Show: Why does God not simply show himself to us ?

Why does God not simply show himself to us ?

Without God's hiddenness we would not have any significant freedom. Even those that hate God would be unable to fully live according to their wishes; much like a criminal would find it intolerable living in police station.

Atheists wrongly assume that God wants everyone to worship Him because He's an apparent egomaniac; the hard truth is that humans don't have a choice to not worship, but only a choice on what we will worship. God being visible to the senses would make even that choice impossible.

Besides, God is the foundation of all truth, beauty, life and love; it would be like standing in front of all of the beauty of nature's grandeur and all the wonder of the cosmos at once - there is none who could not fall and worship at that point!

Philosopher Michael Murray of Franklin & Marshall College makes the case that if God stays hidden to a degree, He gives people the free will to either respond to His tugging at their hearts or remain autonomous from Him. This is what happens in the narrative of the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent, God’s immediate proximity to them is not evident. Perhaps the character is what you do when you think nobody is looking.

What if, in the words of Blaise Pascal, God has only revealed Himself enough to give us the choice of whether or not to believe? Pascal says, “There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.”

if you prefer being an atheist, God values your free will more than His desires for you. If you are really after truth, then have an open mind and follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if you don’t like the conclusion.


If we can make God an object of our observations we have demoted God to the level of a thing in creation. 1

If you were an intelligent software living in a virtual world of bytes, how would you show other intelligent software that humans exist? You can’t come out of the computer. Don’t you understand this? You have to rely on humans coming to you. And even if they do, they cannot enter physically in the virtual world.

Humans would need to resort to software in order to communicate with you. In other words, you will never ever be capable of interacting with humans directly. You would see another software that looks probably like you controlled by humans and you would need to trust that software is a human. Understand? Read it again, please.

God has the same limitation; he cannot get into creation as he exactly is. It is not possible for him. He needs to rely on using physical matter to interact with us. The same happens with angels and demons.

Every time a human has seen an angel, the angel has the appearance of humans but with wings or without wings or made of fire, etc. They can manipulate the physical realm the same way as we can manipulate the software world.

With all this being said, I think I know what I’m talking about. The full “Godless” atheist theory is just what it states it is, A THEORY. It is based on the empirical chain of beliefs at multiple steps. It is not science. It is pure philosophy.

God does not make His existence evident because it would lead to chaos, rebellion and finally destruction for the human species.  We who have been wooed into a covenantial loving relationship with God ,find comfort in is omnipresence and His omniscience. But for those who resist the love of God, those attributes would be nothing less than hell on earth.  They would hate God because they know they'd still be responsible to their Creator, even if God said they wouldn't have to be, which He wouldn't because that would violate His sovereignty.  So it wouldn't take long for the imagination of men to start claiming God as a devil, or a government program with advanced technology to keep us under control, or even aliens, anything to escape obedience and loyalty to God. Then of course, open rebellion would follow.  God's wisdom is love, but love must be given freely from both sides.  But a free humanity has the ability, and the inclination to love their sin. Hence, for God to reveal Himself to a unregenerated world, is to destroy that world. Most who would bend the knee would be doing so out of purely self-interested fear.

http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/06/18/why-wont-god-show-himself-to-the-world/

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1422-show-why-does-god-not-simply-show-himself-to-us





1. http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2014/03/are-laws-of-physicsnature-descriptive.html

There are ~5 types of faith/belief in the Bible. Faith in God being real is consistently based on vast evidence and proof (see Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-4 and MANY other verses)

As Romans 2:12-16 and Acts 17:30 and other Bible verses say, God never condemns anyone for ignorance, or what they do not know. People are vindicated or condemned for refusing to follow truth that they HAVE been made aware of, but chose to reject. The reasons that Israel and other nations were condemned were different, since Israel had been given a lot more laws of freedom than other nations had.

If we didn't have free choice, we couldn't choose to sin. The reason God allows sin is precisely because He is NOT a dictator, and is allowing a demonstration of worldviews that want to compete with God's perfect government...so all in the universe and all people can see for themselves which way is better to live, God's or Satan's. This is brilliantly illustrated in the first ~20 minutes of this documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQmLVU_nvo8

There are averages for intelligence, but there are of course some very smart atheists/theists and some dumb ones. God doesn't work on averages in salvation, but with each individuals and the knowledge he/she has been exposed to.


http://godevidence.com/2010/07/why-doesnt-god-show-himself/

if God could force us to love him, it would not really be love. Love is not love unless it is freely chosen:

“Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love…In a concentration camp, the guards posses almost unlimited power. By applying force, they can make you renounce your God, curse your family, work without pay…kill and then bury your closest friend or even your own mother. All this is within their power. Only one thing is not: they cannot force you to love them. This fact may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power. He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle—the kind we may secretly long for—do nothing to foster that love. As Douglas John Hall has put it, ‘God’s problem is not that God is not able to do certain things. God’s problem is that God loves. Love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life.’”

In short, it all boils down to free will. If God made us unable to deny his existence, we would be unable to choose to love Him. Frequent, “impressive displays of miracle” would go further than merely doing “nothing to foster love.” Rather, they would render us much less able to choose to love God. It would take a fool indeed to reject a God whose existence is completely undeniable.

"either God does not exist or he has a good reason for keeping a low profile"
Then I would suggest the reason: in this state, we humans are "left to our own devices". What happens is the real person comes out. If God was to rock up and show himself and have all his angels patrol the earth, everyone would behave.
But "When the cat's away, the mice shall play". Its a test to see if we are fit to be "citizens of the universe". I mean, think about it... Would you let Hitler into heaven? The human being has long been called "The world's most dangerous animal".
The atheist will not buy it but, one has to agree, hypothetically, it is a good enough reason.
Then I would go to the issue of intelligent design. Once properly explored and understood, ID becomes irrefutable proof of a designer. It absolutely cannot be denied. And that designer has to be highly intelligent, very experienced in all areas of science, and have consciousness, emotions, and other traits of humanity. From then, I would say "OK, you can't see God but you can see the result of the work of something... (or somethings) its very obvious".
From there, the Atheist would have to give up the above ideas because the evidence of "something" becomes overwhelming and opens the door for mustard seed of faith.