What if God Gave Us Proof?

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Leela said:
Agnostics rather than atheists claim that one cannot know whether or not God exists. I don’t believe in God but I am not agnostic because I recognize that if such a God as describe din the Bible actually exists, it would be trivially easy for him to demonstrate his existence. It seems to me that either God exists or he requires that he be believed in based on ambiguous evidence.

Best,
Leela
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Ms. Leela,

I was wondering if you had the chance to review Dr. Kreeft’s lecture on Lewis’ book, Till We Have Faces. I know that I have mentioned this in the past, and I concede the unfairness of asking someone to sit through a lecture. However, since you came to CAF, I suspect that you are truly interested in a possible answer to the implicit question you raised above rather than in just attacking others. Consequently, I think you’ll find Kreeft’s conclusions interesting, if not compelling.

Similar to you, I found Bertrand Russel’s question of why God does not give us more evidence of himself quite troubling from a theist perspective. However, I’ll plug Kreeft’s lecture one last time–it can be found at:
peterkreeft.com/audio/16_cslewis-till-we-have-faces.htm
 
Leela said:
Hi Neil,

I don’t think we usually have anything close to proof to justify our beliefs? I think the real question is, are there any good reasons to believe? (I’m not aware of any.)

Best.
Leela
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The subject of fear has been mentioned. Could it just be that you deny God out of a fear of belief? This world teaches cynicism and disbelief in all but the self. That in itself is a cruel deception, since you did not give life to yourself. Is the possibility of God’s existence too much to bear? Too much uncertainty? Fear of judgment or retribution?

If you forthrightly seek the truth, it will be revealed to you. Look at it this way: For some odd reason, you were referred to, or stumbled upon this forum. You took the time to join and become involved. You are still here interacting with members. Why did this unlikely sequence of events happen? And, why does it continue?

If you ask God to reveal His existence to you, He will comply with your request. The answer may come immediately, or it my take years - even occurring in your last minutes of life. But, is it an unconscious (or conscious) fear which has engendered your denial?

If you fear a God which does not exist, how much better to fear One Who does.
 
:gopray2:
po18guy said:
The subject of fear has been mentioned. Could it just be that you deny God out of a fear of belief? This world teaches cynicism and disbelief in all but the self. That in itself is a cruel deception, since you did not give life to yourself. Is the possibility of God’s existence too much to bear? Too much uncertainty? Fear of judgment or retribution?

If you forthrightly seek the truth, it will be revealed to you. Look at it this way: For some odd reason, you were referred to, or stumbled upon this forum. You took the time to join and become involved. You are still here interacting with members. Why did this unlikely sequence of events happen? And, why does it continue?

If you ask God to reveal His existence to you, He will comply with your request. The answer may come immediately, or it my take years - even occurring in your last minutes of life. But, is it an unconscious (or conscious) fear which has engendered your denial?

If you fear a God which does not exist, how much better to fear One Who does.
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Fear of God is a very Protestant teaching. God is Love is very Catholic. And God does not comply with anyones request; could be better said… More Accurate to say that God Answers all Prayers as He sees best.
 
Sailka said:
:gopray2:

Fear of God is a very Protestant teaching. God is Love is very Catholic. And God does not comply with anyones request; could be better said… More Accurate to say that God Answers all Prayers as He sees best.
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The fear of the Lord is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. (See the CCC section 1845). A healthy fear of the Lord means that we dread ever doing anything that would offend Him. There is still a judgment seat over which Christ presides, and heaven or hell are still the choices.

Christ’s peace.
 
po18guy said:
The fear of the Lord is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. (See the CCC section 1845). A healthy fear of the Lord means that we dread ever doing anything that would offend Him. There is still a judgment seat over which Christ presides, and heaven or hell are still the choices.

Christ’s peace.
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I agree 189,487%, maybe more, that I fear Offending The Lord, as poorly as I try. Thought you meant I feared Hell. I don’t waste my time worrying about Eternity. It’s All Our Lord’s Will, not our’s.

Thank you for informing us what “Fear of Lord” means!
 
**Of course both of you are right. And I’m happy to have friends so deeply anchored in the love and “knowledge” of God – which is the convintion GOD IS!
Still I’d like to kind of “correct” two things:

First: Fear of God (Gottesfurcht) everyone of us carries.
This is not at all “FEAR” (Angst) but we fear to loose the love of God.

