Why did God wait so long?

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Ammonius_Saccus

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The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
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If you want a correct answer, let me tell you when I see God face to face. I have a better chance to tell you what you need to know.

For now, don’t temp me to play God
And please if the word “BS” is what I think it is, please don’t use it here. 🙂
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
I don’t really have any solid answer to this from what I understand, but your post made me think of something I have been contemplating.

That is, look at the vastness of the universe. Look at how much He has given us to explore and discover. We can, of course, contemplate Him, and His mysteries forever, and never be filled. He has also provided us with natural mysteries and a complex geology and Earthly history.

For me, it makes sense that we have a number of years in the BILLIONS to study, catalog, and theorize the steps that get us to this point. God gives us an infinite amount of Grace in our spiritual lives. It follows that He would give us a seemingly infinite amount of natural discovery of our own universe. He gives us so much; He is so generous.

I had this worded better in my head, but I can’t seem to get that thought in words any better than this.

Also, I can’t even understand a billion in most contexts. 100 billion brain cells, billions of years since Creation, virtually infinite number of light years in every direction … it all looks like God to me.
 
Well, human history only goes back to about 8,000 BC. Human pre-history goes back much farther, but it’s impossible to say whether our ancestors from say, 150,000 years ago were human in the same sense that we are. Since they didn’t write, we can’t tell exactly what, or how, or if they thought. Like a parent with a child who is too young to understand, God might not have been waiting until the human race was old enough to understand.
 
While it WAS thought that the human race is about 200,000 years old, they found a human footprint a few days ago that may be as much as two million years old – tests are ongoing.
msnbc.msn.com/id/20360598/

While there are certainly many incorrect answers to your question, I’m not sure there is a “correct” answer. But here is my answer.

If you subscribe to the theory that God used evolution as a tool to create Man, as I do, then the more important act of creation was when God breathed an immortal soul into Adam – not how or when the human race developed into homo sapiens.

So in my mind, your question becomes: as the first “humans” were evolving until finally the homo sapiens arrived, why did God wait until Adam to breathe eternal life into his creation? I think the answer is the same for your question as well.

It is because God had to nurture his new creation until homo sapiens were sophisticated enough and mature enough to enter into a relationship with Him. God first attempted to enter into a relationship with Adam, but the Fall of Man caused some problems there which ultimately led to the Great Flood. The next major involvement was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (not Moses as you mentioned). Why the long wait from the Fall until Abraham? Again, I think He had to wait until Man was sophisticated enough to be able to enter into a Covenant relationship with Him.

Skipping the remainder of the Old Testament, your next question is: why did God wait so long to give us the opportunity of redemption through Jesus Christ? Again, I think He had to wait until Man was mature enough to understand the nature of love – to understand God’s love for us as shown through the sacrifice of His Son, mature enough to accept this love, to love and respect ourselves and our fellow man, to love God for himself – not just for what He does for us, etc.

So in each case, the answer to “why did God wait so long to do this or that” becomes "because he had to wait for Man to grow up, to become sophisticated in his relationships with his fellow man and with “the divine,” to become responsible enough to understand honor and promises and the nature of a Covenant, to understand love in all its varieties and to be able to love God as he should be loved.

I hope this is helpful.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
It’s a mystery. And I’m dead serious.

Only God knows his timing, and it is not for us to question why.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
2 Peter 3:8 –
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.
 
porthos11 said:
Only God knows his timing, and it is not for us to question why.
Click to expand...
I disagree, but at the same time I agree.

What I mean is we should never QUESTION God or His Word.

I believe it is good for us to discover the world he has created for us, though.

For me, Christ is the Truth. The teachings of His Spouse, the Church show us the way to Heaven.

Science, Mathematics, Astronomy - these things describe God’s Act of Creation. These things are good - God says this.

They should all be submissive to the Church, though.

There have been many wonderful Church leaders who were scientists and astronomers.

Einstein even believed that he was studying God, rather than just science. He was Jewish, of course.
 
For all you know, humans may be around in this world for many more hundreds of thousands or even millions of years to come. It won’t look like God waited “so long” then.
In fact even today we have quite a few people saying “I can’t believe in Jesus because all that stuff happened so long ago that there’s no way I can be sure it’s true. If God wanted to send his Son, **why didn’t He wait a lot longer **until humans had progressed a lot more?”
eg the opening song in Jesus Christ Superstar:
“You’d have managed better if You’d had it planned.
Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?
If You’d come today You could have reached a whole nation.
Israel in 4BC had no mass communication.”
 
Galatians Chapter 4

“[4] But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son”

All things in God’s perfect time. He waited for the time to come.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?
Click to expand...
You’re assuming that other creatures, who lived before humans, did not hear the name of God. You’re assuming that the very first quarks after the Big Bang did not sing God’s name. You’re assuming that God the Son did not spin the first galaxy, or bless the last dinosaur.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
You’re asking us, mortals, why God took so long?

We can only give educated guesses … only He knows why.

I suspect that it may have something to do with our intellects … He made our intellects strong, He knew we’d pry backwards in time to figure Him out … that’s why He made it too far back for us to figure Him out?

Hey, that’s just my guess … what’s it to you how long He took anyway?
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
You must remember that using time terminolgy when talking about God is meaningless. To God, all of history is the present for Him. God does not have a past or anything He has yet to do in His future, as He has none.

God is never early and never late. He is always perfectly on time.

To say God “took so long” or something like that is only to speak from our very limited vantage point. It’s kinda like an ant asking why you are so huge. How little does he know…

BTW, did I mention that the details are a mystery?

God has not thought it His obligation to let His creation in on every reason He acts just because we perpetually chant “why? why? why? why? why? why?” like an inquisitive 6 year old on a sugar rush.

…
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
When you you think he should have revealed himself, if not when he did? Please, hold your own answer to the same standards you require of us.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
God is outside of Time. You are imposing our timebound limitations on the infinite.
 
Teflon93 said:
God is outside of Time. You are imposing our timebound limitations on the infinite.
Click to expand...
True that.

When I think God in relation to time, I visualize it as this:

I see time as a timeline - Left to right on a line. History on the left … future on the right.

I imagine God as looking down the length of the timeline; He sees all events in one point with all moments flattened into a single dot.

This is how I understand it in my own mind. Note - this is only my method of understanding as a lay person, and is in no way any teaching of a scholar or Church official. … I just wanted to say that.👍
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
Well, since time doesn’t exist in eternity, the question is irrelevant from God’s POV. He’s already seen the beginning, middle, and end. Every moment in our time is a constant “now” to Him. So, asking “why did it take so long” is just another lame attempt to disprove God’s existence.

I would like to know why it takes my wife so long to get ready for work in the morning - now THAT’S a mystery.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
The universe is at least billions of years old. Humans have been around 150,000-200,000 years. But God did not reveal his name (YHWH) to Moses or come to Earth as Jesus until just a few thousands of years ago. Why?

Please, no BS answers like it is a mystery.
Click to expand...
What’s the rush? 😉
 
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