To refresh your memory, the comment below relates to the post Auditing God's Existence Assertion. My ultimate conclusion (thanks to some thoughtful comments by bigger-balled readers) was that everyone needs to disclaim an opinion regarding God's existence because God stubbornly refuses to make his existence obvious; he's limited the scope of our fieldwork.
Here's what my banker had to say:
Lets say you're an independent, external auditor, and you go and audit a client's balance sheet, and on the balance sheet it shows $50,000,000 in cash. An agnostic auditor would ask to see the cash, and when she is told it's impossible as it is "in the bank," the auditor would provide them with an adverse opinion and assume fraud.
How do you audit a company's cash? You can't see it. You can't touch it. I'm sure many people have sniffed it, but not you. You can't taste it, and last time I checked you can't hear it. So based on her logic it can't exist. Sure we have seen a dollar here and a hundred dollars there, but come on, a full $50,000,000?
Having been part of many audits, I receive a letter asking me to certify and provide statements of the cash balance. As a certified, robe-wearing banker, I certify the cash and provide the bank statement.
But I didn't see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, or hear it. So why would an auditor ever believe me? Couldn't it still be a huge scam (based on the last four years it just might be) or a gigantic fraud? Who was the last person to really see, touch, or sniff $50,000,000?
The money doesn't need to be hidden inside a bank, but it is. Why? It can't be safety, as banks are robbed everyday. It can't be practicality, as who would ever trust their life savings to blood thirsty Wall Street bankers?
My belief is there is no tangible way for the auditor to prove the company really has $50,000,000. However, auditors seem to do it every year as they recognize bankers are honest, awesome people with no hidden agendas.
First off, I'll make another small adjustment to my conclusion. I said everyone needs to disclaim an opinion regarding God's existence. That is not true if God has revealed his existence to you directly. If God let you count his $50 million, then you can give an unqualified opinion (unless you're not independent - more on that in a later post).
I also want to address the main point he's making. He's saying that in any audit there is a lot of faith regarding the existence of cash, and he testifies to its existence even if though he himself has not necessarily seen or counted the cash. His faith is justified, and others can believe based on his testimony.
Good point. Sister Wachovia will lead us in a hymn, and then brother Citicorp will say the closing prayer.
My banker's faith is awesome because it's based on reason. Someone in his organization, at some point, saw and counted the cash. Probably a teller. Maybe a computer. And someone in the organization put the cash in the bank's cash hole.
Both the audit client and the bank are very concerned about the client's cash balance. Every month, the bank sends a statement to the client with its cash balance. Assuming the client has even minimal competence, the client reconciles the bank balance to the balance on its books.
It's in the client's best interest for the cash balance to be artificially high. It's in the bank's best interest for the cash balance to be artificially low. Since they have opposite interests yet they have consistently agreed on the client's cash balance every month, there is sufficient, pursuasive, systemic support for the existence of the cash.
My banker has faith in his tellers' reliability, his computers's accuracy, his customers' anal-retentiveness, and his cash hole's impregnability. He has faith in a well-documented, regularly monitored, ongoing system of checks and balances.
That's the banker's perspecitive.
From the auditor's perspective, we can obtain sufficient, pursuasive evidence of the existence of cash by confirming the client's cash balance with the bank because the bank, at some time, has seen and counted the cash, and the bank's interests are opposite the client's.
Analogy fun time is over now.
Since I don't have sufficient, persuasive firsthand evidence of God's existence, can I use a confirmation process to test God's existence assertion? Who would I send confirmations to? Would I send them to everyone?
If I sent confirmations to a large enough statistical sample, and enough confirmations were returned, and the overwhelming majority agreed regarding God's existence and identity, then I would have sufficient, pursuasive evidence to support God's existence assertion. However, atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists would all respond with different answers; therefore, I would have to conclude a material misstatement regarding any particular God's existence.
Agnostics wouldn't bother replying at all.
