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EpicureanSimba
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Do you or do you not have good reasons for believing that God exists? If so, what are they?
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empther
Guest
Jesus revealed himself to the people of ancient Palestine,
and look what happened.
He was crucified.
Judas, one of his inner circle, committed what anybody would have to say was the greatest sin ever committed, the betrayal of our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Jewish leaders began plotting against him.
We should be glad God doesn’t appear to the world. It would cause global chaos. Those inclined to reject God would no longer hold themselves back. They’d go all the way committing evil.
and look what happened.
He was crucified.
Judas, one of his inner circle, committed what anybody would have to say was the greatest sin ever committed, the betrayal of our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Jewish leaders began plotting against him.
We should be glad God doesn’t appear to the world. It would cause global chaos. Those inclined to reject God would no longer hold themselves back. They’d go all the way committing evil.
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EpicureanSimba
Guest
You seem to have a very dim view of humanity. I don’t think that the number of people who would become evil as a result of finding out that God exists is very high at all.
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JRKH
Guest
I can just imagine how this would go.
God visits you in a very powerful way.
You make and appointment to have your sanity checked.
The Doc asks why you want to see him.
Do you tell him you had a vision (or whatever)???
What do you think his reaction will be if you say “God revealed himself to me” or “I had a vision of Jesus” or whatever accurately reflected your experience?
I don’t doubt your sincerity, but having had some small experience with the mental health field, I highly doubt that you will get a clean bill of health from them.
Also - I don’t want anyone to think that such visions should not be “verified”. On the other hand I DO think that the first step should be to see a priest. I can guarantee you that most any priest will treat the idea with skepticism. The Church is very careful about such things. In fact, I suspect that the priest himself would suggest a talk with a mental health councilor - or with a priest with appropriate training.
As I said, the Church is very cautious and careful of such things.
Peace
James
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EpicureanSimba
Guest
I explained above that if the menal health specialists could not find anything wrong with me apart from the fact that I had seen God, then I would believe that I had truly seen God.
All I said was that I would take precautions to ensure that I was not being deceived. If I had taken that precaution, then I would believe very sincerely, and would not doubt it any more than I doubt my other beliefs.
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JRKH
Guest
Fair enough…Now all you have to do is to be truly open to him and recognize when he DOES reveal himself to you. The more open you are, the more easily He can provide that “unambiguous” revelation that you seek.
Note 1: I removed that last sentence from my post but obviously not before you responded…
when I reread it, I was afraid it sounded insulting…Note 2: I hope you took to heart my comments on the likely reaction of a priest to such a revelation. To me I think that going to a priest along with a mental health professional would give the best balance.
Peace
James
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jmoneyideas
Guest
I thought I did…Its MY belief my relationship and its personal. What are you getting at? I know and believe that my thought process consist of a beleiving that there is something far greater than me in control. The simple Idea that we have all the answers is a scary notion. As I said before I aka me Jeremy Scoot have my own relationship with God, you aka EqicureanSimba obviously do not. What I feel is something that many others have felt so the good news is I am not alone. Yes and the truth is you are not alone in your views either although its a more recent belief per say the past few hundred years and I am referring to a general belief of a almighty creator. The main thing to know is one of us are wrong. Like I said before I believe you are wrong. As my friends have posted already, there are plenty of scriptures and witness to testify to my belief but I tell you this that I was Like YOU, a non believer and my life has been transformed. This whole subject seems to be null and void because you are fighting back so much, Jesus and God are all about Surrendering, so when you finally do then maybe just maybe you will come around. Yet again maybe you never will and thats your will. It is rather cool that your on a Catholic Site asking questions. If you are trying to evangelize us on your thinking you are not going to have any luck trust me, I have read the hard questions and the answers have had a profound impact on me as a new believer. My mind has been open and my heart set free.
You may wish to go back and forth but unless you really have a open mind you wont get anywhere…God bless
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Abba
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Well, I don’t think this is good argument. There is a big fallacy in there. How can a person pretend to know the mind of God? That is what that author is doing. He is presuming to know what a perfectly loving God would or would not do. How is this logical? How can Mr. Schellenberg pretend to know what a perfectly loving God would or would not allow? Does he know what it takes to create the Heavens and the earth? Does he know how to create the mountains, the sea, the fishes, the birds, the animals and God’s precious creatures - human beings? Does he know how to keep the harmony of all these things? Does he know the heart and mind of every single human being on earth? Most of all, does he know how God will judge souls? Can he really pretend to know how much a perfectly loving God loves? God created us in his image and we are unique. God has a plan and the author can not pretend to know it. Hence, his problem. He wants to know everything like God does.I highly recommend J.L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddennes and Human Reason, republished in '06, if you haven’t already read it. It’s an argument for atheism that goes something like this:
Now, the book is written to motivate the premises so I hope stating the argument here hasn’t oversimplified the matter
- If God exists, then God is all loving.
