If God Existed, Why Doesn’t He Show Himself To His Creation?
A few weeks ago, I was having a Twitter conversation with my friend @Seleucid about god and the creation of the universe. The discussion grew from British physicist Stephen Hawking’s claim in his new book, “The Grand Design”, that god didn’t create the universe and that the Big Bang was inevitable due to the law of gravity.
@Seleucid asked: Why does a God who runs the world so systemically be all mystical and magical on its creation?
It was a question that catered more to our atheistic beliefs, rather than our needs to desperately answer it.
But now that I’ve finished reading Jose Saramago’s “Death at Intervals”, I’d like to quote Saramago’s answer to @Seleucid‘s question.
Jose Saramago, author of “Death at Intervals”: However hard he [god] tried, he could never manage to make himself visible to human eyes and not because he can’t, since for him nothing is impossible, it’s simply that he wouldn’t know what face to wear when introducing himself to the beings he supposedly created and who probably wouldn’t recognize him anyway. There are those who say we’re very fortunate that god chooses not to appear before us, because compared with the shock we would get were such a thing to happen, our fear of death would be mere child’s play. Besides, all the many things that have been said about god and about death are nothing but stories, and this is just another one.
Yes, this is just another story about god. And if you ask me, there’s the humanity and the divinity. I believe in the former.
By the way, Jose Saramago’s “Death at Intervals” is an original and gripping piece of literature that explores how death is an integral part of life and how humbling humanity can be found in both. It’s definitely worth a read.
“if” and “why” are the worst words used when talking about God.
they always lead to wrong assumptions and then wrong results and after all they strengthen the position of blind faith of heretic divine “non-thoughts”
anyway, another approach, thanks for the book mention, will read hopefully soon.
euh…. that’s his answer? he doesn’t know what skin to wear to meet us? how about he sits in his heaven and speaks to us? how about he takes responsibility for all the shit in this world? how about he silences the idiots speaking bullshit in his name? if he created such a complex world can’t he be a bit more creative than that?
Pazuzu, Saramago offers only one out of many stories about how god manifests himself in the world, one that goes with the tone of his novel. But yes, there are many horrible things done in the name of this god. And one does wonder: If he really did exist, why doesn’t he do something about it?
You might want to read this gem of a book I recently read about the philosophy of religion, physics, existentialism and the afterlife, it’s called “Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives” by David Eagleman. He’s a neuroscientist and fiction writer.
Karem, Socrates said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And I sincerely believe that. So I don’t understand how “if” and “why” would be the worst words used when talking about god. There are people who believe in god, whichever name he may carry. There are people who don’t. And there are crazy people who deliberately choose to do harm in his name. There’s also blind faith when we don’t question our actions, especially when a higher being is supposedly dictating them to us.
well joelle;
first of all, socrates considered the path of mind in order to know God and tells later : “i tried hardly to accumulate truth in order to reach God,but i found at the end that God is the complete truth.”
“why” in religion and metaphysics are not allowed; “why you are girl?” unanswered question…
“why” + “if”; for me when we combine those two words, i believe we are going away from the mind, thinking process into an environment of suppositions.
secondly, God, Devil, creator, no one…. are names for what we try to understand, regardless our point of view, and this process to understand this Mr. X will last.
as for me,does it matter to name Mr. X or to agree “if” he exists? what really matters is that the process of free thinking and free process in simulating thoughts remains as it is.
perhaps not clear, sorry 1st working day, so not in the mood today…
Nearly all of the essential elements in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on attempting when there seemed to be no hope at all
How sweet! I now regret that the conversation was cut short, so much more needed to be said.
I got busy and didn’t get back to Karem. I actually wanted to tell him that I didn’t understand his point. Perhaps, now that it’s Wednesday, he’d be in a more explanatory and understandable mood. But please, do speak your mind, Seleucid. Maybe that would restart the conversation.
Hey Joelle, everybody :).
First I’d like to say that my tweet was misunderstood (as most tweets are). I do not mean to wonder why God has failed to show himself at creation. On the contrary, I find it extremely logical. What I wonder is why people EXPECT to find God in the beginning.
All people, religious or not, believe that the universe works systematically, that there are laws of physics, mathematics and biology. Even many religious people admit that these very laws are what made them believe in a God.
In this way, if we accept there is a God, we accept that He has His special modus operandi. He likes rules, limits, algorithms to everything* . He likes DNA and proteins, neutrons and quarks. He likes society to be like biology, evolving slowly, from simple to complex, accumulating experience along the way.
Why would an omnipotent God go entirely against character at creation? Why would a God who loves his rules so much (not that he can’t break them) wave them off in the first moments of the universe? An all capable God who can create the universe any way he wants, will probably choose to create it His own preffered way, by the book.
The problem is, many religious people seem to want their material world to be more mystical than their God ever designed it to be. Nature is magnificent, awe inspiring, but hardly mystical. Deer don’t come to the earth by warp vortexes, they come by birth, which we fully comprehend. A God who created a universe so complex yet so comprehensible, in a way that we can entertain ourselves for millennia trying to understand it, has no need to deny us comprehension of its genesis.
The God Stephen Hawking was referring to, the God that is dying every day, is the God of the gaps, a philosophical concept symbolizing everything unexplained and mystifying about nature. The God everybody seems to be worshiping, this is as great a danger to His existence as the discovery of how babies are made :).
* I’m actually a believer of Kant on this one. That there are no objective rules, it’s how our brains are designed that makes us see the world as such. The “a priori” concept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant#Theory_of_perception