Secondly: “worry about Eternity”.
Well I do “worry”, but again not in the sense of the word WORRY, but rather in a longing way of continuously thinking about it, and how I will be conceived by Jesus Himself, as much I did was/is wrong.
I, due to a rotten heart, several times was about to die. There was definitely no fear, neither of death, nor of God, but a kind of “happy worrying” how I will be “conceived” (which is the wrong word) but surely you’ll know what I mean.
When I didn’t know if I’d die NOW, I prayed
YOUR WILL BE DONE - NOT MINE
When we did not know that our son would die, my wife and I prayed YOUR WILL BE DONE - NOT MINE
Well - Bjoern died 1997 and we KNOW we’ll see him again. So to Bjoern, it most likely was best this way, however this hurts and made us ill.
You also ought to have a look at the related thread:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=252389&goto=newpost
**
 
Dameedna said:
The only conclusion I’ve drawn, is that God doesn’t want us to “know” he’s there.
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If that is true, why has He gone to such trouble to reveal Himself? :confused:
Dameedna said:
Nope…God doesn’t “need” us to believe in him. Why would he? He’s an entity that never dies. What we do, or do not do, may cause her pain but as an ever existing entity, he hardly suffers from an ego nor a petty or jealous need for us to believe he exists. Thats a silly human ego trait, the need for acknowlegement.
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God chose to create us, and to have fellowship with us. If it is human ego, then God set it up that way. We are made in teh likeness and image of God, so He put in us a desire for HImself.
Dameedna said:
Most of religion is a projection of our ego anyway.
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This certainly explains your cynicism. 😉
Dameedna said:
No…God doesn’t care if we know she’s there or not. That’s my conclusion. That doesn’t mean he ISN’T there, just that it isn’t something he can disclose if he is. What human, would ever make a choice, if it was alway’s laid out for them?
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Your refusal to accept God’s revelation of Himself nullifies it only for yourself. 🤷
Dameedna said:
A god, that gives us all the rules, is a god, that created a robot. And THAT goes against every religion that defines the problem with free will.
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Perhaps you are having difficulty with what God expects of humans?
Dameedna said:
God…isn’t there so you can acknowlege him. He 's there, so he can acknolwedge you 🙂
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God created us with a desire to have fellowship with HImself. Both of these things are true.
Dameedna said:
And that is wrong in what way?
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Because some of us have accepted God’s revelation of Himself, so we do know. 😃
Dameedna said:
A universe does not, and has never proven a God. Yes I’ve heard the “there must be a first cause” argument. It’s good. But it’s also meaningless. We simply don’t know. That is simple honesty, not cowardess.
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You have chosen not to know. This does not equate to knowing as impossible. Science is not the only way of knowing.
Dameedna said:
Or they could be brutally honest. They simply don’t know. It’s a very uncomfortable place to live, but some of us actually manage it, rather than believe what makes sense for us, at this point in our lives.
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I think that living by faith can be very uncomfortable. There is much that we are unable to grasp with our finite minds.
Dameedna said:
…implying that if some-one reaches the conclusion they don’t know…they are some-how unreasonable?
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No, I think hard of heart might be more likely.
Dameedna said:
No such thing as christs humility on this thread 🙂
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Certainly we all fall short in many ways. :o
 
Hi Neil:

Please see below your post.

For me, the strongest argument of a non-believer is to ask “Why doesn’t God give us some solid proof that He exists?”

For example, every night God could write on the sky for a few minutes:

Good night
  • God
There must be some great reasons why God doesn’t do this. I can think of a couple of reasons but I’m looking for more. Also I’m interested in doing more reading on this question if anyone can recommend a book or article to help.

Some questions/reasons:
  1. If God did that, what language would it be in?
  2. If God did that, would it be scientifically explanable? If not, how would science approach it? Would it completely mess up science and keep us from progressing?
  3. How would people respond emotionally to God being so close to us? Would we become lazy and stop trying to pray to God, and instead just watch for the notes in the sky? Would we then complain that if God really existed, he would make the notes more meaningful?
Any other reasons?

I realize that this was posted quite some time ago, but I could not resist the subject. I have some questions to ask you;

Keeping in mind recent events like the elections for example. Do we have proof of anything that was said or reported? Are there not some that hold to those things as truth, yet others vehemently deny them?

How about science? Wow, the moon. There are folk that believe that it was a scam and we never went. Proof was not enough for them.