Greg, one item you and your banker friend are missing is that in theory, the company can go to the bank as ask to withdrawal everything in their account and receive cash, thus again proving the amount on the statement is real. I did this once and received $138.21. I felt great as I had some spending money. The bank felt great because this had been sitting there for years without growing and they were tired of watching it for me. The President of the US was happy as I planned on spending the money thus helping the economy.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to sending confirmations to the public at large to test the existence of god, I don't think you can simply ask, "does god exist, yes or no". This sort of a confirmation will never stand under professional audit standards. Now if you chose to send confirmations to Catholics, you could ask how many times they have been forgiven for their sins along with how many hail Mary's they had to say. Unfortunately, to be able to verify their answers, you would first need a report from St Peter that told you how many times John Doe had been forgiven along with how many hail Mary's he had to say.
If you were able to obtain said report from St Peter, I would think you would no longer care about the existence of god as I would guess you already passed and were at the Pearly Gates talking to the Saint himself. Yet given that you are a CPA first and foremost, I could see you asking St Pete for said report so that you could confirm god's existence before you passed through the Pearly gates, especially if you had doubts of whether the gates led to heaven or hell.
Yes, I agree Agnostics wouldn't reply.
Good point, Steve. That goes back to my original position on this. God can make his existence as obvious as your bank balance when you close your account. The fact that he doesn't make his existence obvious does not disprove his existence, but if we apply professional skepticism, we wouldn't trust that assertion.
DeleteGreg, I have an idea
ReplyDeleteSuppose you and I meet the Long Island Medium. The three of us have a seance via a ouija board and contact George Harrison to discuss the lyrics to My Sweet Lord. In the song he sings about wanting see and meet his lord, "my sweet lord". Since George is now dead we could ask him what he found. Unless of course the song wasn't about god and instead was really about Patty Boyd whom he secretly wanted to steal from Eric Clapton. Could be fun, if George doesn't respond, we can always contact George Carlin and get a good laugh, or maybe some material for your routine.
ReplyDeleteGreg, I have been pondering this post all week - in the back of my mind - trying to figure out what to say because I don't like the Logic. You say you want to test your logic, and I usually think it is pretty good, but in this case I have to say I found it lacking. I will address why. At the end of this post, you propose asking the masses for their confirmation regarding God's existence, but then you point out that of those who confirm it, you still would get different answers about which idea of God was correct. On the flip-side, you couldn't confirm God's non-existence that way either (which I know you recognize). Anyways, what you seem to be saying is that since there is disagreement, then we can't have a solid reason to believe. But where did you get the idea that consensus is a good means of affirming the truth of an idea? People deny common sense all the time, so we don't even get consensus there, and consensus has resulted in some terrible ideas. But here is the logical problem I see with your reasoning, if we can't be confident simply because many people disagree, then we can't be confident whether Love is real, or that some things are Evil, or that we ought not cheat on our wives. People disagree on what love is, with some saying it is an actual state of being, while others say it is an illusion resulting from a chemical reaction in the brain - so it's not a real thing. There are lots of people (often Atheists) who declare that nothing is actually Evil, it just depends on perspective. Finally, many people think it is no big deal to cheat on their wife, in fact whole cultures in history have found doing so acceptable (see Greek goddess worship with the temple prostitutes). There is no human consensus on any of these things, not to mention things like ethnic cleansing or genocide which some nations have tried and still want to do with Israel.
ReplyDeleteBut does this mean we have to be Agnostic about all these things? Of course not, both you and I are confident that Love is a real thing which we can identify towards our children, that some things are actually Evil, and that it is wrong to cheat on our wife. The fact that others are confused in these areas doesn't cause us to become confused as well. Looking to public opinion in order to determine what's true is nuts. We need expert witnesses, which leads me to your point about Auditors and Bankers.
