> > Which is exactly why I don't understand the argument I've heard many times as to why God doesn't just make his existence plainly obvious with regularly scheduled miracles or something. Some people have told me that God respects our free will, so he leaves it up to us to choose to believe in him or not. But that's patently ridiculous. Only the very first step is belief in God. The rest of the steps are acceptance and belief in his teachings. However, it's that VERY FIRST step that is the hardest of all of them by an insanely huge margin. People could know with absolute certainty that God exists and *still* exercise their free will to do whatever they pleased rather than follow God's teachings. I'm sure that even if God routinely revealed himself and his nature to everyone, there would *still* be plenty of people going to hell just because they're either headstrong, stupid, insane, or just plain infinitely contrary. So what's the issue?
> >
>
> Interesting off-shoot: a focal point of Christian theology is that this pretty much happened, right? Lucifer and a host of angels, who had direct, undeniable knowledge of God, deliberately WENT AGAINST HIM. Adam and Eve also had direct knowledge of God and still fell from grace. A ton of other people in the Bible who had knowledge of God seem to do the opposite of what He tells them to do (e.g. Moses or Jonah). So why not reveal himself to everybody?
>
> Stephen

I have always thought that this question really missed the point. There are several things that can be said about the points made above.

As Dave points out in general and Stephen cites specific examples for, knowledge of God's existence does not logically imply or result in faith in God. I agree that this is true. How then does the fact that some who know God exists reject Him create any kind of obligation for God to reveal Himself to everyone? God has no practical obligation to do so; He is not forced. Neither does God have any kind of moral obligation to do so. God knows that eventually everyone will know that He exists; He has already given all the evidence that one who wants to know the truth needs to know that He exists. At least, that is the Christian doctrine, but I am writing all of this from the Christian perspective.

The idea that "the very first step is the hardest of all of them", that first step being belief in the existence of God, seems wrong. From the Christian perspective, it is wrong; God has revealed himself in creation, according to Romans 1:20. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men [humans] are without excuse." So God has revealed Himself such that everyone can know Him. It seems to have worked remarkably well. The vast majority of humans believe in God, even if many of the positions held by people about God are in error, or mutually exclusive. People forget that atheism is an extremely recent and rare phenomenon.

Many people do not believe that God has done so. But for those who do not believe that God has already revealed himself, there is further instruction. God has said that any who seek Him will find Him; anyone who wants to know Him and desires to know Him can.
"For everyone that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks, the door shall be opened" (Matthew 7:7)
"But if you will seek God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 4:29)
In context, these verses are addressed to believers, but the principle of them remains, that those who want to know God, and know whether he exists, cannot afford to be passive. It will not be a good excuse later to say to God "You didn't show yourself to me" if you did nothing to find out for yourself. I do not intend to be harsh in saying this, but I would encourage anyone who is interested to seek in this way.

So, even if you do not buy the idea that God has already revealed Himself, it is still the responsiblity of each individual to find God for themselves. No amount of complaining will rid one of one's responsiblities.

As to God revealing Himself to everyone undeniably, there is some reason to believe that God has not done so for the sake of human freedom. Even if that is not the reason, it is still an open question as to whether such a revelation by God would do any good. Let us assume the following:

There exists a group of people P, such that if God reveals Himself immediately to P, all members of P will accept and trust God.

There exists a group of people Q, such that if God reveals Himself immediately to Q, all members of Q will reject God.

There exists a group of people R, such that if God reveals Himself immediately to R, some or all members of R will accept and trust God, and the remaining members of R will reject God.

We have no relevant reason for rejecting any of the above possibilities as open. Stephen's argument seems to be that because Q exists, there are no consequences to God's immediate revelation of Himself. Stephen's argument, though incomplete, would be true if the only actual groups were P and Q; people would accept or reject God for reasons other than God's revelation of Himself, such that God's immediate self-revelation is irrelevant.

The Christian position (or, at least, my interpretation of it) is that all three groups, P, Q, and R, are actual, and that God's goal and will is that group R comes to resemble group P as closely as possible. I say "as possible", because that is the whole question of free will; because humans have free will, God can no more force R into P as he can Q into P.

Unfortunately for Stephen's argument, we have no reason to deny the possibility of a group R. For the members of R, unlike for the members of P and Q, God's immediate self-revelation is a factor in determining acceptance and trust or rejection. Because it is a factor, and because we simply do not know exactly how the human will is effected by said factor, we cannot say with any certainty that God should reveal himself to everyone undeniably. It is my contention that God coordinates the specific circumstances of the lives of each individual such that they have the best chance of coming to saving faith, and because of this, all members of R become, in the end, members of group P or group Q; all people know that God exists, and His existence becomes irrelevant to the fact of their acceptance or rejection of Him. People do not all start as members of P or Q, but at the end, all are members of one or the other. I think that this contention best fits the facts, and that it reveals at least one situation in which it would be a mistake for God to immediately reveal Himself to an individual.

One last point, and then I'm done. There is some indication in scripture that there is further reason that God does not simply reveal himself undeniably to all people. For those who believe, or come to believe, it may be that faith in weaker evidences commands a greater blessing from God than faith in stronger evidences. This only applies to those who believe however, but it may be another reason for God's actions; He wants to give more to individuals. This is, I think, the meaning of John 20:29, where Thomas affirms his faith in Jesus, and Jesus says "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed". I don't want to make a really strong doctrine out of the idea, but I believe that scripture points in this direction.

Fr"had better stop lecturing now before it gets out of hand"um