Why is God so hidden? Why must we seek Him to Find Him?

[Paterfamilia]

Okay, but what is the purpose? This isn't the purpose:


This is the method of being hidden. How much he chooses to reveal is not the purpose of why he is hidden.

Two parts.

First let me ask, would you agree that Jesus expects us to know more than we? How often did He say to His disciples "Oh ye of little faith..?"

Looking at the familiar account of Nicodemus' visit to Jesus by night, Jesus told him "you must be born again" and Nicodemus disputed that. Then Jesus chided him saying "are you a teacher in Israel and you don't know that you must be born again?", as if he really should have known that.

My question is, how was he supposed to know??? "Born again" is not an Old Testament concept. Nowhere in the law does it say anything about being born again. Until a close look at Psalm 87 - "this one and that one are born in her". The psalm lists pagan nations and then says this one and that are born in Zion, and written in the register of the people (book of life).

And there are other examples. When the Pharisees and Sadduccees questioned Jesus about marriage in heaven, what they were really asking Him to settle was their age old dispute about whether there is an afterlife. Jesus pointed out that God said "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the God of the living, not the dead. In this you do greatly err, because you don't know the scriptures, or the power of God."

God expects us to know more than we generally do. What does this have to do with faith? See part two please.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Okay, but what is the purpose? This isn't the purpose:


This is the method of being hidden. How much he chooses to reveal is not the purpose of why he is hidden.

Part two.


Lucifer rebelled against God. He decided he would be "as the most high". What can we deduce from this?

1. The Angels don't know God very well. If they did, Lucifer would have known his goal was folly.

2. Lucifer doesn't have a conscience. If he did, he wouldn't have done evil, or would have ceased as soon as God pointed out his folly.

Now we know that the Angels have access to Gods presence, but also that they don't routinely live in Gods presence. Gabriel told the father of John the Baptist "my name is Gabriel, and I stand in the presence of God", differentiating himself from the average angel.

In heaven, Gods will is done (the Lord's Prayer teaches us that), but that doesn't mean nobody (Angels) ever does anything wrong. The difference between heaven and earth is that if they do anything wrong, God tells them directly.

And He expects them to believe Him.

Lucifer refused, and became Satan. Satan became the first philosopher, arguing that if God can only make good things, how then could Satan himself be evil? In fact how could anything be evil? Satans argument is not that evil is good and good is evil.

Satans argument is that there is no difference between good and evil.

Lucifer could have believed God. He had the opportunity, and the faculties to believe. By FAITH!

Our purpose on earth is to be the instruments of revelation that God uses to justify casting Satan (and the third of Angels he managed to convince with his lies to follow him) out of heaven and into hell. To demonstrate that there is a difference between good and evil. To show that relationship with God is not only possible, but very much to be desired.

That faith and free will are essential elements of a love relationship.

And that's what God wants to have with us, and with all of His other created intelligent beings.

Eph 3
10. that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,…

 

[Moral Orel]

Where we are at is you asking the same questions over and over but not listening to the answers ....as if this is an inquisition.

If you are unwilling to except the answers then don't ask the questions.

I'm listening to the answers. I'm not accepting them, and there's a difference. There is also a difference between an inquisition and a debate. Is my summation of our exchange incorrect? Where I have listed your replies to my answers, have I done so incorrectly? Have I misquoted you or attributed answers you gave to the wrong questions?

 

[Moral Orel]

Lucifer could have believed God. He had the opportunity, and the faculties to believe. By FAITH!

You see this is where I think your argument is taking a left turn. We are talking about seeking to find out whether God exists at all, not whether we can trust him to know better about what we should be doing with our lives. Because if God does not exist, then we would be trusting the human authors of the Bible to know better about what we are doing with our lives.

Ergo the difference between faith and trust, in a way that needs to be defined for this discussion. I know that many Christians use the term "faith" differently than most other people, but we are talking about believing in the existence of God without proof. Feel free to give me a substitute word, and we can start using that.

Lucifer didn't need faith to believe God existed in the first place.

