Dealing with a Purported Angelic Encounter

Hey Everybody:

Being the curious sort, I usually lurk and only occasionally reply to threads when I think I have something to say. I've never related a personal story before, but I've read many on here. It will be brief, but I figure some of you might find this one interesting.

As a note about myself: I don't know what to make of this story. It is a story told to me by someone I trust and whom I regard as intelligent and wise despite often disagreeing with him, my father. He began his career as a chemistry professor before becoming a succesful businessman in the plastics industry, so I have reasons beyond mere sentimentality for thinking he's not an idiot. Yet, I've never had any supernatural experiences, so I have reasons to doubt these sorts of things happen. That's part of why I'm posting this; I want to know how you all think one should deal with such a situation, when you trust a person in general, but yet don't have much other evidence for their claims, or even feel compelled to doubt them. It seems I have epistemic reasons to believe both p and not-p; this tension must be broken lest I fall into incoherence.

Without further boring introduction, my father's story:

I have never asked him the date, but I'm pretty sure it was before my existence, but while he was with his company, so sometime during the 60s or 70s. He was driving through one of the very flat midwestern states to visit one of his company's plants. He still had more than a half-tank full of gas, and having made the trip before knew that it would get him to his destination. Even so, he felt compelled to stop at the next service station to top off. When he stopped there, he found the place was closed. There was, however, a young man waiting outside the station who asked my father for a ride.

My dad accepted, and soon they were off down the highway. Upon being asked where he wanted to go, the young man said that whichever direction my dad was going was just fine. Soon, the young man began to tell my father all sorts of strange things. Some of them are religious, but not supernatural. For example, the young man gave my dad a lesson on why God would choose this little tribe, the Israelites, to be in some sense chosen. More surprisingly, however, the young man told my father things about his (my father's) life. He told my father that soon the church of which he was a part, one of the largest in our home city, would go through a massive split. He also told my father of friends of his, by name, who would soon die. Finally, he told my father that one day he would see a building with a particular Bible verse on the side of it.

Eventually, after giving his little historico-theological lessons and predictions, the young man asked to be let out of the car. My father pointed out that they were in the middle of nowhere, fields on either side of the highway. The young man said that it didn't matter, just to let him off there. My father pulled off, and when he looked back in his mirrors the young man was nowhere to be found.

The predicted church split and the deaths came to pass. My father has never seen a building with the predicted verse emblazoned acrossed any of its walls, however, and he's getting up in years and poor in health, so I don't suspect he ever will. For many years he wouldn't tell anyone the verse, as he didn't want to cause someone to fulfil the prediction. Recently, perhaps because of disappointment or something else, he told me; it was Matthew 5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (New International Version)

So, that's the story. Like I said, I don't know what to make of it. I trust my dad and know him to be a smart man, a man who likes teaching and learning about the world as do I. (One of my brother's and I have both followed him into teaching at the college level.) I don't, however, share his faith and I've never had an experience like this. Given that, I don't take these stories to be of much worth. On the flip side, however, I want to trust him, and sometimes wish something supernatural like this might happen to me so that I could believe him. Am I alone in feeling this inner conflict?

I myself was once very religious and read the bible all the time this particular verse struck me as kinda of odd. Always kinda thought it was directed towards me. Cause I am this way (peacemaker). Now I'm more of a spiritual person and have forgotten this particular verse. Its strange to see someone bring it up later in my life. But I have never seen it on a building or sign or billboard of any sort but it's going to make me keep my eye out now. Thanks for this for some reason. Like I said this all feels strange to me. Wow!!!!!!

Originally posted by FrostyPhilosopher
On the flip side, however, I want to trust him, and sometimes wish something supernatural like this might happen to me so that I could believe him. Am I alone in feeling this inner conflict?

Maybe you have to trust him first and believe him,
before you experience anything supernatural.

reply to post by FrostyPhilosopher
It's perfectly understandable that you would feel this way, but I think one day you will have some kind of experience that might open your mind more to these kind of things. I don't see the problem with believing your father when you obviously respect your father and believe him to be an intellegent and reliable individual. It is reports from such individuals that litter the landscape of Fortean literature with such unbelievable reports of things like fish and frogs falling from the sky. But we know that these things have happened, and continue to happen. There is always more going on than meets the eye.

Do you wish to remain in darkness or do you wish to see? The experience is simply a glimmer of light - a piece of knowledge - but even you admitted that you are clearly divided on whether or not to accept that light and expand on it, or cast it aside as a fairytale. When two becomes one, then that one shall see. When you are divided: you are in bondage... The key to the chains is there though, so why aren't you taking it?

