Posted on 04/11/2008 12:16:58 PM PDT by CottShop
I suppose a lot of people wonder why a loving God would keep Himself so hidden and unseen when so many people it seems are looking for Him. Some people I suppose wonder why God doesn’t just make Himself known to everyone and ‘just let them decide’ after His physical revelation is made clear?
First off I want to point out that for God to make Himself physically known to us, God would have had to have been physically with everyone right from the beginning of creation, to the present, as people are born every single second, in great numbers, and people would constantly need to be seeing Him personally. Secondly, I want to point out that God was in fact with a great many people- physically and undeniably, for a very long time, and yet, they still refused to believe in Him.
You might be thinking ‘Yeah, but they (the Israelites) were then left alone while Moses went atop the mountain, and they ‘just forgot’ and became scared, and so temporarily lost their faith- that’s understandable.’ I would disagree. God had lived with them, performing one supernatural miracle after another in their presence, and yet, what should have been far more than enough to satisfy them for a lifetime, was quickly forgot once God was separated from them?...
...I will make the claim here, that it is perhaps easier to serve a God who must be sought, than it is to keep serving a God that is constantly with us, and it is perhaps even easier, and it certainly takes a more genuine heart, to find a God who is partially hid than it is to seek a God that is here physically with us.
Sounds strange, I know, but let me explain...
Read the rest at http://sacredscoop.com/?p=766
(Excerpt) Read more at sacredscoop.com ...
Just as people want to focus on the bad and say “where is God”, I see evidence of Him every day. In my children, in ill people and children who heal it seems overnight, people who avoid death by inches, simply looking at a sunset...
ping
Agree. I see evidence of God everyday, especially in my children who are both gifts from God to us.
Remember “Doubting Thomas” and what Jesus said to him.
God has not left us alone. For those who accept (believe) Christ, He gives the Holy Spirit (which is God). For all who haven’t accepted Him, there are many things that point to Him: the Bible (God’s Word), the heavens and earth shows His handiwork, and believers accounts of miraculous life changes. God has not left us, man has left God. When the fall of man happened in the garden, man did as he pleased. Now man is so hardened and messed up with everything in this world today, that he cannot see God. They search for answers everywhere, but constantly reject the answer that God has set forth right in front of them: accept Christ.
Our existence is proof enough for me.
How do you know that your deity is the correct one?
because he is the only diety that has been here, proven to have lived and died and rose...your protestations notwithstanding....
That's actually not an argument, nor even a good start at one.
If the question is serious, for it even to make sense one must assume the sort of supernatural world that would be required for God, or gods. And thus it is not at all an argument against the existence of God.
Case for a Creator has answers for those that seek some scientific “proof”.
If you find someone’s fingerprints all over a “crime” scene, you don’t assume they self assembled there by accident.
He also put us in a very good spot to see those fingerprints throughout the universe.
“Privileged Planet”
Psalm 19
The complexity of a leaf alone convinces me of the existence of God.
These are all good thoughts folks, and I agree- but I’m not so much focussed on the ‘proof’ for God in my article, but rather on why God is hidden to a world that doesn’t know Him personally. We Christians know God isn’t hidden after salvation (or even to an extent before salvation as the Holy Spirit was leadign us to Christ), but I guess I want to try to flesh out an arguement that refutes the claim that “IF Only God were visible and performing God-Stuff in front of us all on daily basis- for all to see- then the world would be much more apt to seek Him”
When someone makes claims such as that- they are insinuating that God must not really exist- which really is the core of hteir arguments- but it gets dressed up in “IF ONLY God were visible- why then we’d all beleive”
There is a philisophical and logical reasons for God being less visible than He once was, and this is really what I’d liek to flesh out a bit more- I guess hte title of my post doesn’t reflect what I’m seekign to undertake in the post
Prove that God doesn’t exist...Didn’t think so..
[[If you find someone’s fingerprints all over a “crime” scene, you don’t assume they self assembled there by accident.]]
Excellent point, and one I have been making in ID/Evolution arguments for awhile now (only you worded it much more succinctly than I do- My clumsy attempts at describing evidences for intelligence in nature are summed up perfectly in what you just said here)
excellent points dweller- God does indeed confirm His existence in many ways both to those who honestly and objectively seek answers, and more so to those of Us who have taken that leap of faith and found Him to be exactly what He promisses us He is. The evidence for believers is all around us and manifested in many ways- and indeed- it’s not God who left us, but us who left Him and refuse to cede any of the evidneces He clearly gives- always explaining away the eivdneces with nothign but assumptive arguments that have nothign more solid than guesses about past events to support htem.
I will be back much later tonight/early moring- and wil lread all that is posted- I’m not ignoring them, It will just be awhile before I get back to the htread.
Two books you need to read:
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Creator-Journalist-Investigates-Scientific/dp/0310241448
and if you’re anything of an astronomy/physics buff, you’ll get a HUGE kick out of this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Planet-Cosmos-Designed-Discovery/dp/0895260654
The first delves into many difference scientific disciplines, and the second is an examination of cosmology showing that our planet is placed specifically where it needs to be, and the laws of physics exactly fine tuned, so that we can live and DISCOVER God’s universe.
As a recovering alcoholic I unknowingly worshiped a false god for many years. Mind you, I didn't think of it in those terms, but with sobriety I came to recognize that indeed, I had let alcohol become the center of my existence, and all things were peripheral to it. When I wasn't drinking, I was consciously or subconsciously thinking about my next opportunity to drink, and the bar was my altar. As I cleaned up my act, not only did I rediscover the religious traditions tht my parents had taken great pains to raise me with, but I also discovered a spiritual component that filled a void in my life I'd been pouring booze into for a big portion of my life.
In any case, about a year or so into my sobriety I experienced some moments of doubt...I remarked to a friend that I could really use a miracle to dispel my doubts and reinvigorate my faith. My friend pointed out that I'd been sober for a year...and for a person who scarcely went a day without drinking in the 17 years before that, I was indeed living a miracle.
God is with us and all around us, and his fingerprints are pretty much there to be seen if we only choose to look for them and ask His help in recognizing them.
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