And the point to this whole discussion is why we have to have faith in God's mere existence, not in whether we trust him when he says things. Because those of us who don't trust what the Bible has to say in some regards aren't mistrusting the Bible, we're mistrusting the men who put ink to paper. We have to have faith that God told them what to write because there is no proof. And it all starts with having faith that God even exists to tell the men what to write.

I understand that in a relationship you need to trust the other person. But what other relationship have you had that was strengthened by not knowing the other person was even real at all?

 

[Paterfamilia]

Great question.

Simply put, the burden of proof for believing that God does not exist far outweighs the burden for believing that He does. I am speaking from a purely evidentiary standpoint.

In my opinion, we have box-car-loads of evidence for, and very little against.

The OP does not ask if God exists, or why we should believe God exists. The OP asks why does God hide himself, and why does He expect us to seek Him.

Gods requirement for relationship is faith. You know in your heart He exists. That is the small-step starting point. The questions that follow have answers as well, both rational based on empirical evidence, and spiritual based on revelation.

We should expect, that on theism, God is well capable of revealing Himself. That's whether He uses men to write words, or His Spirit to speak to our hearts.

 

[TreasureHunter12]

And the point to this whole discussion is why we have to have faith in God's mere existence, not in whether we trust him when he says things. Because those of us who don't trust what the Bible has to say in some regards aren't mistrusting the Bible, we're mistrusting the men who put ink to paper. We have to have faith that God told them what to write because there is no proof. And it all starts with having faith that God even exists to tell the men what to write.

Yes, I recommend a different approach. In my view, faith is not about belief, but instead about pursuing or seeking. For me, the Bible wasn't useful for providing guidance; it was only useful as a resource for confirmation once I had already found my way.

 

[Colter]

Part two.


Lucifer rebelled against God. He decided he would be "as the most high". What can we deduce from this?

1. The Angels don't know God very well. If they did, Lucifer would have known his goal was folly.

2. Lucifer doesn't have a conscience. If he did, he wouldn't have done evil, or would have ceased as soon as God pointed out his folly.

Now we know that the Angels have access to Gods presence, but also that they don't routinely live in Gods presence. Gabriel told the father of John the Baptist "my name is Gabriel, and I stand in the presence of God", differentiating himself from the average angel.

In heaven, Gods will is done (the Lord's Prayer teaches us that), but that doesn't mean nobody (Angels) ever does anything wrong. The difference between heaven and earth is that if they do anything wrong, God tells them directly.

And He expects them to believe Him.

Lucifer refused, and became Satan. Satan became the first philosopher, arguing that if God can only make good things, how then could Satan himself be evil? In fact how could anything be evil? Satans argument is not that evil is good and good is evil.

Satans argument is that there is no difference between good and evil.

Lucifer could have believed God. He had the opportunity, and the faculties to believe. By FAITH!

Our purpose on earth is to be the instruments of revelation that God uses to justify casting Satan (and the third of Angels he managed to convince with his lies to follow him) out of heaven and into hell. To demonstrate that there is a difference between good and evil. To show that relationship with God is not only possible, but very much to be desired.

That faith and free will are essential elements of a love relationship.

And that's what God wants to have with us, and with all of His other created intelligent beings.

Eph 3
10. that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,…

Lucifer, a high administrator in the celestial world, also lived by faith in the unseen Father as do many orders of beings high and low. Lucifer, in his own conceited mind, concocted the idea that the Universal Father didn't really exist. That the paradise Sons of God had foisted a fraud upon the inhabited worlds. But naturally, Lucifer had no problem seeing himself as God. LoL!

 

[Moral Orel]

You know in your heart He exists.

That's not true. I can imagine a self-perpetuating universe just as well as I can imagine an eternal creator.

 

[Paterfamilia]

That's not true. I can imagine a self-perpetuating universe just as well as I can imagine an eternal creator.

But you don't have to imagine. You can accept the agreement of the bible (in the beginning, God created) and science (Big Bang).

