God's physical absence on a day to day basis

[Faxero]

I have found an argument which attempts to defend God’s physical absence, why he doesn’t reveal his presence to the bulk of mankind on a day to day basis.

This argument, which is evidently compiled by a Catholic, is in answer to a statement asserting God to be unjust because he won’t show himself to us freely, opting instead to have us work long and hard to comprehend him.

Please review this argument and comment on its good and bad points.

It is essential for God to conceal the fullness of his essence to better support the human privilege of free-will. Many believe in a higher power while not having*adequate knowledge of the full force of that higher power. Religious texts such as the bible offer some insight on God’s divine spirit, but even then, knowledge of God’s fullness is severely limited.

This helps, rather than hurts beings on the physical plane; it would be impossible for an individual to firmly rebel against God’s authority if that same individual fully understood God’s essence, which is infinitely filled with more power and might than the meek human soul. Having full knowledge of the divine would utterly crush beings on the physical plane, greatly diminishing their free-will and thus their ability to foster a love for God out of choice.

Humans may indeed experience some of God’s full glory, but they must be in a state where they are free from sin and they are saint-like, so they won’t be overwhelmed as much by God’s glory other than if they were in a weakened state of sin. Many saints have had the privilege of speaking to their guardian angels face to face; they had this privilege and many others because they took the time and effort to live a pious life.

Humans who dive deep into the spiritual waters gradually become more spiritually aware, and thus, they recognize certain proofs of a divine creator, proofs that are inaccessible to those who don’t bother to try and connect with the divine.

 

[EllisWoods]

This is a weak argument since God revealed himself and interacted with Adam and Eve and it did not affect their free will to rebel.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

The devil and demons rebelled against God’s authority, even though they beheld Him face to face.

For the same reason, their fall is irrevocable. They’re on a one way track to the lake of fire, which they cannot alter. In the meantime they’ll try to take as many of us with them as they can.

For us, God has chosen to work by faith. This gives us the freedom to obey or rebel, but even if we rebel, we can also repent.

But I think there’s more to it than that - we create things in a fashion after God, which spiritual beings do not. They’re thinkers, and what they do is think, rather than create. It is in the nature of both angels and demons to think, except that one searches for the truth, and the other for the un-truth.

We both think and create, but if God were to be present in full force at all times, we’d be so overwhelmed by His presence we couldn’t do anything. Hence we form associations, political parties, works of art, works of music, works of science, construct buildings, bring up families, look after our pets, develop works of charity and grow food.

Spiritual beings do none of those things, although I think they might sing, and sing very well.

We also are aware of good and evil. And because we live in a temporal world, we can make both good and evil choices, and see the results. We can see what good tries to achieve, and how sin constantly frustrates our plans, just it does for God. In that sense we suffer with Him.

It seems to me God is trying to do with us is create a race of little gods, by the process of delegation. Or as CS Lewis put it, He lets us do slowly and blunderingly, those things that He Himself could do in the blink of an eye.

To allow us to do this, He abdicates to a certain extent.

At the Second Coming, He’ll invade with full force. The gloves will be off, and the universe will just disappear.

Then we’ll be in the same position as the angels and demons, face to face with God, the final comfort and the final terror. The choices we’ve made at that time will then be irrevocable, and the die cast.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Was Mary’s free will curtailed when she was conceived immaculately? When she was confronted by an angel with a proposition? If her free will was not curtailed, then we can say this:

God could be at least as obvious to us as he was to Mary without infringing on our free will.

God’s “obviousness” is a matter of degree, and so is the extent to which we have free will. However it is a mistake to simply assert that if God is more obvious, we will have less free will. If that were actually the case, then we could ask why God didn’t make himself even less obvious so that we would have more free will.

 

[davidv]

Was Mary’s free will curtailed when she was conceived immaculately? When she was confronted by an angel with a proposition? If her free will was not curtailed, then we can say this:

God could be at least as obvious to us as he was to Mary without infringing on our free will.

God’s “obviousness” is a matter of degree, and so is the extent to which we have free will. However it is a mistake to simply assert that if God is more obvious, we will have less free will. If that were actually the case, then we could ask why God didn’t make himself even less obvious so that we would have more free will.

No.
No.
No,
God’s obviousness has absolutely nothing to do with whether you have free will. It only changes the type and amount of evidence the will has to work with.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Was Mary’s free will curtailed when she was conceived immaculately? When she was confronted by an angel with a proposition? If her free will was not curtailed, then we can say this:

We can look to Adam and Eve for the answer to this. Both of them lacked original sin and in fact had a greater knowledge of God than Mary because he “Walked with them in the garden” (Can’t recall the specific quote form Genesis, sorry.). Even with all of that, they chose to sin. From this, I think we can easily infer that no matter how complete our knowledge of God is, we can still chose against him. (A fact further emphasized by the fact that the Angels, who had perfect knowledge of God, were still able to chose).

God could be at least as obvious to us as he was to Mary without infringing on our free will.

Agreed, but because he can doesn’t mean that he has an obligation to, or even that it would be the best thing.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

We can look to Adam and Eve for the answer to this. Both of them lacked original sin and in fact had a greater knowledge of God than Mary because he “Walked with them in the garden” (Can’t recall the specific quote form Genesis, sorry.). Even with all of that, they chose to sin. From this, I think we can easily infer that no matter how complete our knowledge of God is, we can still chose against him. (A fact further emphasized by the fact that the Angels, who had perfect knowledge of God, were still able to chose).

Agreed, but because he can doesn’t mean that he has an obligation to, or even that it would be the best thing.

A perfectly reasonable response. But I think we can even go one step farther. Suppose that somehow God gave us all knowledge that caused us to avoid evil basically all the time. This doesn’t mean that we would suddenly be robots. There are still choices left up to us: we are just choosing between only good options.

It’s like if God wanted us to be musicians, but some people remained silent. If God gave us some information that made nearly everyone be musicians, we would still have lots of free-will-choices to make: what instrument to play, what elements to put into our own style, etc.

I agree that he has no obligation, and that it is possible there is some “Goldilocks Level of Obviousness,” but it certainly does seem like more obviousness would be better, and that the God of Christianity would if he could. That’s why the objection described in the original post is troubling to people, and why religions should feel motivated to find an explanation, rather than being content with “well, it’s possible that God has a reason.”