You point out how the Auditor obtains sufficient and persuasive evidence from the Banker, based on the Bankers testimony. In the same way, we have testimony from those who were with Jesus. They are the ones with the information we don't have and who had direct "firsthand" evidence, but of course we should wonder whether they made up the whole thing. But then we see that each of them give up their lives individually for what they are proclaiming. It wasn't a group death like some cults, but each of them gives up their life independently. So we know we aren't dealing with liars or some mass suicide. The point is that we can know they didn't make it all up, because they would know if they were telling the truth or lying and no one dies for something they know is a lie. Now I know you are familiar with this idea, but notice that just like the Auditor accepts the Bankers testimony for good reasons, the Christian accepts the Apostles testimony for good reason. So on the basis of reason, not on the basis of any consensus, we can have confidence that God has revealed who He is, just like the auditor has confidence because of the banker.
You should see that this could answer which God is real, but you might say that it still isn't firsthand evidence, so I will address that soon….
Consensus can be a path to knowledge. I'm talking about consensus (majority of opinion), not unanimity (100% agreement). There is a consensus among humans that love is a real thing, that evil exists, and that you're a huge dick if you orchestrate genocide. You (rightly) assumed that I believe in love because the consensus is very accessible.
DeleteI haven't personally looked into whether or not the moon landing actually happened. I believe it's true based on consensus.
The consensus is that babies are born out of a lady's hoo-haa. Doesn't seem reasonable. Can't get a Butterball turkey into an Easy Bake Oven. How can you get a baby out of a hoo-haa? I've got two kids, and I've never seen it. There was a movie that traumatized me in ninth grade, but that could have been special effects. I believe that a woman's body can do something that's unbelievable, even though I don't have firsthand evidence, because of consensus.
If there was consensus of belief of God's existence and identity, I would take that as sufficient persuasive evidence. I could allow for some dissenters because they'd be seen as whack jobs.
Has consensus been wrong? Sure. The world was thought to be flat. The earth was thought to be the center of the solar system. I'm sure some of the things we believe today will be cast out as stupid in the future.
My main point is that it's within God's power to make his existence at least as obvious as the process of vaginal birth. He can but doesn't, which I believe implies that he does not exist.
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DeleteI grant that consensus will get a lot right; we aren't totally stupid, thank God. My main point was that the lack of consensus has no bearing on our ability to recognize reality and I think that point still stands. I will just point out that consensus has got a lot of things wrong in addition to the shape of the earth. There has been slavery and racism and sexism within cultural views that people thought were just fine by consensus, not to mention cultures that believed they had to please the gods or their crops wouldn't grow or it wouldn't rain, and then there was the consensus reached by the Nazi's... So it is a sketchy thing to trust. In fact, prior to the last 100 or so years, the historical consensus of mankind was that some God exists (the majority being Monotheists). You apparently do not trust that consensus. I’m sure you don't accept the argument that “human consensus used to be that God exists so therefore denying Him now is incorrect...” but that is what you wanted - general consensus, which you said would be sufficient persuasive evidence. I can't help but think that you are pointing to consensus, or a lack thereof, when it fits your view. I suppose I don't see how simple consensus is sufficient and persuasive. Thus, I think consensus is irrelevant and I don’t think we ought to believe anything of significance based on it when we have evidence available.
DeleteI get your examples, but I also notice that we have evidence for the consensus - we have photos of landing on the moon and we watch babies come out... others have evidence even if you haven't seen it, so their belief about how it works wasn't based on consensus. In these examples we accept the testimony of others, so now we are back to the "firsthand" question, but I notice that by your own admission you do accept things that are amazing without "firsthand" evidence.
I can't quite let the consensus thing go. I concede that consensus can be a lazy way to determine truth. And if appealing to authority is a fallacy of deductive logic, then appealing to consensus is equally fallacious. But it may be an acceptable way to form an inductive conclusion. Based on the empirically airtight evidence of the "ask the audience" lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, general consensus seems to be correct more often than not.
DeleteComing at this from the perspective of an auditor (in the financial sense, not the Scientology sense), if everyone who claims to have philosophical and/or experiential reasons to believe in a god arrives at the same conclusion as to the existence and identity of that God, that would be sufficient and persuasive evidence. Unfortunately, that’s nothing like the world we live in.