You can also look at all of the current research on cosmology that over whelmingly favors a near-instant formation of the universe.

Steady state universe has been universally discarded as untenable. So your imagination is misdirected.

 

[Moral Orel]

You can also look at all of the current research on cosmology that over whelmingly favors a near-instant formation of the universe.

Steady state universe has been universally discarded as untenable. So your imagination is misdirected.

Only if you define "universe" as anything and everything that ever was. Considering inflation theory and the multiverse, ours is but one of many "universes". So no, my imagination didn't lead me to think something other than the big bang. By self propagating I suppose I was referring to whatever is outside the universe that caused the Big Bang. And there are plenty of other theories about what could have caused that besides God.

But you don't have to imagine. You can accept the agreement of the bible (in the beginning, God created) and science (Big Bang).

Well of course I accept the Big Bang. Next comes the question of what caused it. God is one theory. Inflation theory is another. Either way, "I don't know" is always an option. We don't have to know the answer to something or attribute it to God.

I'm not getting into that discussion in this thread, though. It is way way way off topic. I just know that from my previous post I probably sounded like my science was way way way off base, so I wanted you to understand that I've researched things from all angles.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Yeah I get it. I think I misunderstood your position, as in you accept theism, but from there saw no warrant in faith, or at least didn't see why God chose faith as a prerequisite for relationship.

By the way, multi-verse theory doesn't escape the imperative of a beginning.

And dude, seriously? I first heard multi-verse theory on the Art Bell show from a guy who lived in his aunts basement "deep undercover" because the government was trying to track him down ha ha!!!

Multi-verse is to cosmology what Darwin is to biology. The eternal cop-out ha ha.

 

[Moral Orel]

And dude, seriously? I first heard multi-verse theory on the Art Bell show from a guy who lived in his aunts basement "deep undercover" because the government was trying to track him down ha ha!!!

Multi-verse is to cosmology what Darwin is to biology. The eternal cop-out ha ha.

That just means that even crazy people can understand and accept the multiverse theory. Plenty of the most respected cosmologists also understand and accept it. Inflation theory predicts it. You should read more about it from some respected sources, it's very interesting and has a lot of evidence to support it. Not prove it though, and that's why I don't totally believe it either. Just that it is easy to imagine from the models put forth.

And I also believe in evolution because there is more than enough evidence to believe it on a lot more than faith. Is abiogenesis true? Maybe. But that is different from evolution. So no, not a copout. An extremely powerful predictive and accurate model. It doesn't make me believe there is no God though. If God created the universe billions of years ago and let it expand and evolve, why would I say that he didn't create life billions of years ago and let it expand and evolve?

By the way, multi-verse theory doesn't escape the imperative of a beginning.

No it doesn't. Whatever the universes exist in has its own questions. But there isn't any evidence to show that it isn't eternal, in the way that the Big Bang shows a beginning. But not knowing a scientific explanation doesn't mean that the only logical choice is a theistic one. That stance has been wrong so many times in the past.

Yeah I get it. I think I misunderstood your position, as in you accept theism, but from there saw no warrant in faith, or at least didn't see why God chose faith as a prerequisite for relationship.

I still don't understand why God chose faith as a prerequisite for relationship. That's why I latched onto this thread. If God ever tells me He's real, I'll believe Him. But as long as I have to hear it second hand, I would have to have faith in humans, which should be understandably difficult.

 

[Locutus]

You know in your heart He exists.
.

You know in your heart that he doesn't. Am I wrong?

If your answer is 'yes', then I trust you'll easily understand why the average atheist would dismiss your assertion above. I personally, know no such thing. I've spent half my life looking for gods, and found none. I've found plenty of wishful thinking, though.

 

[Locutus]

Steady state universe has been universally discarded as untenable. So your imagination is misdirected.

why do they have to be steady state? your imagination is misdirected?

 

[Locutus]

And dude, seriously? I first heard multi-verse theory on the Art Bell show from a guy who lived in his aunts basement "deep undercover" because the government was trying to track him down ha ha!!!