I’ll give you a lot of money if you can convince my 9o plus year old grandmother of the validity of Certificates of Deposit. Yet we all know those to be good vehicles, right?

So if God gave us that proof, and showed us that He exists, and men would bear witness to it, and write and record shows about it, and document it to the best of their abilities, would future generations believe it? Would they believe it next year, next week? Would some use it for power, some for wealth, and others too busy to care simply ignore it.

How long before that solid proof would be in the same boat as the Sacred Tradition of Christ’s Church? My guess is; History repeats itself.

Just my opininion.

God Bless,

Victor
 
**An attempt to answer “vgatell’s” #1:

If God did show us He is there, because we no worthy disbelievers ask in an incredible offending and blasphemous way for even further prove adding to what we had by Jesus Christ, earth would be without any sense as place for our probation for heaven. Nobody would dare to sin – so we might as well be in heaven already.

An attempt to answer your #2:

All unbelievable wonders God did for us, mankind found a however kinky scientifically explanation; be it big-bang or whatever. “Science approaches whatever inexplicable, with funny “explanations” we simply swallow nodding.
Science – that can’t even create a singe seed of grass – not to speak of the simplest form of life, already is messed up and enmeshed in it’s funny “explanations” of Gods grand works.

An attempt to answer your #3:

God already had been here. Even several times (Moses even was allowed to see God from Gods [back] [edited] , before that, God covered Moses eyes, so no one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. John 6:46

Our reaction to have the Son amidst us however, was the biggest miscarriage of justice of all times an ever: The trial against “This Man of Nazareth” who claims to be the Son of God - even God himself “The Father and I is one”.
In fact Jesus was convicted for blasphemy and sentenced for death-penalty on the cross.

God could avoid that by force as implied in Mt 26,53: „Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?“
Or to the worthless us, by stopping to prove His being by doing wonders as noted in Matthew 13:58= And He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

It’s highly unworthy of us, to ask God to continuously manifest His existence for us. Those who want to believe, see and feel Gods existence in everything.
**
 
**Thanks - but would you please tell me, what was my unfortunate word choise

Oh, I am the best here in choosing wrong words anyway 😉
Reason:
Quite a few words I look up in the dict. In German I’d not express myself such funny.

But I’m thankful for correction. This time I don’t know though what was corrected.

**
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
**Thanks - but would you please tell me, what was my unfortunate word choise

Oh, I am the best here in choosing wrong words anyway 😉
Reason:
Quite a few words I look up in the dict. In German I’d not express myself such funny.

But I’m thankful for correction. This time I don’t know though what was corrected.

**
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don’t feel bad, my Spanish is worse than your English, in Spanish i sound like a drunken four year old.:eek:
 
**I wonder, if our joint work actually answered the original question:
“What if God Gave Us Proof?”

Furthermore, if we where able to make clear, that:
• God gave us a lot of proof already
• God keeps giving proof by holding this incredible system “world” in balance
• We don’t have the least legitimation to ask for further proof which would be blasphemy
**
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
**I wonder, if our joint work actually answered the original question:
“What if God Gave Us Proof?”

Furthermore, if we where able to make clear, that:
• God gave us a lot of proof already
• God keeps giving proof by holding this incredible system “world” in balance
• We don’t have the least legitimation to ask for further proof which would be blasphemy
**
Click to expand...
Well, those three points all seem intended to show that my original question is an invalid question. So no, they don’t answer the question, unfortunately, at least not for me. (Although my question was answered in this thread in some other posts, thanks especially for the Peter Kreeft mp3).

I’m not sure why people respond to a thread if they think the question is invalid? How can you answer the question if you won’t even recognize its legitimacy as a question?
 
**That’s an easy one.
Children often ask “invalid questions”.
But when you love somebody, than this person to you can not ask invalid questions, because you would answer every single one in love, never mind how amazed you’d be at the question, in trying to help affectionately.

Oh I hear nearly every day questions, I before had never even thought of. But aren’t we by he love of Christ asked to help any of our brothers and answer any question? Yes, we do so in love. There’ be other things we could do instead having more fun 😃 but we don’t - for Jesus Christ.

Had my little son asked such, back in the 70’s, I had answered:

“Now let’s think about – why GOD OF COURSE DOESN’T GIVE US ANY MORE PROOF OF HIS BEING.