What I think is very compelling is lack of consensus among experts. When experts with access to the same facts disagree, there is good reason to conclude that none of them really know what they're talking about. If one banker at Citibank says my client has $50 million and the other says my client has $1.35, then there's clearly a problem with determining how much, if any, money is in the bank. If one expert in religion says Jesus is God, and another expert in religion says the Hindu pantheon exists, and another expert in religion says atheism is correct, then there is clearly a problem with coming to a solid belief/knowledge/faith in any religion (or lack thereof).
Also, I agree that there is consensus among humans that some supernatural being exists. There is no consensus, however, on the identity of that supernatural being. I carefully chose my words when I said that it would be sufficient, persuasive evidence if "the overwhelming majority agreed regarding God's existence and identity." If I asked a group of people, “What’s in my pocket?” and thirty guessed keys, thirty guessed phone, and one guessed nothing, there is no consensus on what’s in my pocket. Same goes for God. According to Wikipedia, the distribution of religions is Christian 32%, Muslim 23%, Hindu 15%, Buddhist 7%, other religions 11%, non-religious 10%, and atheists 2%. There is consensus that there is something rather than nothing, but there’s no church of something rather than nothing (maybe the Unitarians). There is no consensus on the existence of any particular God.
I think you nailed it on the Unitarians. This whole time I have thought you reject God's existence, but suddenly you sound like you are just agnostic about which god exists... Have you come to the conclusion there is something greater than us...? I jest. I don’t think you accept the consensus that there is a supernatural being out there. But if what you are saying about consensus is correct then it seems like that is where you should be, as per your reasoning. Are you really rejecting God simply because there is no consensus on which one is real? I've never had that impression. So unless you are just being "lazy" I don't know why you are holding on to this consensus stuff. I will emphasize again that the question of God’s existence and God’s identity are separate questions. I have to conclude there is a Supernatural Being at all before I look into which idea of this being could be correct. And as I have pointed out elsewhere, it is Jesus and the resurrection which help us with the question of whether Christianity has the true God.
DeleteRegarding your thoughts on the lack of consensus, it seems like you assume everyone should get the same conclusions from the same evidence. This almost never happens with anything. Greg, don’t forget there are other factors as to why we have a lack of consensus, some people interpret the evidence differently because they don't want to accept the other conclusion or for emotional reasons. Neither of these are good reasons, even if they’re right. For example, if I said I can’t accept Atheism because it means there is no meaning to our lives…, well the fact of my dislike for the conclusion doesn’t mean Atheism is wrong. (On the other hand, if I said I believe there is Meaning to our lives because Objective Morality exists and I know it exists due to the logical failure of other Moral views, then I would have logical reasoning for my belief in Meaning and subsequent rejection of Atheism.) Anyways, many just don’t want things like God or even morality to be real, so people’s motives influence their assessment of the evidence, while others a aren’t aware of some of the evidence. I know you know this but it seems like you have left it out of the equation. And it doesn’t matter if they are an “expert,” they still have motives. All we can do is try to understand why others believe what they do and give things our best assessment, being willing to consider new information along the way.
I agree that consensus can work out and is an acceptable way to reach certain conclusions that have little bearing on our lives – I suppose you could say inductively - like who wrote Catcher in the Rye or who won the World Series in 1945… On the other hand, whether or not slavery should be allowed has a great impact on all of our lives, so we don't want to leave it up to consensus. I am differing with you in that I don't find consensus or lack of consensus to be sufficient evidence for either side of a paramount issue - I want Logic because I know people have messed up motives. What I’m noticing though is that we all know if there is evidence for a consensus belief and we just haven’t looked into it ourselves. But if we knew there was evidence on both sides of a consensus conclusion we would be skeptical – and we should be. People are split 50/50 on many issues, so we look at the logic behind the positions not the consensus; same with religion. Just because there is a lack of consensus doesn’t mean there isn’t a right answer. For me, the inability to agree says more about people than about God or religion.