.

I heard Jesus was a 'basement dweller' with wild theories, who had to live 'undercover' because the government of the day was trying to track him down. Of course, that could all be bunkum and he was a Regular Joe, running the corner store and raising kids with Mrs Regular Joe, never attracting he attention of those in power.

 

[Paterfamilia]

No it doesn't. Whatever the universes exist in has its own questions. But there isn't any evidence to show that it isn't eternal, in the way that the Big Bang shows a beginning. But not knowing a scientific explanation doesn't mean that the only logical choice is a theistic one. That stance has been wrong so many times in the past.

Wait - couldn't let this slide. There is a lot of evidence that the universe is not eternal. That's why the "steady state" theory is universally discarded. Any universe that is in a state of average expansion over time had a beginning.

"There isn't any evidence to show that it (the multi-verse) isn't eternal"?????

There isn't a single shred of evidence for a multi-verse at all. Nothing. Zilch. Zed. It's all just wild speculation. How could there be any evidence of whether it's eternal or not?

 

[Moral Orel]

There isn't a single shred of evidence for a multi-verse at all. Nothing. Zilch. Zed. It's all just wild speculation. How could there be any evidence of whether it's eternal or not?

You shouldn't make statements about things you haven't bothered to research.

Wait - couldn't let this slide. There is a lot of evidence that the universe is not eternal. That's why the "steady state" theory is universally discarded. Any universe that is in a state of average expansion over time had a beginning.

"There isn't any evidence to show that it (the multi-verse) isn't eternal"?????

Again, you see how you claim I said the universe is eternal, but then you notice that you have to restate that I claimed the multiverse is eternal? This also hurts your credibility. I didn't say the universe was eternal, I said...

Whatever the universes exist in

...could very well be eternal.

I'll expand my explanation, in case that is the problem.

Our personal "universe", as we have come to call it, began to have a different form or came into existence 14 billion years ago. This has nothing to do with whatever is outside our personal "universe". In the same way that God can be eternal and outside our universe, and cause the Big Bang, there can just as easily be a natural explanation that is eternal as well. If there is a multiverse, then I am talking about the "stuff" and "space" between said universes that we cannot observe. If we had no data to support a theory or model, that would still be true. However, there is data. There is math. There is a small amount of observable evidence. Simply because you have not looked into it does not mean that the evidence is not there.

The problem is that we defined "Universe" as that which is everything that ever was or is in existence. And then we found that there very well might be more, so people are having a hard time talking about the "universe" and wrapping their head around the concept that there is more out there than the observable universe. Which is ironic for people who believe in God to have a problem to do, hahaha.

All of this is a moot point. Understanding the origins of the universe has nothing to do with my lack of faith. I don't need to have God explain creation in order for me to believe in him. I would be perfectly fine believing that God exists, that he created a multiverse, that created universes, that created life, that evolved, and that he was simply there to guide it. I don't find creation to be an important part in deciding whether I should have faith or not. I believe the creation account in Genesis, and other stories like it, were written because people have an irrational need to have the beginning of things explained to them. Once we can observe, record, and understand the reality of it, then it becomes obsolete save for being a metaphor about some morality lesson that we may learn.

 

[Hoghead1]

Whether we come to a direct revelatory experience or not depends much on our agenda and also God's. There is a substantial amount of literature in the Christian mystical tradition, which is often ignored in theological studies, on indivudlas who did claim to experience God, throughout history. I think the reason why we don't is twofold. 1. We tend to focus on our conscious mend. Truth is, that just scratches the surface. Most of our psyche and experience is on the subconscious level. We tend to focus on thought and sense, whereas at its deepest level, our experiences are purely affective in nature. Now, I think that every creature enjoys a direct, immediate experience of God. Every occasion must begin with an initial aim from God, as God is the chief source of all novelty. However, most occasions of experience are intended by God to focus on things in the world; hence, God remains in the background. It's like listening to great music. You should focus on teh music, not the conductor or really even the player.

