The 1st in my series: The Top 10 Objections to Christianity Answered.
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God reveals Himself to us, He just doesn’t do a very good job of it. That’s what many seem to think. In fact, I’ve sometimes thought that myself. I’ve wondered things like: Why doesn’t God make it more clear that He exists and His plan for humanity? Why be mysterious? Wouldn’t it be better to make things obvious? Why make people take a step of faith to believe?
So today I’d like to address those questions.
This is the first article I’ll be writing in a countdown of “The Top 10 Objections to Christianity Answered.”
I’ll give my answer in two categories:
1. Why God reveals Himself to us more subtly than we might like. 2. How God reveals Himself sufficiently for those who are willing to receive and love Him.
1. Why God reveals Himself to us more subtly than we might like.
Let’s consider “what if.” What if there was more proof?
a. If God bowled us over with evidence, it would negate love.
Imagine if God reveals Himself to the point that everyone “has to” believe in Him (if it would be possible). The problem with such a scenario is that there would be no love relationship with Him, it would be forced relationship.
The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard imagined a king who loved a humble maiden. He had all the power to force her to come to his palace, marry him and be crowned the queen. But that would not mean that she loved him. It would probably mean the opposite.
The king could easily overwhelm a cringing maiden. But that is not what he wanted. He wanted her love.
In a similar way, God wants our love. He has certainly displayed His power through creationand given plenty of evidence for belief, (see my points below). But most of all He wants us to love Him.
He wants us to say with the Apostle John “We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 KJV)
Love doesn’t come through pressure; it comes through desire.
b. Even if God revealed Himself more dramatically, many or most would still refuse to believe.
Some people seem to think that if God did a miracle, then they’d believe. Maybe they would. However, virtually no manner of miracle would convince those who refuse to believe and receive God’s love.
That’s exactly what happened when Jesus lived on earth. He did many amazing miracles. Yet most still didn’t believe. In fact, they eventually screamed for His crucifixion.
If God did miracles, some would think:
It’s an illusion
I must be hallucinating
Someone’s playing a trick on me
I mustn’t be hustled by a conman
For those who refuse to believe, virtually no amount of evidence will convince.
2. How God reveals Himself sufficiently for those who are willing to receive and love Him.
While it is true that some would refuse to believe no matter how much evidence is presented, there are others who will believe if given evidence. So, what is the evidence for God?
Here are some of the amazing ways God reveals Himself to us:
a. The existence of the universe.
The universe came from somewhere. It proves the existence of a Creator as expressed in the following bullet points:
Something exists.
You do not get something from nothing.
Therefore a necessary and eternal “something” exists.
The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator.
Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe.
Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.
b. The complexity of nature.
Not only does the universe exist, life is incredibly complex.
Lee Strobel converted from atheism to faith in Christ and gives this explanation:
“Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God’s existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.”
God reveals Himself through the obvious design of creation.
c. The remarkable character of God’s written revelation, the Bible.
I’ve written elsewhere some of the reasons we can love and trust the Bible.
Here are a few more reasons:
It is historically accurate
It covers beginning to end. The first words are “In the beginning God created.” (Genesis 1:1). The last book (Revelation) tells us of our eternal state.
It gives God’s moral standard—the foundation for our laws
It reveals Jesus, the answer to sin and death
d. The mind-blowing life of Jesus.
Jesus’ coming was foretold by amazing prophecy. Before Jesus was born there were 60 major prophecies written about the coming Savior. They were explicit and most were impossible to deliberately fulfill, such as the town of birth for the Messiah: Bethlehem.
Professor Peter W. Stoner wrote a book now available free online called Science Speaks. He did calculations to determine the chances of just eight of the sixty being fulfilled in any one person in all of history. He calculated that the chances that one person might fulfill eight of the prophecies is one in 10 to the seventeenth power. Written out that is the number 1 with 17 zeros behind it. Obviously, God did something.
The odds of any person fulfilling all 8 of these prophecies is the same as if you took the state of Texas and filled it two feet deep with silver dollars. Imagine if you then put a checkmark on one of them, threw it in and stirred the whole thing with bulldozers. If you then had a person blindfolded take one pick, the chance that he would pick the checked silver dollar is the same as anyone fulfilling just eight of the 60 prophecies.
God clearly identified Jesus as our Savior!
e. The resurrection of Jesus.
As noted in my article “Four Powerful Proofs Jesus Lives,” Thomas Arnold, Oxford University professor and author of the three-volume History of Rome stated: “I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence…than Christ died and rose again from the dead.”
Harvard law professor and author of A Treatise on the Law of Evidence Dr. Simon Greenleaf wrote: “All that Christianity asks of men is that they would be consistent with themselves; that they would treat its evidences as they treat the evidence of other things…the result will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability and truth.”
If we treat the evidence the same, we believe in the resurrection. God reveals Himself through it!
f. The impact of Christ on humanity.
The positive impact of Christ through Christians is off-the-charts. Study the book What if Jesus Had Never Been Born by D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe and you’ll see what I mean.
In summary, Christ’s impact spans:
Relief for the poor
Education
The value of human life
Prosperity many enjoy
The existence of the USA
Civil liberties
Science
Health and medicine
The arts and music
For more details, I wrote an article based on that book which you can see HERE.
g. The impact of Christ on individual lives.
Perhaps the most profound way God reveals Himself is when people open their lives to Him fully and He transforms them.
Some have been transformed dramatically. Mel Trotter (1870-1940) was an abusive alcoholic who swore he wouldn’t drink again after finding his only child dead one day. Yet two hours later he was drunk again. He even sold his shoes to buy a drink. Believing he was responsible for the death, he decided to end his life.
Drunk, broke and shoeless in the snow, he heard about the love of Jesus for sinners at The Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. He became a Christian there, gave up alcohol and went on to lead a rescue mission himself. Subsequently, he helped start 67 more missions. Jesus Christ has transformed thousands of alcoholics on skid row through his ministry.
Take away Jesus and you have the suicide of a miserable drunk.
With Jesus, you have a transformed life that helped multitudes!
For more wonderful stories and videos of lives remarkably changed by Jesus click HERE.
If you’re not a believer in Jesus, may I suggest a next move? Find out how to know God personally today through Jesus Christ, by clicking HERE!
If you’re not ready yet to surrender to God through Christ, then I have an alternative suggestion: a prayer. I suggest you pray honestly, “God, if you’re there, please reveal yourself to me.” If you pray that prayer honestly and seek Him, He will reveal Himself to you.
Additional resources about related subjects on this site:
3 Trees That Explain Suffering (a series of 3 articles)
Podcast: Where do dinosaurs fit in the Bible?
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