RE Firsthand Evidence:
ReplyDeleteI hope I don’t come across wrong with either of these comments as I am trying to give you the critique you requested. You repeated your claim that God doesn't make His existence "obvious." But this has been addressed previously in multiple comments, that if in fact the miracles in the Bible are true and if Jesus is the true Savior, then God HAS made his existence obvious. So it troubles me that you say He hasn’t – you just don’t accept that evidence. But I grant that this is different from the evidence being “firsthand.” The firsthand evidence you want, however, seems to be some kind of Empirical evidence about a non-empirical being. Surprisingly, if the story of Jesus is true, then this God has given empirical evidence in the most direct way. A Resurrection would be substantial empirical evidence as well. He has done what you want, just not such that YOU experience it.
God doesn't continually do things He has already done. Before Jesus there were also tangible works of God in parting the sea or knocking down city walls when you walk around it and blow some trumpets... but then you find people today trying to explain these things away by naturalistic means - this has been done for every miracle in the Old Testament. The point is, people want tangible (empirical) evidence, but the things God does they just explain away. We even have tangible archaeological evidence of these events but it is ignored and people also just disregard the accounts of near death experiences.
Just because He didn't reveal Himself the way you want it won't be a very good argument. We have to examine the evidence He does give, much of which is not empirical because He is not empirical. The Bankers example regarding “seeing” the money is very applicable when it comes to “firsthand” evidence. We don’t have empirical evidence of the money, but we have confidence in its existence. Similarly, the majority of the evidence for the existence of God is not empirical. Things like the existence of Consciousness, Love, Objective Morality, Moral Obligation, Logic, Human Value, Free Will, Order and the Fine-Tuning of the Universe as well as the necessity of a First Cause, are all things we don’t “see” but we have confidence in; and they all need an explanation. I will argue that those things do constitute “firsthand” evidence because we experience them every day. Therefore, we need an explanation of what can account for all of these things, and only God is sufficient for all of it because we need a cause which can “actually cause things.” Those who deny God will ultimately have to deny some or even most of these realities of the world. If you aren’t familiar with what Atheists end up doing with these things I can expand on that. But all this will constitute the rejoinder to your claim that there is no firsthand evidence for God. I may have misread you on some things so please clarify if I did. Now there are a few things for you to work with.
Duane, you've never come across wrong. I visited the On Reasoned Ground website. You've ALWAYS "discussed your beliefs in a reasoned, respectful, and attractive fashion." I'm after the critique you're giving, and you're pushing me to think about my position in ways that atheists don't/won't.
DeleteYou brought up a lot of great stuff here. I'm going to try to post separate comments for separate ideas.
DeleteYou assert that God is not empirical, meaning he cannot be proved by experience or experiment. I agree. And I assert that - if God exists - he has actively chosen to exist as a non-empirical being. The problem is I can't come up with any good reasons why God would choose to be non-empirical rather than empirically obvious. And I can think of lots of reasons why being empirically obvious is better. Not the least of which is that if he were obvious, instead of spending so much time obsessing over whether or not he exists, I could catch up on Breaking Bad. Would a good God prevent me from watching past Season 3 Episode 7?
I don't even know how to express this next thought without coming off like an asshole, but here goes: Claiming that something is true but unverifiable is an effective way to perpetuate a lie. God exists, but he's non-empirical. Jesus conquered death by rising from the dead, but for some reason he ascended into heaven shortly thereafter and now he's also non-empirical.
For me, God choosing to be non-empirical is compelling evidence that he does not exist.
You also mention that God doesn't continually do things he's already done. But why not? It seems like you might be saying that he tried being empirically obvious in the past to specific subsets of humanity, and it didn't work - people still didn't believe - so he gave up on being empirically obvious.
DeleteI used to be a math teacher. Every year, I had to teach the same lessons all over again because there was a new batch of humans in my class who sucked at 8th-grade math. Some of them didn't get it. Ever. Not sure if they were particularly stupid or particularly apathetic or if my lessons were particularly shitty. But every year, I upped my game to make my lessons better, and I never faced a new class and said, "I give up. Since I know some of you aren't going to get this, you're just going to have to figure it out on your own."
