Demigawd

Riddle Me This, Theists! Why Won't God Show Himself?

To quote Otto from A Fish Called Wanda, "It's a smoke-screen?"

luvluv

Go to google and do a word search on "the hiddenness of God".

A lot of theistic philosophers have considered this question.

Amergin

There can be only two reasons:

1. He is not real, but purely imaginary.

2. He deliberately fixes it to appear that he doesn't exist, by being invisible, inaudible, intangible, non-palpable, and allowing a thousand self-proclaimed prophets to give different versions of revelation or appear totally barmy to intelligent listeners.

If God is imaginary, then the world we see makes sense.

If God hides then it means He deliberately wants to deceive us for some perverse reason. He makes it so that no matter how hard one searches one finds contradictory data and never finds evidence of God. What could be his reason? In fundamentalist Christian thinking, god intends for humans to live in Hell. So he tips the scales heavily in favour of unbelief and disbelief. He makes it so that many other Gods are presented by prophets with equal credibility (or lack of) making it impossible to say one is more likely than another.

My view is that God is likely imagainary but do not rule out something that farts out universes, if that constitutes a creator. But if there is a conscious, intelligent God, and if that God REQUIRES our belief, justice would necessitate him revealing himself to each and every one of us in identically the same way with no deception or contradictions. He has not done that. So that leaves the choices as 1. Imaginary being, and 2. A cosmic trickster who wants us to fail, and has set up traps every step of the way.

Amergin

Hail

Is there a reason, according to theists, why God refuses to show Himself?
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I dont think I'm a theists but I am going to say how I see it.

Other than personal opinions, is there a solid, theological basis for God staying forever in the shadows? Does the Bible comment on this?
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I think the reason "God" appears to be staying in the shadows is because God or it is everwhere and is everything. In other words you have never looked at anyhing but it or God.
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Atheists and agnostics are constantly told that they have "closed their minds and hearts to God".
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I think it's more like they have closed their minds to the God they have been taught of because the wole concept snafus on itself so glairingly that people of reason connot hope to digest it.

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"God is waiting to recieve us into His family", or so the story goes.

Problem is, {assuming here that God exists}, if God had even a fraction of the attributes given to Him by theists {omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, ect.}, what could [possibly get in the way of Him revealing Himself?
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I think it is already revealed to explore. It is that single energy that has bloomed out into all things. That is why energy cannot be created or destroyed. Christianity does have some incling to it's or God's benolovent nature. It is natural for a thing to be as good to itself as it can be. But to bring into play the firery sea of lava upon which we carouuse everyday and have picknicks uopn or to show the too far unknown nature of how manifestation happens would be disconcerting to civilisaation at large so I don't think it will do that too often. At least not until you are more aware of your ablilty to survive in the scheme of things.
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That is how I see it. Cheers

beastmaster

Re-read the OP. We are not talking about any god, but specifically, Yahweh, the ancient Hebrew war god, who purports to be neither "just another creature" nor an "alien," and is neither "of this world" nor "out of this world," but "transcendent" (whatever that means). For the purposes of this thread, you are to assume (for the sake of argument) that Yahweh exists as characterized by the Bible.

Count me in with those who cannot see a valid theological reason why Yahweh (if he existed) would refuse to reveal himself to each and every individual.

Apologists claim that God must conceal himself because revelation of God's existence would either (1) destroy free will or (2) destroy the need for faith. The parables of the OT reveal both of those claims to be false.

For example, God revealed himself to Adam, yet Adam had the free will to eat the fruit.

Likewise, God revealed himself to Abraham (and even had dinner with him!) but still found it necessary to test Abraham's faith.

These are just two examples. The OT abounds with stories of people who have personal knowledge of God's existence, yet who have free will and who still need faith in God's providence.