It was a beautiful story - thank you for sharing it - but it was meant for you.

I have heard a story of this man before. Not your father's version, but that of a lady who went to the church I did when I was a kiddo. She was driving from one town to the other, about fifty miles; I don't recall her reason, but it was a common occurrence for small town Texas, to do such things. She saw a youngish hitch-hiker on the side of the road, and, despite being a young woman and alone in the car, she felt unnaturally compelled to pick him up. Mind you, it was in '97 or '98, and picking up hitch-hikers was a thing of the past and widely considered stupid and suicidal. But she stopped for him anyway, and let him in. He began talking to her about God, things that she hadn't ever considered about religion. (Again, I was like 10 when she told me this story, and I don't remember exactly what.) They fell silent; she was uncomfortable with him. He asked to be let off, and it was still very muchly between towns, with nothing but cotton fields all around. When she turned around and was about to tell him that, he was gone.

Another church member mentioned a similar thing happening to him, after she had told her story, regarding a surprisingly godly hitchhiker who vanished from his car as well after a strange conversation in the middle of nowhere, though his story had happened many years before hers. He was quite amazed to hear about somebody else having the same thing happen.

He's been around for a while, whoever he is. I'm apt to believe your pop about it.

If I was in your position, I would take the view that though your father genuinely believed his experience to be real, it is extremely unlikely that an angelic experience actually happened to him. I think that people can delude themselves, not out of malice, but out of mistaken impression. The only witness to the incident was your father. Granted he is a good witness, solid, dependable, but there is no reason to preclude a hallucination or dream as a basis for his experience.

reply to post by FrostyPhilosopher


Firstly I would like to address the issue of your inability to trust your father on this account. You must ask yourself what would cause you to feel this way. Only you know. Is your mistrust of him or of yourself? Are you incapable of dealing with such things? Has he otherwise been untrustworthy at times, inappropriately? Is it his age? Perhaps you wonder if he's slipping a bit, mentally.

My experience with the elderly is that they are wholly competent, but that their grasp of things is broader than it is in youth. There are more connections; more dots have lines between them. In youth, things are very superficial, despite what the young might wish to believe.

Secondly, I would very much like to know why the Israelites are thought to be the chosen people. From where I sit, they most certainly are not peacemakers of any description and not in any place the Diaspora have landed. God's perspective here, at this juncture in history, escapes me.

I know angels to be true. But then, I also know there are fairies, trolls, gnomes, and all other form of beings described in folklore. The fact that they are no longer broadly known can be explained most easily by looking at the belief systems of those who deny them. I know they exist because of so many things that have happened over the years, and those things have shown that to deny is to fear. Truly, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

reply to post by FrostyPhilosopher


this is your dad you are speaking about. wouldn't you give your very dad the benefit of the doubt?
and ' going up in years ' ..wouldn't you want to experience the faith your very flesh and blood holds dear?
perhaps you need them to pass before you give this some thought?

Seems there are a handful of explanations for this - choose the most likely:

1) you are lying
2) your father is lying
3) you unintentionally misrepresented your father's actual story
4) your father unintentionally misrepresented the actual events
5) things happened exactly as you describe and the "angel" had prior knowledge of your father and/or got lucky on some random predictions
5) things happened exactly as you describe and there's a supernatural element to this

I would suggest it's likely a combination of 3, 4 and 5.

Hey Everybody,

Thanks for the replies. Many interesting points and questions have been brought up.

As far as me doubting him because of his age, that probably doesn't effect this story. I grant that if he claimed, now, that he had some new experience, then I would be likely to discount it as he had a stroke a few years back and has been a different person since then. But, this is a story I've heard him tell a few times over many years, many of those years before he started to decline in well-being.

Also, at one time, perhaps just four or five years ago, I totally believed his story. A big part of what has changed is that I simply don't have the faith in this sort of thing that I did back then. While I wouldn't go as far as David Hume and claim that a miracle requires a miraculous amount of evidence, I would still claim that it requires a heck-of-a-lot of evidence. This bothers me even more because I've never had such an experience; if I had, then I would probably be more likely to accept that such things happen.

So yeah, it's possible that he is lying, or that he was somehow deceived and is telling what he thinks is true but is in fact false. Of those two, I think the latter is more likely; but who knows.

For the most part, like I said, I figured some people would like to hear the story. I'm glad to hear some people have had similar ones.