In all sincerity, why doesn't God simply say, "Hi"?

[Nihilist Virus]

I'm not sure if that's really an answer to my question though.

What would a divine hello look like?

-CryptoLutheran

Refer to post #17.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Refer to post #17.

Yes, that's the post I responded to.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[UnI]

"It's already been done on a number of occasions."

When has this been done outside of the biblical perspective?

"Look at it on another level, you wouldn't deny anybody in your nation the right to leave and immigrate to another country if that was their free choice to do so? Does being an all-powerful person exempt Him from this status? A case can be made of "what's good for the gander is good for the goose" here. It's not as if the Biblical witness doesn't show Him interacting with a nation and individuals with some rather mixed results. To this day people experience life with it's blessings and curses along the way by the choices they and others make. Simply put by having the all-powerful person who created heaven and earth show up isn't going solve the issues individuals and nations have through the choices they make. It didn't work then, it would be unreasonable to believe they would work now."

The creator of the Universe showing up and saying hello once in awhile would most assuredly put aside all of the religious animosity and the infighting on spiritual grounds would cease because of the obviousness of which religion is the 'correct' one. The need for faith - believing in things unseen - would also be irrelevant because we would all know for sure that He is real.

As a matter of fact, it'd be kind of cool if I could wake up to God or one of His angels giving me some sort of hope or life advice in the morning. I'd follow His advice to a tee; mostly.

 

[UnI]

he gave us evidence that showing us he exist:the self replicating watch argument

False equivalency. A watch is a mechanical (not alive) technology made by man while nature builds living organisms with a combination of physics, chemistry, and biology over the course of time.

If I found some sort of technology that was 'beyond our scope of understanding' laying around in the woods I would first presume a higher form of intelligent alien life..

Regardless, all of this is beside the point. Wouldn't it just be easier for God to stop by and say Hi to His own beloved creation once in awhile.

 

[UnI]

I wish God would talk to me

This is exactly my point. He doesn't talk to anyone, even in this day and age with so much technology, social media, and different forms of communication available. No one's seen God, an angel, or the devil for that matter. You'd think there'd be some kind of evidence to clearly substantiate biblical claims.

 

[UnI]

Rev 1:1 The Revelation of Yeshua Messiah, which God gave unto him, to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before His throne;
Rev 1:5 And from Yeshua Messiah, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.​

Verses 4-6 are greetings from the Father (God) and from His Son Yeshua. They are greetings to "His servants". He is saying "Hi" to them. If you would like Him to say "Hi" to you, then become one of His servants.

Have you met God in person? In other words, has He personally introduced Himself to you. If so, how?

 

[UnI]

Whether you like God's reality or not, God giving an unambiguous 'Hi' to humanity would change everything. You would know for a fact that not being a Christian is to dis God. The world would be like high school, with a principal that some hated and some loved, yet nobody thought that the principal didn't exist. For whatever the reason God chose a world where it is easy to argue that the principal doesn't exist. This must be related to God wanting us to choose him under a low intellectual arm twisting environment IMO. I'm also of the opinion that God much prefers a world where those who reject him don't mope around their whole lives because they know for a FACT that they reject God everyday.

I'd much rather know if God exists. I know my mother exists; I've experienced her presence and influence in obvious ways. Why can't God do the same?

Afterall, one of His big schticks is 'believing in Him'. My argument is that it is better to know something is real than to believe it 'may possibly' be real.

Also, knowing God is real would save millions of people from eternal damnation in Hell.

My personal taste however would be a watered down version of what you're proposing. Even though I am intellectually content with Christianity (now, much less in the past) I would like a higher concentration of proof (yet still not enough that the atheist can't reason their way out). There is an extremely high value placed on faith. I understand that the huge majority of people who have found Jesus in history did so due to internal experiences, and faith due to having those experiences, and I understand that that's the way God prefers it...but personally as someone who naturally needed evidence for Christianity the extremely high ratio of faith involved drives me a little crazy lol. As I said I am content, but it drives my crazy how hard it is to get people to see what I see.

Exactly, there is a simple step solution God could take which would satisfy your 'higher concentration for proof'; Him saying, 'Hi' every once in awhile would suffice; or maybe He could even send one of His angels detailing His ultimate plan and our place in it. Yet, He doesn't do it.

You think He doesn't because, 'He doesn't want miserable people moping around their entire lives because they know for a fact that they are rejecting their known creator' (paraphrasing your first statement). It's better for some people to knowingly reject a real God than for some people to reject a God that might or might not exist; especially in the context of eternal damnation. Could you imagine burning in hell for eternity just because you weren't exactly sure of the the existence of Zeus.



