Tag: God

Understanding the Hiddenness of God: Insights on the Nature of and Mystery of God

God is not a physical being like we are in this material world

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The “hiddenness of God” is a reality that causes some people to doubt the existence of God. If God is so great and so loving, why is He hidden to so many people? If God really exists, why isn’t God plainly evident to everyone? If God desires everyone to know Him, what’s the problem?

I have many thoughts about this dilemma, and I have written on the hiddenness of God many times before. Today, however, I want to highlight some thoughts that come through comments by an Australian YouTuber, Confident Faith, on a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Bishop Barron.

They discuss the nature of God – what kind of “being” God is. We naturally approach the idea of God from our human perspective. A person might wonder, “How can we even know what kind of a being God is?” Especially, if we are not even sure God exists!

But, we can know what kind of a “being” a God who could have created the Universe may be. Our reason suggests to us that a God who is capable of creating the time, space, and matter that comprises the Universe must be separate from and “other” than the reality of the Universe. Such a creating God must exist in a reality that is not contained within the Universe.

If we might think of the Universe as a box, we might say that boxes don’t simply for or create themselves. A box maker (who is not a box) creates them. Thus, we can intuit that Universes don’t form or make themselves. A Universe maker is required who is contained within a Universe.

If the box (or universe) is all we know, it’s hard to conceive of something outside the box (universe). It’s exceedingly hard for us to conceive of reality other than the basic units of time, space, and matter that comprise the physical Universe in which we live. Therefore, we have an exceedingly difficult time wrapping our minds around the idea of a Creator of those who is not contained within the reality of our Universe.

Even my attempt to describe the problem is inadequate, as the only reality we know is a physical one (comprised of that same time, space, and matter). For a God to have created those things and to have formed them into the Universe, that God would have to have been timeless, spaceless, and immaterial (not contained within that box), yet present with it.

I know that many people believe that a thing can create itself. Stephen Hawking famously said, “Because there is such a thing as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.” This is a box creating a box analogy. Hawking is essentially saying that the substance that makes up the components of the box (Universe) self formed and self organized into a box (Universe).

I, personally, find it harder to believe that the Universe created itself than to believe that God, who exists “outside” time, space, and matter, created the Universe.

This fundamental difference in approach and perspective is the Continental Divide on the issue of the existence of God. A person who is unwilling or unable to consider anything “outside” the bounds of the time, space, and matter that comprise the Universe is going to be utterly incapable of “seeing” (grasping, conceiving, or even allowing for) the possibility of God.

But, this way of thinking is not foreign to any of us. In fact, it’s most natural for us to think this way, because all we know is the box (Universe) in which we live.

In dealing with this dilemma, Bishop Barron goes back to the ancient text in Deuteronomy when Moses asked God, who should I say sent me. Barron says that Moses was basically asking, “What kind of a being are you?” In doing this, Moses is trying to put God into categorical terms.

God’s response was, “I am who I am!”  God is saying that He cannot be categorized as we categorize things in this Universe. This response points Moses to outside the box (Universe). This means, says Barron,, “God is not a being, but Being, itself.”

If we follow down the path of Moses’s questioning, we inevitably end up as an atheist. If we insist on putting God into categorical terms, like the time, space and matter we can touch, see, feel, and measure, God remains a mystery. We can’t touch, see, feel, or measure God because He is not comprised of (or limited by) physicality (time, space and matter), and, therefore, God is not a categorical object in the world.

Augustine called God the “Prius” – the thing that is prior to being, itself. God is that upon which the categorical world depends. God is not the highest being (as we often conceive Him to be), the highest being is still just a being; rather, God is the essence of being.

I like the way Confident Faith wraps up these things. He says,

“God is not a physical being like we are in this material world. For example, humans, animals and plants are all physical beings in this physical world. However, the pitch of God’s existence is infinitely higher. He is not physical like we are. He is Spirit. God does not exist somewhere in this physical universe. You won’t find him hiding behind some distance galaxy way out on the known limits of the known universe. Likewise, you won’t find Him hiding somewhere in the subatomic realm. It’s foolish to expect or demand that God be found in this way…. God is not just one being among many in this world. God is the very source of being.”