 

[Paterfamilia]

You shouldn't make statements about things you haven't bothered to research.


Again, you see how you claim I said the universe is eternal, but then you notice that you have to restate that I claimed the multiverse is eternal? This also hurts your credibility. I didn't say the universe was eternal, I said...



...could very well be eternal.

I'll expand my explanation, in case that is the problem.

Our personal "universe", as we have come to call it, began to have a different form or came into existence 14 billion years ago. This has nothing to do with whatever is outside our personal "universe". In the same way that God can be eternal and outside our universe, and cause the Big Bang, there can just as easily be a natural explanation that is eternal as well. If there is a multiverse, then I am talking about the "stuff" and "space" between said universes that we cannot observe. If we had no data to support a theory or model, that would still be true. However, there is data. There is math. There is a small amount of observable evidence. Simply because you have not looked into it does not mean that the evidence is not there.

The problem is that we defined "Universe" as that which is everything that ever was or is in existence. And then we found that there very well might be more, so people are having a hard time talking about the "universe" and wrapping their head around the concept that there is more out there than the observable universe. Which is ironic for people who believe in God to have a problem to do, hahaha.

All of this is a moot point. Understanding the origins of the universe has nothing to do with my lack of faith. I don't need to have God explain creation in order for me to believe in him. I would be perfectly fine believing that God exists, that he created a multiverse, that created universes, that created life, that evolved, and that he was simply there to guide it. I don't find creation to be an important part in deciding whether I should have faith or not. I believe the creation account in Genesis, and other stories like it, were written because people have an irrational need to have the beginning of things explained to them. Once we can observe, record, and understand the reality of it, then it becomes obsolete save for being a metaphor about some morality lesson that we may learn.

I'm not sure why you would think or say that I haven't researched it. In fact I have researched it extensively and I know the pertinent arguments and models. "Empirical evidence" of a multi-verse is wishful thinking sir. There is utterly none.

Krauss debates this a lot and I have watched or listened to all the debates. Sean Carroll as well. Don't you think that if there was any evidence they would know about it and talk about it??

"Unobservable stuff and space" between the universes? Dude, there aren't any other observable universes. What "between" space are you talking about? Whose model?

The fact that you said there is no evidence that the universe is not eternal made me think you really hadn't looked into it, honestly. There is overwhelming evidence that the universe had a beginning. Atheists hate that, and that's why there is so much effort and crazy models trying to find a different explanation.

 

[Moral Orel]

The fact that you said there is no evidence that the universe is not eternal made me think you really hadn't looked into it, honestly.

For the last time, I did not say that. None of my posts have been edited. Read them again. You are putting words in my mouth. It may have just been a bit of confusion when I referred to a "self propagating" universe, but I have since clarified that multiple times. You have continued to claim that I have called the universe eternal on multiple occasions, and it is becoming frustrating. Quote my posts to show that I made thus claim.

I'm not sure why you would think or say that I haven't researched it.

Google it. I'm not going to do the legwork, because if you haven't looked into it in the most cursory way by now, you don't care. And that's fine. Just go to Google and ask "Is there evidence for a multiverse?" and you'll find it.

Just because there are problems with Sean Carroll's model, that he acknowledges, doesn't mean that the general idea doesn't have evidence to support looking into that hypothesis.

"Unobservable stuff and space" between the universes? Dude, there aren't any other observable universes. What "between" space are you talking about? Whose model?

I'm not talking about any particular person's model. To help you understand the concept though, imagine what the "space" was that existed before God caused the Big Bang.

But why do you care so much what I think about a multiverse? You ignored the part of my post that anything to do with theism. Do you think that if you can convince me that the Big Bang was the start of everything that existed that the only logical conclusion is God? Because it isn't. This argument is folly. A long time ago people thought that the weather was all controlled by God, and there was no other way to explain it, so what is the difference of that argument and the one we are talking about now? I'm not falling for the God of the Gaps, so give it a rest.

And stop misquoting me. I've had to quote myself to you once already, and that is already outlandish enough.