Having said that I've experienced first hand how diving head first into faith strangely eases your intellectual doubts more & more. But trying to always debate Christianity with people can have the opposite effect. In the past I've reached points where I had good faith, and wanted to go debate/convince people!! But I became my own worst enemy by continuously trying to debate with people. When you constantly debate with people it's like you are constantly reminding yourself "There are plenty of reasons that people have for doubting!!" It can give you the opposite reaction of drawing nearer to God.

In this life I intend on drawing nearer to truth; no matter where it leads me. If there is a personal God who loves me I'd like to get to know that God better. If there isn't then I need to live my life in accordance with that fact as well.

I find it eerily strange that other people don't have this same mindset.

It's not bad to try to reach people via debate, but I think the danger is for Christians who aren't well grounded to spend all their time in the lion's den. If you're faith and reasoning for Christianity is solid as a rock then it's definitely much safer to spend lots of time in the lion's den. I'm definitely more fit for the lion's den then I was years ago, but years ago I THOUGHT I was fit for it, and I lost my faith 1,000 times hanging out in there! I also think it's easy for people to think that they are seasoned enough to be there all the time, but they're not yet. So...relating this back to my request of evidence being stronger then it is now (which is the watered down version of your request where God flat out says Hi)...perhaps more evidence would result in TOO MANY Christians spending too much of their time debating with people, as opposed to the set up now where the majority of Christians exercise & strengthen their faith first, and maybe debate someone as a distant 2nd. I don't know!! I'm with you I also try to think about why the faith/evidence ratio is set to where it's set at.

A long time ago I entered the feared lion's den as a Christian man. To my great surprise I didn't find any hungry ravenous people eating lion's. What I found was other people with differing opinions; people with different interesting and unique perspectives of life.

Retrospectively speaking, I now realize I was a lion cub entering a lion's den. I learned and grew from those so-called lions and, in turn, became one of them.

Hear me roar; little cub.

 

[UnI]

God could certainly make His presence known to the greatest skeptic, but would that help or hurt?
Is God just trying to get you to acknowledge His existence?
Would it be even a greater offence to God for you to know for certain He existed and yet refused His help?
Man has an earthly objective and acknowledge God's existence is not the objective.
Faith helps man to fulfill man's objective (it is a humbling activity) while "knowledge" tends to puff up the person (be even more self reliant).
You need to understand the objective since everything is driven by the objective.

I want to know God exists in the same way that I know my mother exists. God has revealed Himself in the past, yet He no longer appears. Why?

Knowing God is real would most certainly help the human condition. All religious wars and bickering over the 'true God' would instantaneously cease. Less people would burn in hell for eternity because not believing in God would be as delusional as not believing you are reading these exact words right at this moment.

I mean, I don't even have super all powerful gifts and yet you believe in me. How hard would it be for an omni-all God to make itself known?

I understand the concept of 'faith in things unknown' like one's faith in their ability to do the work at a new job. But screw faith, I rather know the Christian God is real. Afterall, kids have faith in Old Saint Nick who has the ability to bring them gifts each Christmas.

My point is knowing is better than believing - in the context of religion. After all, what a pitifully pathetic situation we'd both be in if it turns out the Muslims were right all along.

Imagine that, a Christian and a Pantheist burning in agony side-by-side for eternity simply for not choosing the 'correct' God. At least you 'believed' in something. Right!?

Forget that, I'd rather know.

God personally introducing Himself to me - or you - would be a great start to a potentially fantastic relationship.

Wouldn't you agree?

 

[UnI]

What would a divine hello look like?

-CryptoLutheran

I'm sure Moses could fill in the blanks.

If not God Himself, how about sending one of His angels? The presence of an angel would surely cause a firestorm in the news and instantaneously on social media.

Yet no one on Earth has seen either.

Maybe God likes to play games like hide and seek.

 

[jayem]

I'm not sure if that's really an answer to my question though.

What would a divine hello look like?

-CryptoLutheran

It would be different for each person. If there is an omnipotent, omniscient deity, then it would know exactly how to reach out and touch someone. (Like Jesus allegedly did with Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road.) I don't believe in the Biblical god (or any god.) But I'm sort of a Calvinist atheist. If a god really exists, and is the total and absolute universal sovereign (as the Abrahamic god is said to be) then nothing can occur that is not in accord with this god's grand plan for the universe. And logically, wouldn't that plan include who believes and who doesn't? So if it's part of the plan that I should believe, then this god will arrange events so that it happens. How could I resist an omnipotent god? And if I never come to belief, then either there is no totally sovereign god, or my belief was never meant to be.

 

[Dirk1540]

Double Post please delete moderator.

