Testimony of others

alexiscurious said:

I don't care enough to investigate whether or not George Washington was the first president of the United States. It really doesn't matter whether or not I choose to believe it. My life stays the same.


This is true. But why would the supreme God of the universe rely solely on mankind to spread such an important message? Especially when we know humans are very crafty at creating other false religions and other manmade gods. Why doesn't God want himself to stand out? I want to be able to call on the name of God and for him to answer like in 1 Kings 18:24:

Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire--he is God." Then all the people said, "What you say is good."

I'm tired of this pointless search. I don't know why God doesn't want people who are actively trying to pursue him to be 100% assured and convinced of his existence. Why does he enjoy being so mysterious?



What good reason could he possibly have for hiding himself?

Click to expand...

The big picture is, God has an ultimate plan to build an eternity called heaven where humans and angels can live with God forever. He showed through Adam that we can't live such an eternity without faith in God and without obedience.

God is selecting the qualified openly under witnessing. There will be a final judgment to decide. It is thus a necessity for Him to hide behind. If He stands out, then everyone no longer needs faith then how to decide who are the qualified to live in this eternity?

You need to admit that humans are with limited intelligence. We can't understand everything. So if we set forth a must to say that we only believe after we understand everything. We may see our doom when the truth comes. That's about the story of the Tree of Knowledge.

Whether you care about George Washington or not, the kind of truth can only be reached by faith. Similarly, whether you care about your own life or not, if the Bible God does exist, the only way you can reach Him is by faith. That's the point.

The choice is rather simple. If a kind of truth called A, and by its very nature that it can only be reached by faith, while you refuse to do so, then you have no way to reach A. It's just as simple as that.

alexiscurious said:

I don't know if my conscience is saying anything but a part of me yearns to know why I exist. I don't understand how people can live life without first knowing why they have life to begin with. It bothers me.

Click to expand...

Fair enough. It is natural to feel that way.

I guess this is not really what I was referring to though, it was more a question about what your conscience tells you WRT the Christian testimony about God. When you are faced with a statement such as "no-one comes to The Father except by me", you must choose how to regard that claim. You can use rationale to support whichever view you prefer. However, I am saying there is desire which may cause us to want to believe or want to disbelieve. The conscience is usually impartial to desire, which is why I suggested that you consider what it tells you about Christian testimony about God. In Christianity as properly practised, we need to accept that our desires often conflict with our conscience, and it is wrong to dismiss the conscience to favour desire.