We are finite; God is infinite. We are contingent and caused; God is non-contingent and uncaused. We are physical, but God is Spirit. Therefore, Confident Faith says,

“Taking these factors into account, it’s reasonable to hold that God’s existence in nature will always, to a degree, be a mystery or hidden from us.”

The hiddenness of God, therefore, is a function of the difference between a box maker and the things in the box. We are a “thing” in the box of this Universe, and God “outside” of it. We are constrained by our physicality, and God is not constrained by physicality because God is Spirit.

Our ability to grasp and to understand such a God, therefore, requires us to let ourselves think outside the box of this Universe. We have to be willing to think outside the box to be able to begin to gain some understanding of God.

I have embedded the short YouTube video on this subject below, but I will close with a few other passages in the Bible the speak profoundly of the nature of God. These passages reveal that God’s hiddenness has purpose, that God knew what He was doing in creating the world the way He did, and His “hiddenness” from us is part of that purpose.

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth”

John 4:24

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Acts 17:24-28

Paul recognized in his address to Greek philosophers in the passage quoted above the “hiddenness” of God, such that we must “seek” Him and “feel [our} way toward Him”. I believe, as some have objected, that God could have made himself plainly evident to us, but He chose not to do that.

I believe the reason He chose not to reveal Himself plainly to us is to give us space to seek Him because we want to, not because we must. If God was plainly evident, what choice would we have?

I believe that God is not looking for automatons that are programmed to obey. God wants us to know Him and to love Him authentically. He does not desire that we merely believe in Him; He desires a reciprocal relationship with us. but A clue to this lies in the words of James:

Even the demons believe—and shudder!

James 2:19

The demons have no doubt that God exists, but they hate God, and they “bristle” at the thought of God!

In the event a person might be tempted to think that the hiddenness of god is unfair, we have these promises:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:7-8

 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Revelation3:20

God may be “hidden” to us, but He desires to be “found”. He promises that He will reveal Himself. We can’t be half-hearted about it, however.

 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremish 29:13

The Uncertain, Vital Value of Personal Experience with God

Atheists are not alone in being skeptical of personal experience. And with good reason, but….

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In a conversation on the Unbelievable? Podcast, Coming to faith through Dawkins – Part 2: Is there a new New Atheism?, Alex O’Connor (a/k/a the Cosmic Skeptic) commented about the book, Coming to Faith through Dawkins. He agreed that the most interesting aspect of the book is the prominence of story and experience, but he finds it unconvincing for the same reasons.

In case you don’t know, the book is a compilation of the stories of twelve people who were influenced by Richard Dawkins in their journeys from atheism to belief in the God of the Bible. Dawkins, of course, is one of the original (and most vocal) of the “new atheists. Thus, the title and subject matter of the book is ironic, intriguing, and not a little controversial.

O’Connor’s critique of the people whose stories are recounted in the book is that they seem to focus on their personal experiences. He says he is not convinced by the personal stories because they focus too much on personal experience and too little on syllogisms, rational arguments, and logical processes in their coming to faith.

This statement, as we shall see, is not a little ironic. O’Connor, though, expresses the modern western sensibility about personal experiences that are discounted and dismissed in favor of more objective evidence.

To be fair, many of the stories in the book recount the intellectual paths people trod on their way to faith, though the stories do not rigorously lay out the arguments, logic, and proofs. We shouldn’t be surprised by that, as the book focuses on peoples’ stories, and people’s stories are personal experiences.

Each of these journeyers from atheism to faith found problems, errors, bad philosophy, and nonsensical statements in Dawkins’s positions that led them to question his underlying assumptions (which were their underlying assumptions also). This, itself, was a rational process. The intellectual problems they saw in Dawkins’s positions made them skeptical of his skepticism.