- If an all loving God exists, reasonable non-belief does not occur.
- Reasonable non-belief occurs.
- Therefore, an all loving God doesn’t exist.
- Therefore, God doesn’t exist.
But, as far as the OP goes, I think a more interesting question is if God is all loving, why aren’t you already in a personal relationship with him? I don’t think we should give the theist this much: given inculpable unbelief, why doesn’t God reveal himself better? The real question is why is there inculpable unbelief in the first place!
I do not pretend to know how God will judge Mr. Schellenberg. God created him as he has every single human being in a time and place in salvation history. Mr. Schellenberg is a unique human being with particular weakness, desires, capacities, gifts etc… and living in a particular time and environment. It could be that God created him with a particular weakness of strength and in this world he is to live with that or handle what ever problem/weakness/strength etc… it is that he will encounter. It is God in his Wisdom and Love who will judge him. God who is All Knowing. Mr. Schellenberg has limited knowledge and is not to judge neither creatures nor God. I think it is a very fallacious and pretentious argument. How can he pretend to know what a loving God will do?
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St_Francis
Guest
I know you didn’t ask me this question, but I was thinking about this thread and it occurred to me that your original question was the wrong question.*
Asking why a god you don’t believe in doesn’t reveal itself is senseless, since it doesn’t exist to reveal itself.
But asking why a God one does believe in doesn’t reveal Himself is also senseless, because an all-knowing God would know the best thing to do and would have no need to reveal Himself if He didn’t.
In short, the original question would lead to God’s answering Because I said so, just like a parent who knows either that the child cannot understand the reasoning or that the child must learn to accept what is given, ie, to have faith in the parent.
But asking why people believe, or what happened, that makes a lot more sense. Why would Morton Adler convert at the age of 96? Why would one of the founders of NARAL and the Ms Roe of Roe v Wade convert?
Why do I believe? First, I believe God exists because evolution without any intelligent guidance makes no sense. Either a complex organ developed all at once by chance, and this happened many times, or complex organisms developed over generations, during which time each change would have to bring about greater survivability and interlock so as to end with a working development. ( It was not for several years that I would find out about the various critiques of materialist evolution along these lines. I was not scientifically inclined if no crime was involved!)
Then I came to believe in Christianity because it is the only set of religious ideas which does not seem made-up by human beings. What Christ taught is above human potential.
And finally I arrived at Catholicism because, of all the Christian ways of thinking, it is the only one that hangs together in every particular.
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Perplexity
Guest
Schellenberg’s “argument” is largely a reflection on Divine Love and what that would involve. He’s just philosophizing about love, I don’t think it’s any more pretentious than other fields of philosophy. He shows (what I take to be convincingly) that love at least involves a desire to enter into some kind of explicit relationship with humans which would enhance our well-beings. If God’s love for us didn’t involve this, it’d be hard to justify calling it ‘love’. But, he’d also desire a free relationship. So, the idea is that for any person P, if P is able to relate to God in this manner, and has not chosen to prevent this relationship, then if God exists, God is in an explicit relationship with P. However, this is obviously not the case.
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St_Francis
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Actually, miracles still occur.*This is a set of YouTube videos–long at 9, I know, and subtitled from Spanish, but the speaker was an atheist scientist who began, at his mother’s request iirc, to investigate what seemed to be a Eucharistic miracle. It is not professionally done, so the information is not always presented efficiently, but watch it all because it is… well, if it doesn’t convince you that something is going on, I can’t imagine what would.
m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=K_vyxkF0PDs
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Abba
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Well, it can be called a reflection on Divine Love or an argument against the existence of God. Either way, it is invalid because it collapses with statement number 2:
“2. If an all loving God exists, reasonable non-belief does not occur.”
Since #2 is false the conclusions are irrelevant and invalid.
In his Wisdom, God permits unbelief out of respect and love for us. He has given us free will exactly because he loves and respects us. We are not robots, thanks be to God! The fact that we are not robots, complicates our understanding of God’s way. Not that we can understand completely God’s way but, certainly the added dynamic of many individuals each having free will and how God keeps all this in harmony can be pretty complicated for our limited human mind.
It is every single human being that has free will, it is not just the author, you and me. Furthermore, we are social beings - that is our nature. The free will of individuals affects societies in which individuals exist, come to life and die. Our free will is not limited to the effects it will have only on ourselves but on others and on our societies. Finally, the cumulative effects of the free wills of all the individuals of a society determine the type of society they form, which in turn affect the individuals. In other words, we are a product of the cumulative free will of the people that have come before us and that are present now and are affected by this. One good reason why we should not judge one another. We see the effect society has on individuals, especially, societies that have negative trends. People who are born and raised in these circumstances cannot be judged as those that have not.
How explicit? God knows you more than you know yourself, he is the best being to determine how explicit and to what measure understand the present circumstances.