 

[Dirk1540]

You think He doesn't because, 'He doesn't want miserable people moping around their entire lives because they know for a fact that they are rejecting their known creator' (paraphrasing your first statement). It's better for some people to knowingly reject a real God than for some people to reject a God that might or might not exist; especially in the context of eternal damnation. Could you imagine burning in hell for eternity just because you weren't exactly sure of the the existence of Zeus?

Yes that's my best guess, and I admit just my speculation. I too try to make sense of the jigsaw puzzle and think it's fun to try to make sense of reality...but yes that's just me speculating.

I do not believe in eternal torment in hell personally, I believe in annihilationism. And sometimes I swim with the philosophers in here and discuss deeper meanings of what 'Belief in Jesus' might precisely mean.

A long time ago I entered the feared lion's den as a Christian man. To my great surprise I didn't find any hungry ravenous people eating lion's. What I found was other people with differing opinions; people with different interesting and unique perspectives of life.

I refer to the lion's den as any person leaving their safe zone environment of never being challenged on their beliefs, to entered the public square of debate where the gloves come off. I wasn't trying to say that non-Christians are mean lions, although some can be lol.

 

[ViaCrucis]

It would be different for each person. If there is an omnipotent, omniscient deity, then it would know exactly how to reach out and touch someone. (Like Jesus allegedly did with Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road.) I don't believe in the Biblical god (or any god.) But I'm sort of a Calvinist atheist. If a god really exists, and is the total and absolute universal sovereign (as the Abrahamic god is said to be) then nothing can occur that is not in accord with this god's grand plan for the universe. And logically, wouldn't that plan include who believes and who doesn't? So if it's part of the plan that I should believe, then this god will arrange events so that it happens. How could I resist an omnipotent god? And if I never come to belief, then either there is no totally sovereign god, or my belief was never meant to be.

I'm of the position that nobody is damned apart from their own conscious choice. Nobody "goes" to hell by accident, or who doesn't consciously and deliberately desire it. Which may seem incredibly strange, if one thinks of "Hell" as this nightmarish cavern of literal fire with pitch-fork wielding devils; but the depiction given by C.S. Lewis in the Great Divorce is perhaps more apt--a dull grey city that stretches on for millions of miles in every direction in which people have their house and live comfortably, getting anything and everything they want merely by desiring it--and never having to interact with another living soul forever and ever. I'm not talking literally of course. Further, there are many who are of the opinion (and this is true throughout the history of the Christian Church) that Christ's descent into Hades meant the proclamation of the Gospel to all who had come before--and that the opportunity to hear this Gospel in its full sincerity is possible for all.

In the Lutheran tradition we believe that faith is a supernatural gift given to us by God, the working of the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace--Word and Sacrament. In that sense, faith isn't a matter of the intellect, and it isn't something that we can choose for ourselves, faith is a gift, and it is created in us by God through those Means. We aren't Calvinists, because we don't believe that God "picks and chooses" who is and isn't saved; instead we believe that God desires the salvation of all; and so at the end of everything the only reason anyone isn't saved is because they choose not to be.

I personally even hold out hope that, ultimately, everyone will be saved. That universal reconciliation is something to be hoped for, and prayed for, and that even in deepest darkest Hell the spark of hope that comes from the grace of God can be found and transform even the most reprobate of hearts.

The fact of the matter is why doesn't God make it easier to believe, I don't know; perhaps all things considered a profound "hello" to each and every person wouldn't actually matter. St. James for example mentions that the devils all know about God "they believe, and tremble" he says, but that doesn't stop them from being at animosity and at odds with God.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[jayem]

In the Lutheran tradition we believe that faith is a supernatural gift given to us by God, the working of the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace--Word and Sacrament. In that sense, faith isn't a matter of the intellect, and it isn't something that we can choose for ourselves, faith is a gift, and it is created in us by God through those Means. We aren't Calvinists, because we don't believe that God "picks and chooses" who is and isn't saved; instead we believe that God desires the salvation of all; and so at the end of everything the only reason anyone isn't saved is because they choose not to be.

Thanks for replying. Your post seems to be contradictory. Traditional Protestant doctrine, as I understand it, is that salvation is granted by God's grace through faith in Jesus as lord and savior. Sole fide, correct? And you state that faith is a gift, given by God. Which we can't choose for ourselves. So how is that anyone who doesn't have faith in Jesus, has chosen not to be saved? Logically, based on your earlier statement, if one lacks faith, that's because God hasn't granted it. Do you see the contradiction?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Thanks for replying. Your post seems to be contradictory. Traditional Protestant doctrine, as I understand it, is that salvation is granted by God's grace through faith in Jesus as lord and savior. Sole fide, correct? And you state that faith is a gift, given by God. Which we can't choose for ourselves. So how is that anyone who doesn't have faith in Jesus, has chosen not to be saved? Logically, based on your earlier statement, if one lacks faith, that's because God hasn't granted it. Do you see the contradiction?