O’Connor’s critique of the experiential nature of the stories might be discounted on that basis, but I want to focus on something else. This critique came up in the second of two segments. I want to go back to the first segment and contrast his critique with another statement O’Connor made to get to my point today. (See Coming to Faith through Richard Dawkins Part 1)

When asked what might convince him of the existence of God in the first segment, O’Connor said (without hesitation) that personal experience would be the most likely thing. Therefore, the critique O’Connor made in the second segment (complaining of the overly experiential nature of the stories) is ironic in light of O’Connor’s own admission that personal experience might be the one thing that could convince him that God exists (if he had such an experience).

This incongruity in O’Connor’s criticism about personal experience, and the value of personal experience in what we believe, is the thing I want to explore today. Atheists are not alone in being skeptical of personal experience. And with good reason. But personal experience is, nevertheless, vital to our human understanding of anything.

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The Surprising Value of the Concept of Sin

The idea of sin makes people feel uncomfortable, and people blame sin for making them feel bad about themselves.

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Many people bristle at the Christian idea of sin, and many people fault Christianity for its emphasis on sin. Richard Dawkins criticized Christianity in his book, The God Delusion, that it’s all about sin, sin, sin. His sentiment seems to be a popular one.

As a long-time Christian, I have a “robust” view of sin not just because I have robust respect for the Bible. I see sin in myself, and I see it in mankind, generally. I see it as a fact, like gravity, that makes sense of the foibles, failures, and futility of people and human systems I see in the world.

Not that people are incapable of doing good. Even who do not believe in God can do good. Even in doing good, though, I believe most of us do it good “selfishly” – because it makes us feel good; because of peer pressure; because we want people to honor us; because we want other people to be nice to us; or simply because of the utilitarian ideal that it makes the world a better place for me and my tribe to live in.

Most people, I assume, would be uncomfortable with my assessment. Maybe what I see in myself shouldn’t be “projected” onto other people. Maybe I am right, though. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t think it is a fair assessment.

I think one issue people have with the idea of sin is that they don’t know what to do with it. It doesn’t fit into an evolutionary paradigm that celebrates the progress of humanity from primordial ooze to ape to rational being.

Absent a cosmic redeemer, people have no “solution” for sin. Reject the One, and the other makes no sense. Many people don’t want a cosmic redeemer interfering with their self-determination (even people, ironically, who believe we have no self-determination, because we merely dance to our DNA).

People don’t see any “value” in sin. The idea of sin makes people feel uncomfortable. They blame the concept of sin for making them feel bad about themselves. When people measure their goodness against others, they either feel shame or self-righteousness, because they see themselves as better or worse than others.

People blame judgmental attitudes, intolerance, lack of empathy for others, and a host of other evils on the Judeo-Christian concept of sin.

On the other hand, do people who have rejected the Christian concept of sin stop feeling bad about themselves or stop being self-righteous? In my experience, no, they don’t.

Abandoning the idea of sin doesn’t seem to help people not feel bad about themselves, and it doesn’t stop people from being self-righteous. People still compare themselves to others. People still struggle with self-image, and some people still seem to think themselves morally superior to others even after rejecting the concept of sin.

The Christian vocabulary that includes sin has no place in alternative cultural constructs, like cultural Marxism, and the host of critical theories that flow from it. Judgment of others, however, is baked into those constructs, and virtue is signaled for group approval in ways that seem, to me, just as inimical as any bad church environment.

People are shamed and labor under judgmental attitudes perfectly well without the help of Christianity. In fact, I believe the shame and self-righteousness is even worse because other cultural constructs lack the Christian concepts of redemption, grace, and forgiveness.

But, I believe in sin simply because it makes sense of all my experiences and everything that I see in people and the world that is run by people. I have never thought of sin as a value proposition, other than to think that sinfulness is generally bad. I have certainly never thought of the idea of sin as good!

Until now.

