There’s been more than one philosopher who have posed the hiddenness of God as an argument against His existence. If you’re a strict materialist, it makes sense that you would expect sense data, at the very least, of God to begin a framework of proof for God’s existence. Some skeptics argue that an ideal God would make Himself so plainly obvious to humanity that it wouldn’t be possible to doubt His existence.
This book would propose a universe where God exists inside the material domain very obviously; “everyone knows” He exists and has all His commonly-attributed properties: omniscience, omnipresence, omnipower, omnilove (those last two are my own terms). But, there would be some who still do not believe, in two senses of the term. One, the disbelief stems from the defeating belief that God is actually not God, but another agent masquerading as such—someone just powerful enough and just persuasive enough to satisfy most people’s epistemic requirement, but who is still limited to this universe.
The other sense of disbelief isn’t ontological like the first, where it’s a simple answer to a questions, but more of a decision of conviction—a disavowal. The disavowal is the rejection of God as a supreme ruler of both the metaphysical and material domains. He exhibits all of His proper divine qualities but His absolute rulership over some people’s lives is denied. Some people simply don’t consider themselves within God’s reach.
However, He could easily demonstrate to the first disbelievers that He actually is God by simply providing the right amount of evidence to them so they would believe, and with the second set of disbelievers he can demonstrate that they in fact are in His reach. Both senses of disbelief can be remedied, yet He doesn’t administer it. Why? Does the motive lie with God or does humanity have a epistemological flaw that prevents belief when all their other questions have been satisfied?
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This reminds me of the debates in which Josh McDowell earned his stripes in apologetics. He won the debates, backed the atheists into an intellectual corner, but it didn’t change anything in their souls. McDowell’s comment was that only God can make Himself real to people. There’s nothing we can do at this level except perhaps gain people’s attention to consider the question in the first place. And then McDowell moved away from that position into Decision Theology. His most famous book is Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
I read ETDAV way back when I was a baby believer, I thought “All right, wait til I hit my Dad with this” ha ha ha dismal failure. He hammered at my faith for twenty years from every angle. It wasn’t until he was dying that I told him “Pop, you gotta get out of your head and into your heart”. The Lord took it from there and he died in grace.
I’m familiar with his name, but I’ve read nothing by him, pretty sure.
I’m of the mind that, besides attracting attention as you say, is demonstrating that material logic cannot answer metaphysical issues. Metaphysical truths are largely presumptions and non-falsifiable in most cases. In very rare cases the “evidence” is transmittable but it require empathy between two people, or between a small group of people that knew each other well. That doesn’t do well with the current academic climate.
I think such a proposition would make the “EVIDENCE?” crowd even more angry, ha. I can perhaps sympathize with them to some degree. Interesting way to think about the issue, nonetheless. Also, that God and the Philosophers book looked interesting! Is it worth the read?
Well, if you’re steeped in Western philosophical foundations, you’re going to ask for evidence because everything needs to be falsifiable to be considered true. So yes, that question should be expected.
The God/Philosophers book was…alright. It was what I expected: philosophy = Plato/Aristotle, and extensions thereof. There’s very thought to exploring the relational aspect of knowing God as a person, i.e., how divine revelation works. Some come close (like Plantinga), but it doesn’t interest non-Christians that much, so it doesn’t get a lot of play.
Omnipotence= Omnipower
Omnificence= Omnicreative
Omnipresent= Omnieverywhere
Omniscience= Omniknowitall
The four Omni’s of God
I only have one Omnismartass.
Omnibenevolence = all good, bro (don’t know why I didn’t figure that one out).
I have omniairheadedness. My mind is in the clouds, usually.
I have omnicueballhead. I get vivid hair dreams occasionally and in those few moments as I’m waking up, I think it’s true. Then reality hits me and it’s “why Lord why, I had luxuriant thick wavy black hair and black irises that girls loved and now I’m a fat bald scary looking ogre! Now, where did I put my sackcloth and ashes?” My daughter was looking at pictures of me when I was a teenager “Wow Dad, you were hot, what happened? Can I take these to school and show my friends?” Go ahead punkin , knock yourself out.
“I tell ya, I get no respect, no respect all”. ” I went to the Dr he said you’re fat, I told him I wanted a second opinion, he said you’re ugly too”
I hate emojis, but:
https://orig00.deviantart.net/f479/f/2014/008/7/6/smiley_oo_by_mondspeer-d71d2ub.png
That made me chuckle..