Why Isn't God "Involved" As He Was In The OT?

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My wife (who unfortunately is still an agnostic , as I was most of my life) raised an issue yesterday that I think most of us have thought about - in the Old Testament it seemed like God was actively involved in the affairs of man. “So what happened to that God?” she asked. I think perhaps God chose the ancient Jews to reveal himself to the world, so was uniquely involved with them until the coming Christ, which changed the covenant, etc. Others would say that God continues to be involved - we are just blind to it.
 
He is there for us in the Eucharist. That sounds incredibly involved to me.

Except for the High Priest, the ancient Jews were not allowed to enter the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was housed. I’m allowed to do more than enter the Holy of Holies at every Mass, at every Eucharistic Adoration. I’m allowed to receive God right into my very body. That’s far more involved!
 
I get the substance of your question, but we would need to clarify what ‘involved’ means. Does it mean revelation? If so even in the Old Testament it was unusual for any individual to receive a revelation. It was not the case that most people had such revelations. The Old Testament covers a long period of time. Do people still receive revelations in our time? If so then it is not the case that God is not involved. As far as the frequency that might be hard to judge.

If involved means miracles we can also say that miracles still happen. They are rare today but they were rare in the past as well.
 
GUYMAN said:
Others would say that God continues to be involved - we are just blind to it.
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👍
Every hour of every day He comes to be with us, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity!
He is with us in everything in our lives.
 
GUYMAN said:
we are just blind to it.
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Deuteronomy 4:29

29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
 
GUYMAN said:
My wife (who unfortunately is still an agnostic , as I was most of my life) raised an issue yesterday that I think most of us have thought about - in the Old Testament it seemed like God was actively involved in the affairs of man. “So what happened to that God?” she asked. I think perhaps God chose the ancient Jews to reveal himself to the world, so was uniquely involved with them until the coming Christ, which changed the covenant, etc. Others would say that God continues to be involved - we are just blind to it.
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HE is definitely involved with us through His Son and His Church. How much better can it get !! He will never take our free will from us so we have to get to Know HIM, Love HIM and Serve Him in this world to enjoy Forever with HIM in the next. Just like the old Baltimore Catechism taught us. God Bless, Memaw
 
GUYMAN said:
My wife (who unfortunately is still an agnostic , as I was most of my life) raised an issue yesterday that I think most of us have thought about - in the Old Testament it seemed like God was actively involved in the affairs of man. “So what happened to that God?” she asked. I think perhaps God chose the ancient Jews to reveal himself to the world, so was uniquely involved with them until the coming Christ, which changed the covenant, etc. Others would say that God continues to be involved - we are just blind to it.
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After the Resurrection & Ascension into heaven, Jesus sent His Holy Spirit who would be with us until the end of the world.

God is “involved.” 🙂 👍
 
God is very much involved. Many people have pointed out the Eucharist, but I suspect you mean God the Father here.

It’s important to note that many books of the Old Testament are not meant to be read like a history book. So God may be personified in ways that make it sound like He is less involved now than He was before. The second thing to note is that God didn’t go around interacting with very many people. There were thousands of people in the ancient world, and yet we have seemingly only a handful at a time interacting with God.

I suspect in many ways what God did was interact with these people in very much the same manner as He does now. The thing is, when we read the Old Testament, it is going to sound like He used to do way more. The biggest red flag here is that if God was super-involved in the lives of Israel, then it’s pretty unlikely people would have turned away from Him. And yet it was necessary for tons of prophets to speak for God and try to call the Israelites out of their sin. Think about it. If God was freely interacting with those people, would they really have to question if He’s watching? If He was telling people directly what to do and they weren’t listening then why bother sending a prophet? What good would a man do if even God cannot talk sense into a nation?

We also have to recognize where God is at work today. The Eucharist, as mentioned in other posts, is a perfect example of people not being privy to events taking place. And think about how you would describe the Eucharist in literary form. “Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, makes Himself present for us to consume His flesh and drink His blood, thus allowing us to partake in the eternal sacrifice of the cross.” While being completely true, if someone were to read that without having the cultural context they might get a very different picture in their mind for what appears to be physically happening. And then they might be disappointed and think that it must be bogus because it doesn’t at all look like how it sounds.
 
I think, as well, that what we read as God’s involvement in the Old Testament was the people’s awareness of God’s involvement. If they won a battle, they saw the hand of God in it. If a blasphemer suddenly died, they saw God causing that too. Very likely, God is just as involved in our lives now as He ever was then, but many of us fail to recognize it, or attribute whatever happens to other reasons.
 
SonOfMan said:
He didnt expect the Apostles to, or any of the alleged hundreds of witnesses who saw him perform miracles. 🤷
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I think you missed the point of my post. :rolleyes:
We are the hands and feet of Christ. Ordinary people can, through the work of the Holy Spirit change hearts, influence people to do good, and carry out the mission.
*** “Go out and preach to all nations”. ***

People who are hardened to goodness and God, can be impacted by our Christian witness. And it all comes from God.
 
The short answer, is that he is very much with us - in the Eucharist and the Church. Unfortunately, that answer does not suffice for most skeptics, as I know very well from the time when I was a skeptic myself.

The long answer, is that the Old Testament covered a totally different era in the economy of salvation. Before Christ, there was no direct mediator between God and man. Although God’s presence was manifested in the Temple, he did not “communicate”, so to speak, through the Temple. This, rather, was done only occasionally, through the prophets. Although this type of direct revalation may sound more " involved" to skeptics, in reality it was not enough for man to be saved by. Christ’s coming instituted a totally different era. The barriers between God and man were broken down. God literally came into the world himself, as one of our own kind, opening up the path of “revelation” to all mankind, not just a select few. And he promised to make us his new Holy Temple, through the institution of the Eucharist. And after comitting the ultimate act that was necessary for the salvation of man - his own self-sacrifice, the ultimate sin offering - he bestowed his own Spirit upon the Church, making the Church his new prophet, in addition to making the Church’s Body the new Temple.

Hopefully I’ve explained it adequately enough - it’s all very complicated theology that’s all very easy to get lost in. I don’t pretend to understand it fully myself.
 
I think I believe what your wife is getting at, she means the extreme intrusion on every day life of the ancient as manifested in the OT.

Well for starters GOD was dealing with a barbaric race, nomad at most HE had to work very hard to start the process that culminated with the advent of Jesus Christ.

Now although they are not as drastic as some of the OT interventions I do believe that GOD still intervenes in the present time. We only need to be open to see them.

Miracles as other posters said do happen from time to time, again we need to be open to accept them, believe me some people will reject them outright.
 
SonOfMan said:
He didnt expect the Apostles to, or any of the alleged hundreds of witnesses who saw him perform miracles. 🤷
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Oh, I think He did !! All but John died a martyr. And so did many of the early Christians too. God Bless, Memaw
 
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