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The Life and Death Reality of the Gospel

From hatred to love, from death to life

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I murdered him for Allah but God raised him up to forgive me…. SHOCKING STORY OF REDEMPTION!! One for Israel: Israeli Arabs and Jews. United in the Gospel

The Gospel is a matter of life and death. The phrase seems cliché, even to a “religious” person. We believe it to be true, but the present reality of it may seem to be an abstraction. A non-religious person might understand the statement metaphorically and allegorically, but would subscribe little or no “weight” to it. Neither sense, however, captures the utter significance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it played out in the lives of people I want to introduce.

In the first story of a Muslim man who hated Christians and Jews, and in the second story of a Jewish woman who hated Muslims, the utter significance of the Gospel is brought home in a way that abstract ideas and allegorical concepts simply cannot accomplish. The Gospel is Living Water in a wasteland of hatred and death.

The first story of a Sudanese Muslim who hated everyone who was not Muslim will make your skin crawl as he describes a brutal, unprovoked attack by him and others against a Christian classmate that left the man broken, bleeding, and dying. He was unashamed and proud of what he had “done for Allah”.

An encounter with two Coptic Christians whose prayer healed his cousin as his cousin lay on his own deathbed opened his eyes to a new reality. When those Christians told him, “The real miracle is that God wants to change your heart,” the paradigms by which he had always viewed the world shifted forever.

The decision he made to embrace Yeshua cost him his family and life as he knew it. He became dead to them. They even performed a ceremonial funeral for him. The life that he formally knew was over, but the new Life he received was riches in comparison.

You will want to watch and listen to him tell his story in his own words, not just to describe this journey, but to listen to him tell the rest of the story about the man he left for dead. The power of the Gospel is so much more than a matter of mere metaphorical importance.

The second story comes from a Jewish woman who lived in a world in which Arabs “were the enemy”. She grew up in the midst of the complex political struggle in the Middle where all around her was war and death.

From her earliest memories, her world was unsafe. She was terrified of Arab people who lived in villages surrounding the settlement in which she grew up. The Arabic language was a reminder to her, when she heard it, of shooting, rocks flying and people dying. She learned to hate Arabs.

The Rabbis painted a picture of the God of the Bible as “a very cold and distant God, almost robot-like, a type of God that wouldn’t think twice before he would strike you down with a lightning bolt if you dared to tear a little piece of toilet paper on Saturday, which is forbidden in Judaism”. What she saw of God in the Bible, though, when she read it for herself, seemed different to her.

She grew up in a world of hatred and fear. When she was introduced to the God of love and hope, her world changed completely. She no longer hates or fears Arab people. She learned that the Lord of life is the God of Arabs and Jews alike.

These stories of people who grew up in environments that fostered hate against each others’ “tribes” show how the Gospel changes people so dramatically that those who once hated now love. Paul’s words are true of Jesus:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility….” (Eph. 2:13-14)

What Does it Mean that God Is a Person?

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An elementary truth claim of Christianity is that God is a “Person”. Not a thing. Not a force. Not a principal of reason or intangible construct, or a feeling.

But what does that mean?

We may smirk at the practice of people in the Bronze Age who constructed gods out of hand-made objects and worshiped them. We may think ourselves better than primitive people who worshiped the sun, moon,  mountains, and trees. We may not worship physical objects anymore (most of us), but are we any different than they?

When we conceive of God as a force indistinct from the universe, we are doing the same thing, albeit with more subtlety. Our concepts of God may be more sophisticated than most people in primitive cultures in the past, but only in degree.

When we approach think of God as an intellectual construct or a feeling, we may be walking in the footsteps of our primitive ancestors. The same is true when we view God as an abstract idea. An abstract idea, or ideal, is still a thing. Not a thing made of human hands, but a thing imagined by human intellect.

When we construct a god, whether by our hands or in our minds, or view God as indistinct from the universe, we are not perceiving God in the way He is revealed in the Bible. These are constructs are “idols” that are poor substitutes for the “person” of God.

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