Why doesn't God make himself known?

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Roscoe_Turner said:
If Ganesh appeared to you in your living room I doubt you would convert to Hinduism. You would probably dismiss it as an hallucination, trickery or a demon. The same options are available to an atheist. They could have direct contact and still not believe or serve. They would be exersizing their free will. Free will isn’t dependant on no direct knowledge. Satan had free will to reject God.
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You cant use Theism to make your points about Atheism. Pick a side/argument and go from there. No back pedalling 👍
 
YosefYosep said:
He has done so before with Abraham, Moses, the disciples etc. He seems to be more prevalent in the ancient days than he is now. I just don’t understand why he has become so quiet in this day and age with our constantly growing secular culture.
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God has this way of doing things that involves secondary causes, so that creation can participate in his creative love. He’s crafty like that. But moreover, it makes sense. The world is becoming increasingly loud and obnoxious. All the while, God is getting quieter and more tender for those who seek refuge. When ancient Rome was the biggest and strongest military power, Jesus came into the world as a tiny baby. Nor did he become a big and mighty king like the Davidic kingdom of old. Rather, he poured himself out in utter kenosis.
 
Roscoe makes a good point though. Perhaps if God did appear to mankind for a fraction of days there would still be a plethora of people who would refuse to believe in him. Richard Dawkins would dismiss it as a wide scale case of hysteria. Stephen Hawking might scientifically deduce the Lord to nothing more than a strange phenomenon of optical nature, perfectly existing in our universe as nothing otherworldly or supernatural. And I’m sure there would be a wide group of people who would claim God to be some almighty extraterrestrial finally making full contact with us earthlings.

Maybe there is no reason for God to appear to us even if it doesn’t intrude on our free will. Perhaps he would rather have man trust in him. Trust in God is a common theme throughout the Biblical narrative. Abraham had to trust that God would bring forth a son to him and Sarah even though he doubted the likeliness of it at first. Moses doubted God, but eventually trusted that He would aid him during the Exodus. Perhaps the Lord is calling us to trust in him even if we cannot see or hear (physically).

It’s hard to put trust in man, but it is always the Lord that we can trust in. I think as followers of Christ we can all say that we have felt He who gives us strength, we have heard his calling, he has knocked on our door and worked wonders for us.Our trust in the extraordinarily absurd belief of an all powerful being that resides outside of time and space truly takes some strength. Real faith, however, can come from the blind, a man who isn’t convinced by substantial evidence, but rather by his heart.

God has given us sufficient evidence for us to choose. He gave us his only Son, he gave us his Holy Word, he has given us eternal life. The evidence for him is out there, but one must exercise his free will in choosing to pursue it or not. Everybody these days is so keen on having evidence that lies within the natural realm of things.Things that people can probe, analyze, weigh, feel, and see.

We have faith in the Lord, the same way we have faith that the sun will set and rise. We do not know for sure, we cannot foresee the future, perhaps the sun will cease to exist, but we have faith that it will continue to shine 🙂
 
I think Roscoe is just stating the obvious. Many Jews witnessed the miracles of Christ, yet they still rejected Him in the end.

Clearly seeing doesnt mean following.
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
No actually it doesn’t 🙂

Satan had direct knowledge of God and said “I will not Serve” - Free Will
Moses Had direct knowledge of God and served - Free Will - he could have rejected the call as could have Abraham.

An Atheist could have direct knowledge and say - “no thanks” - it’s still an exercise of free will. He could deny the experience, deny divinity or simply chose not to serve God. All free will.
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If an atheist had direct knowledge of God he wouldnt be an atheist, now would he? A non-follower, sure. But atheism is the belief that there is no God, not necessarily the unwillingness to follow Him.
 
PetrusRomanus said:
If an atheist had direct knowledge of God he wouldnt be an atheist, now would he? A non-follower, sure. But atheism is the belief that there is no God, not necessarily the unwillingness to follow Him.
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He could indeed remain an atheist. He could definitely decide to deny God, even when the proof is undeniable to himself. However, that is not relevant to the point. The title of this thread is “Why doesn’t God make himself known?”

If God made himself known, HE WOULD BE KNOWN by all people in the world. He would be undeniably true. If you deny this, then go make your own thread with a modified topic, because the topic of this thread is about whether or not God would eliminate free will to believe in Him if He made Himself known.