“…enhance our well-being” as measured by whom? The well being as define by whom? Does this well being include creature comfort? How can you be sure that God who is all knowing and loves you dearly, with a love that you have not experienced nor can imagine, a love that a tiny bit if you were allowed to experience it would make your heart burst inside of you, does not have your well-being in mind and has determined in his Wisdom that the way he is handling your freedom is the best way for you? Remember, that God ultimately wants the salvation of your soul. This time here on earth is temporary but, the time after death, there we enter into eternity and our souls are immortal. I rather gather my treasures in heaven than on earth:
Matthew 6
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
In what manner? Obstinate? Prideful? Or with a humble and loving heart? Like a child? You see, God’s ways are not our ways and he knows us more than we know ourselves.
Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
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Perplexity
Guest
Even if (2) is false, the argument is logically valid. I’m not sure what you’re referring to by “valid” if it can be absent simply because a premise is false.
Further, in response to (2), you seem to simply assert a different theology. I don’t think this theology is very plausible at all though. If God loved us, he’d desire to enter into a relationship with us. That seems to be a necessary condition of love. But, if we do nothing to impede God’s desire, then we’d be in such a relationship. That is, every human would either choose God or deny God, there’d be no inculpable non-belief. Yet there is.
The relationship here envisaged is developmental meaning there is a most basic relationship which can strengthen indefinitely. It’s the most basic form that I’m speaking of. Such a relationship wouldn’t suggest we’re robots in any sense.
Ultimately, God would know what our well-being is; however, everyone acknowledges that a relationship with God is of the highest good for us.
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tonyrey
Guest
1.Can you explain the basis of the distinction between good and evil in an amoral, purposeless universe?
- Is morality a set of human conventions that can be safely ignored if one’s crimes are likely to be undetected?
- Do you have any control over your conscience or is it the product of social conditioning?
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tonyrey
Guest
How would you convince doctors you were not hallucinated and avoid being carted off to a psychiatric hospital?
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tonyrey
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Precisely what precautions?
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tonyrey
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- Do you believe there are good reasons to believe we just happen to exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever in a universe which just **happens **to exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever - and that the power of reason just happens to have been produced by purposeless particles?
- In other words is it rational to believe rational activity is the result of irrational activity?
- What guarantee would there be that rational activity is not a delusion?
- Do you agree you are using your power of reason to assert that everything is unreasonable?!
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Contra_Mundum_1
Guest
What would it take for you to believe in God? What kind of a revelation and/or a miracle would convince you? I suspect that an honest answer would be that they would not because you would seek to explain them away. I don’t think that the question here is a lack of proof but the very foundations of your reasoning.
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tonyrey
Guest
If you have done nothing to impede God’s desire you are in such a relationship even though you are unaware of the fact! Your enjoyment of life and love for others are evidence of that relationship - unless you think they are entirely accidental!
Can you give an example of inculpable non-belief? (specifying whether it is atheism or agnosticism.)
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djeter
Guest
#12 on my lisit of a Pascal Dozen is as follows:
- Just Enough Light
It was therefore not right that he should appear in a manner manifestly divine and absolutely capable of convincing all men, but neither was it right that his coming should be so hidden that he could not be recognized by those who sincerely sought him. He wished to make himself perfectly recognizable to them. Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not. ‘There is enough light for those who desire only to see and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.”
Pensées 149
If he gave more light, the righteous would not learn humility, for they would know too much. If he gave less light, the wicked would not be responsible for their wickedness, for they would know too little. There are three answers to why God is not more obvious:
*]He wants to give us time to repent. Scripture says this in [Genesis 15:16]; Isaiah 48:9]; Luke 13:7-9]; [Romans 2:4]
*]He wants to effect a true relationship with us, not one merely of intellectual belief but of personal faith, hope, love and trust. The propositions of lovers are different from the propositions of syllogisms.
*]God is both love and justice; if he manifests himself truly it cannot be without love or without justice. His love led Him to save all who will have Him, and his justice led him to punish those who will not have him. Thus he respects our free choice. He deprives the damned only of the good they do not desire.
The rest of the list is here.
Then there is St. Augustine’s assertion that “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” It is used in the Roman Office of readings for the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary time with the accompanying biblical reading of Job 28:1-28, also included here.
If you think about it, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you,” really forms the basis for the Christian assertion that God’s existence need not be “proven” in any way, for the knowledge of his existence should come with the territory of simply being human and sharing in the glory of his creation.
That is not to deprecate any of Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysics or any of the great Doctor’s meditations on the nature of God’s existence. Rather it is to recognize that for many, God’s existence begins with the knowledge that we already possess of him and the restlessness that occurs in our being when we sense ourselves not being ordered to His creation or abusing the imago dei in ourselves and others. Many wrestle with the problem of God’s existence and never come to St. Augustine’s realization of WHY.
Hope these two posts offer some illumination for you.
dj
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