bible? We could then not rule out the message being genuine, but we cannot conclude for sure that it is genuine.

Again you can't just take this part of what I said and isolate it from the rest of the points.

It would probably also confirm some other "sign" that person had already had like another person telling them the same thing etc

I have no idea if this one is true or not. But I'm not sure it matters, since you said "probably", implying that there may be exceptions. That being the case, it would not be relevant to the question of whether the audible message is really from God or not. Well, except that maybe it would tip the scale in one direction of the other, but it would not be conclusive.

Again there is another biblical principle of 2 or 3 witnesses.If God spoke to someone else to speak to you, there should be some sort of sign...for example the person knows nothing about a situation you are dealing with and gives you details.