If God made Himself known, he would take away the possibility of anyone denying His existence and retaining any level of personal credibility. It would be just as stupid as trying to deny the existence of the president, or the Pope. You can state that you don’t believe in them, but everyone will shut you off as a deluded idiot.
 
dshix said:
If God made Himself known, he would take away the possibility of anyone denying His existence and retaining any level of personal credibility. It would be just as stupid as trying to deny the existence of the president, or the Pope. You can state that you don’t believe in them, but everyone will shut you off as a deluded idiot.
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I agree, and by him having that direct knowledge, he could no longer be an atheist. He would have seen God. He could still choose to reject Him though.

He could still choose to deceive.himself, but that would be deception and not unbelief.
 
dshix said:
If God made himself known, HE WOULD BE KNOWN by all people in the world. He would be undeniably true.
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I find this interesting because it implies that God has never made Himself known because He isn’t universally accepted.

Even in the Old Testament revelation happened in a microcosm or on an individual level. The closet example of wide scale would be the pillar of smoke and fire that the Israelites followed through the desert. Individually Abraham and Moses.

Jesus Christ obviously in the New Testament and He wasn’t Universally accepted.
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
I find this interesting because it implies that God has never made Himself known because He isn’t universally accepted.
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It should be obvious that the OP does not mean the Incarnation to be part of this thread topic; if he did, this whole conversation would be a moot point. I had understood the topic to be the question be concerning why God does not make it absolutely obvious to all people that He exists and is the true God.

If you disagree with me on what the question is, we will never, ever determine an answer.
Roscoe_Turner said:
Jesus Christ obviously in the New Testament and He wasn’t Universally accepted.
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Jesus is not universally accepted by the world today simply because many people doubt that he even claimed divinity, or do not believe that the New Testament is accurate in its claims of miracles.
 
dshix said:
It should be obvious that the OP does not mean the Incarnation to be part of this thread topic; if he did, this whole conversation would be a moot point.
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Actually, I rescind this. I reread the OP and it appears that I got somewhat confused over time and forgot just what he said.
 
dshix said:
Actually, I rescind this. I reread the OP and it appears that I got somewhat confused over time and forgot just what he said.
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NP - There are a lot of ideas zipping around.

So how do you reconcile the incarnation with your primise if God made Himself known no one could doubt?
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
NP - There are a lot of ideas zipping around.

So how do you reconcile the incarnation with your primise if God made Himself known no one could doubt?
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I reconcile it by this fact; the incarnation did not “make God known to man” in the sense that we mean it. I have understood the thread title to mean that God would “make Himself known” in the sense that He would cause all men to know him. That is very different from what happened in the Incarnation. Jesus came and taught teachings, and people had to CHOOSE to believe Him or not. Jesus did NOT come in a glorified body, and go about showing everyone His Godliness.
 
dshix said:
I reconcile it by this fact; the incarnation did not “make God known to man” in the sense that we mean it. I have understood the thread title to mean that God would “make Himself known” in the sense that He would cause all men to know him. That is very different from what happened in the Incarnation. Jesus came and taught teachings, and people had to CHOOSE to believe Him or not. Jesus did NOT come in a glorified body, and go about showing everyone His Godliness.
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The only time I can see that God revealed himself to all of humanity is in the Garden with Adam and Eve and we know how that turned out. 😉
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
The only time I can see that God revealed himself to all of humanity is in the Garden with Adam and Eve and we know how that turned out. 😉
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That isn’t really relevant to this discussion. We are talking about whether God making Himself known would take away man’s free will to believe in Him.
 
dshix said:
That isn’t really relevant to this discussion. We are talking about whether God making Himself known would take away man’s free will to believe in Him.
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All of humanity consisted of Adam and Eve and their free will wasn’t affected.
 
dshix said:
Do you still have a relevant argument, my friend?
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Yes, but apparently I’m not being clear. 🙂

God revealed himself to Adam and Eve in the Garden, they constituted all of Humanity. God revealing himself to them did not affect their free will. In fact it is the first case of free will being utilized. It is the linchpin for all discussions of free will.

So there has been a case where God revealed Himself to all humanity and their free will was not affected.
 
Could the argument go both ways? God does not openly reveal Himself to all of humanity because it may infringe on people’s free will, but if his revelation doesn’t truly affect the free will of others then perhaps he has no need to reveal himself.
 
YosefYosep said:
Could the argument go both ways? God does not openly reveal Himself to all of humanity because it may infringe on people’s free will, but if his revelation doesn’t truly affect the free will of others then perhaps he has no need to reveal himself.
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We have cases where He has revealed Himself and it has not affected free will. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, and Satan. We also have the Incarnation which didn’t affect free will.

I know of no cases where it did affect free will.
 
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