Surely many kids would answer: In that case we wouldn’t have to believe – as we saw. So why aren’t we in heaven in the first place…

**
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
**That’s an easy one.
Children often ask “invalid questions”.
But when you love somebody, than this person to you can not ask invalid questions, because you would answer every single one in love, never mind how amazed you’d be at the question, in trying to help affectionately.

Oh I hear nearly every day questions, I before had never even thought of. But aren’t we by he love of Christ asked to help any of our brothers and answer any question? Yes, we do so in love. There’ be other things we could do instead having more fun 😃 but we don’t - for Jesus Christ.

Had my little son asked such, back in the 70’s, I had answered:

“Now let’s think about – why GOD OF COURSE DOESN’T GIVE US ANY MORE PROOF OF HIS BEING.

Surely many kids would answer: In that case we wouldn’t have to believe – as we saw. So why aren’t we in heaven in the first place…

**
Click to expand...
But I’m not your child, or a child. When you hijack threads like that, it prevents any topic other than the most simple from being discussed on here.

The fact is, its the spiritual children who hijack the threads because they think they know it all. Why would someone like Peter Kreeft make a audio mp3 about the subject if it was a stupid question?
 
I’m sorry, my last reply was really harsh. You have every right to post answers in this thread, and even if they weren’t what I was looking for, they were probably helpful to someone. Sorry for being so grumpy 😦
Bruno_Schulz said:
**That’s an easy one.
Children often ask “invalid questions”.
But when you love somebody, than this person to you can not ask invalid questions, because you would answer every single one in love, never mind how amazed you’d be at the question, in trying to help affectionately.

Oh I hear nearly every day questions, I before had never even thought of. But aren’t we by he love of Christ asked to help any of our brothers and answer any question? Yes, we do so in love. There’ be other things we could do instead having more fun 😃 but we don’t - for Jesus Christ.

Had my little son asked such, back in the 70’s, I had answered:

“Now let’s think about – why GOD OF COURSE DOESN’T GIVE US ANY MORE PROOF OF HIS BEING.

Surely many kids would answer: In that case we wouldn’t have to believe – as we saw. So why aren’t we in heaven in the first place…

**
Click to expand...
 
Hi Bruno:

Sorry it took me so long, I had problems with my registration. I had to change it to Gatell. You may have misunderstood my response. I was trying to be funny. Of course God already gave us proof, The Church is the proof, reinforced by the witness of the Apostles, and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

However, do men today not doubt the Church? They may have actually resisted her from the start. Proof is nothing without faith in my opinion.

God Bless,

Victor
Bruno_Schulz said:
**An attempt to answer “vgatell’s” #1:

If God did show us He is there, because we no worthy disbelievers ask in an incredible offending and blasphemous way for even further prove adding to what we had by Jesus Christ, earth would be without any sense as place for our probation for heaven. Nobody would dare to sin – so we might as well be in heaven already.

An attempt to answer your #2:

All unbelievable wonders God did for us, mankind found a however kinky scientifically explanation; be it big-bang or whatever. “Science approaches whatever inexplicable, with funny “explanations” we simply swallow nodding.
Science – that can’t even create a singe seed of grass – not to speak of the simplest form of life, already is messed up and enmeshed in it’s funny “explanations” of Gods grand works.

An attempt to answer your #3:

God already had been here. Even several times (Moses even was allowed to see God from Gods [back] [edited]** , before that, God covered Moses eyes, so no one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. John 6:46

Our reaction to have the Son amidst us however, was the biggest miscarriage of justice of all times an ever: The trial against “This Man of Nazareth” who claims to be the Son of God - even God himself “The Father and I is one”.
In fact Jesus was convicted for blasphemy and sentenced for death-penalty on the cross.

God could avoid that by force as implied in Mt 26,53: „Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?“
Or to the worthless us, by stopping to prove His being by doing wonders as noted in Matthew 13:58= And He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

It’s highly unworthy of us, to ask God to continuously manifest His existence for us. Those who want to believe, see and feel Gods existence in everything.
Click to expand...
 
**Oh - between mankind misunderstandings always occur ever since we where created 🙂
As we know that, and as we ourselves constructed a lot of misunderstandings before too, we should not take them serious, but accept them in understanding love.

And Neil - I never even thought you are a child or childish. It was just imagining IF kids had asked me such, and I suppose every child asks this question once in his life; then - what would we or what would I answer.

Don’t be offended. Just think - oh that’s just a stupid foreigner who doesn’t even speak proper English 😃
**
 
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