So, two questions: (1) What brought you to the conclusion that God doesn't continually do things he's already done? (2) Why would God choose to not do things he's already done? (3) Do you mean that God tried to be obvious and then gave up on that tactic?
Near-death experiences have come up on the comments before. I haven't done any research on them. Do you have any suggested reading? (Part of why I haven't researched them is that I'm confident they aren't going to all point toward one true religion. I'm kind of assuming that both Muslim and Mormon near-death experiences include heavenly visions.)
DeleteYou said, "Things like the existence of Consciousness, Love, Objective Morality, Moral Obligation, Logic, Human Value, Free Will, Order and the Fine-Tuning of the Universe as well as the necessity of a First Cause ... all need an explanation." Many of those are reasons why I'm stuck as an agnostic (a doubting atheist). Consciousness, fine-tuning, and the kick-start that evolution needs are all hard to explain apart from the existence of a God. Then again, as a species, we might just be too stupid to figure it out - like a bunch of dogs staring at a TV.
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DeleteI really enjoyed these comments, great questions too. I will think about them some more and get back to you. For now, regarding near-death experiences, I agree that this evidence wouldn't help us identify the one true religion. As I have mentioned previously, we need Jesus and the resurrection for that. However, it does have to do with the existence of God question. (I distinguish the question of God's existence from the question of which religion is true.) Near-death experiences serve as evidence of life after death and the Soul, which then provide evidence for God's existence. I will look into some sources and get back to you.
DeleteRE - Non-Empirical:
DeleteGreg, I find myself most surprised by what you said about God being non-empirical. The reason it is surprising is that you are ultimately suggesting that God does not possess an actual Nature. (I doubt you mean to say that but it seems key to your reasoning.) But just like we have a specific Nature, God would have a Nature as well. If He chose to exist as something He isn't, then we wouldn't know the real Him. If God "chose" to be non-empirical, then He would have changed His Nature from what it was prior to that decision – so it wouldn’t be the real Him. God is non-empirical simply because that is His Nature. I know you are familiar with the Attributes of God, and those are what make Him what He is. But He can't choose His Attributes any more than we can. If God changed His Nature to appease us, then we wouldn’t know what was actually true about Him.
Here is a simple reason why God would choose to not present Himself to us empirically all the time - it is so that we won't become confused and think of Him as an empirical thing. Look, people have tried to make gods empirical forever by creating idols. God is clear about the fact that He is not an idol, or something made by us, and He will not make it more confusing by being something He is not. I really want to emphasize that point - God will not present Himself as something that misrepresents who He is. He is not an empirical being, He is a Spiritual being, and it is vital to keep that distinction clear, because it is not ok for us to identify God as something He is not.
That does lead to the other point, which you said well - "Claiming that something is true but unverifiable is an effective way to perpetuate a lie." You managed to not come across as an ass because this is true. This is what happens with cults. However, in reference to God and Jesus, I think both are verifiable, although I accept that they are not empirically verifiable. What seems to be a hang-up for you is the insistence on empirical evidence. You continually insist on it, however, based on the nature of God being non-empirical, the best evidence will be logical argument instead. I pointed out the many different logical reasons, your response is that maybe we are too stupid to figure things out... But Atheists deny the very existence of some of these realities and attempt different explanations for each one they acknowledge. Whatever way they explain the beginning of life, that explanation does not explain the existence of Free-Will or Human value or Morality, they have to come up with another explanation or just deny the idea. On the other hand, God explains all of the factors coherently, so the existence of God carries strong explanatory power - more than any other single explanation. This is logically significant. Even with the Intelligent Design theory it involves a logical conclusion from the empirical data. But evolution is also a logical conclusion from the data. My point is we have to draw logical conclusions all the time so doing this in regard to God shouldn’t be difficult to comprehend. You may reject the logical evidence, but it still provides a solid non-empirical basis for believing.