Lutheranism is weird.

But as a more serious response, yes, there is something of a contradiction. And Lutheran theology acknowledges it in the concept of the Crux Theologorum--the "theologian's cross"--that simultaneously God desires all to be saved, and God has accomplished this through Christ for all people (the whole world), and it is appropriated to us apart from ourselves by God's grace through the Means of Grace. If God desires all to be saved, and if this is something God does outside of our will, then why isn't everyone saved? The answer is because there are those who reject it. And this isn't a rational position; both the Arminian and Calvinist views are more reasonable in their construction as systematic theology. The Lutheran response is largely that it's not about having a reasonable faith, but having a faithful confession: That God alone saves, and He is Savior of the whole world, what He has done in and through Christ is for everyone (that means, in a sense, in Jesus everyone is saved already) and yet the human disposition being turned away from God means that we do not turn to Jesus, we turn to ourselves; and so the very act of God granting us faith is an act of circumventing the fallen human will to take hold of us and make us new; but we are still quite capable of refusing it and rejecting it. The baptized can in confidence say "I belong to God" because it is most certainly true; and yet there are many who have received baptism and all the promises of God attached to it and fall away.

I suspect, ultimately, that when all is said and done there will be many in the Age to Come who we may not have expected to see; and there will be many we may have expected to see who won't be there. In Jesus' parable of the great feast, I think it relevant that the original invitation was scorned by some and so, instead, the master brings in others: there will be those who think they deserve a seat, but no seat will be given them and there will be those seated who will be shocked to be seated there. Every mountain will be laid low and every valley uplifted. I hope--and again this is a sincere hope not merely wishful thought--that ultimately everyone will be saved; that hell will, in fact, be entirely empty.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[DogmaHunter]

It's already been done on a number of occasions.

Look at it on another level, you wouldn't deny anybody in your nation the right to leave and immigrate to another country if that was their free choice to do so?

The difference is, off course, that the existance of the nation one is immigrating away from, isn't being held secret.

The entire "free choice" thingy in context of knowing god exists versus merely believing it on faith, is completely irrelevant.

KNOWING god exists does not, in any way, have any impact on someone's freedom of choice / free will.

Simply put by having the all-powerful person who created heaven and earth show up isn't going solve the issues individuals and nations have through the choices they make.

But it would solve the problem of having to believe this person exists on very bad reasons (=faith).

It didn't work then, it would be unreasonable to believe they would work now.

It's not a matter of working... It's a matter of being able to have a rational reason to believe something.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What evidence can you supple that would show that you would listen and that you would then obey him?

Not a matter of obeying or listening.
It's a matter of having an actual rational basis for accepting this deity exists.

As it stands now, this God, if he exists, demands his subjects to have irrational beliefs "or else".

As it stands now, this God, if he exists, rewards gullibilty and punishes rationality.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Because by the covenant granted, you need faith to be saved. So if God says hi to you, you won't be able to be saved.

Wow!

So Moses, isn't saved?
All the disciples and contemporary followers of Jesus, who have supposedly directly witnessed his supernatural miracles, can't be saved? They are all doomed because they witnessed those supernaturl miracles first-hand?

This makes no sense.

If God doesn't say any hi to anyone, then no humans ever know who God is and what He wants from humans. So the only ways which works is for God to say hi to only His chosen witnesses and for other to believe with faith what those chosen witnesses say about Him.

Can these "chosen witnesses" be saved?
Then clearly, your "rule" stated above (that you can't be saved if god says hi), is not true.

Furthermore, isn't it God himself that DECIDES who gets to be saved and who doesn't? Doesn't HE make the rules about who gets to go to heaven (= being saved) and who is send to hell (=not saved)?

Faith = belief on bad or no evidence.
So essentially, your god rewards irrational belief and punishes rational thinking.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What would a "Hi" accomplish?

It would provide a rational basis for believing the deity exists.
Without such a "hi", your only option is to hold irrational beliefs, if you are going to believe this deity exists.


(ps: I'm assuming the "hi" in the OP is symbolical speech for having some kind of direct evidence that demonstrates this deity's existance)

 

[DogmaHunter]

What might a divine "hello" look like that would be unmistakable and acceptable?

-CryptoLutheran

I'ld assume that it would be rather trivial for an all-powerfull, all-knowing entity to make it unmistakenly known that he exists.