As for Jesus, you reference how, "Jesus conquered death by rising from the dead, but for some reason he ascended into heaven shortly thereafter and now he's also non-empirical." One of the most important distinctions of Christianity from other religions is that it is falsifiable - if the Resurrection of Jesus didn't happen then the claims about Jesus are false. This is very explicit in 1 Corinthians 15:17 "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless..." On the same note, if something can be falsified then it can also be verified. If Christ has been raised then the claims about Jesus are true. So the Resurrection either verifies or falsifies the claims about Jesus. I think it is safe to say the Resurrection would constitute empirical evidence for Jesus at the time. However, the evidence for the Resurrection itself is historical rather than empirical, because if it occurred it is a historical event. But if Jesus rose from the dead then logically He is God and this would mean that God did go out of His way to reveal Himself to us empirically. This is what you seem to want, but I don't see how you will make progress either way on this if you demand firsthand empirical evidence for yourself for non-empirical things.
DeletePlease don’t think I want anyone to accept things without good evidence – there are just different types of evidence for different things. Both the Resurrection and the existence of God are verified by non-empirical evidence. But that is another reason why there is a lack of consensus, people draw different conclusions from that evidence or don't even accept it. When it comes to God, the difference is mostly philosophical.
RE - 2 or maybe 3 Questions:
DeleteYou asked some great questions here, which is a good challenge to articulate.
(1) What brought you to the conclusion that God doesn't continually do things he's already done?
First of all, because reveals himself in ways that are significant at the time, He doesn't just do things to impress us or to meet our demands. His purpose in revealing himself is not just so we see that He exists, but so that we also understand "Who" He is. Second, I consider what that would require. God reveals himself by coming to live among us in the form of a man, so continually doing this would be ridiculous - especially since it requires dying and rising from the dead over and over since many people didn't believe until He did that. Better to just do it once and leave us with an account from witnesses. Also, He never did things for a show, but He revealed himself within a battle or by parting the Red sea because it was needed and it showed something about Him, His Faithfulness, not just that He exists.
(2) Why would God choose to not do things he's already done?
First, He wants us to actually consider what He has done, rather than to always be looking for something else. Second, I think the next post from saved... said it well on this, that He wanted to give us different evidences to consider. This is important so that we can see the full scope of God's Power, Wisdom, and Authority rather than just one aspect of who He is.
(3) Do you mean that God tried to be obvious and then gave up on that tactic?
I do not think He gave up on the tactic. He just knows that we tend to be in awe of wonders and seek after miracles rather than Him. He wants us to want to know Him, not to just want to be amazed, so He has provided us with just enough to challenge us to consider Who He is.
Hopefully that brings some clarity to what I was saying.
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ReplyDeleteGreg, your post makes me want to come up with some clever logic to prove that you are wrong. However I've learned through my 13 years as a Christian that although my knowledge of God is grounded in logic, God cannot be proven by logic itself. It's been a tough struggle for me why God's existence is so obvious to me and why it's so implausible for many other people.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as through continually testing God's word I have become even more convinced of its truth, I will put my faith in it on this occasion too, and let it speak for itself. Romans 1:16 locates the power of God for salvation in the good news itself. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 confirms that if I am to follow in Paul's example, I require not lofty speech, but in weak trembling proclaim the simple truth that Christ was crucified for our sins, and pray that God would demonstrate his Spirit and power by granting you repentance leading to faith.
Repentance leading to faith is a concept I learned from 2 Timothy 2:24-26. That's why I've been like a broken record in claiming that you don't have an evidence problem, but rather a sin problem. God has deemed the testimony of scripture to be adequate warning for us to repent, and if this isn't enough, never mind near death experiences... not even someone coming back from the afterlife to warn us would change our minds. This comes from Luke 16:19-31 in which the parable is referring the character to the Old Testament. These days we have even more - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, recounted to us by eyewitnesses (2 Peter 1:16-21)!
May I then suggest a shift of perspective? We should not see God as having given up on empirical evidence. Instead I would gratefully appreciate that God has given us many kinds of evidence - empirical presence recorded in the Old Testament, prophetical evidence fulfilled in the New Testament, and words which explain the significance of these events. What a blessing it is, not only to know what happened, but also to know why these things happened, and how we are supposed to respond!