(29 September 2023)
The purpose of this page is to talk about the notion of the hiddenness of God.
Well, folks, the first thing I should declare is that He's not hidden to me.
Let's begin with my essay on the topic:
Lord of the Rings, Carl Sagan, and the Hiddenness of God .
I think the reader should know who I am. I am a Christian essayist
and author of Christian speculative fiction (the purpose of which is to inform
the reader how to get saved and see the manifestations of Jesus in his or
her life). I am not an apologist. I am not against apologists or apologetics.
After all, the Apostle Paul was one of the premiere apologists of his day.
Now, if you want to penetrate beyond the veil of so-called hiddenness of God,
merely do what Jesus commands you to do. It works for me; it will work for you:
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:You see, dear reader, if Jesus manifests Himself to you, He can no longer be
and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and
will manifest myself to him. -- John 14:21
The next section has links to related videos about Divine Hiddenness. After that,
I made a reply to the video by apologist Frank Turek and former Christian
Jon Steingard.
Brandon, you shouldn't have to wait x number of years to get the first manifestations of God
in your life. I got them starting the first day, and ever since. Those who know and obey His
commandments get His manifestations [John 14:21]. So, what's the test for being sincere? It's
not just a feeling that you are. Rather, you have to both know and obey His commandments.
Divine Hiddenness (InspiringPhilosophy Response)
(28 October 2023) The introduction goes
like this: "Why does God hide? If God loves us and desires that none should perish, then why
is there unbelief? Why can't God make His existence known to all so all can know
the truth to decide to be saved or not?"
My reply to Paulogia:
My personal testimony is that Jesus has manifested Himself to me, so the promises
of God stand firm as true. If you want to know how that has worked for me, continue
to read what I have written about it. Finding God is easy, if you really are willing
to do whatever is necessary to find Him. It's all there in the New Testament for
you to read and then follow. (But don't let yourself get distracted by unbelievers or
by false believers.)
Paulogia is hung up on a "perfectly loving" God. I hate the superlatives used by
philosophers and apologist when they talk about God. God is everything the Bible
says He is. He isn't ever just one of these things to the exclusion of the others.
Maybe we should be talking instead about the "perfect" justice of God, in which case
He would be justified to show no mercy to any human. No one will get to heaven by
insisting that God has to be what they think He should be.
For the record, I will state ONE MORE TIME that I do NOT claim that God is
"perfectly loving," simply because I do NOT know what it's supposed to mean.
Each of us will be judged by God through Christ Jesus whether we like it or not,
whether we consider that "perfectly loving" or not. So, the smart thing to do
is to prepare for it.
These philosophical arguments seem to miss the point and weary the soul --- mine
at least get wearied of them. If you are only going to deal with God through the
mind, you will probably miss God. Jesus told us to worship God through the heart,
mind, soul, and strength. Through the heart can come the love of God shed abroad;
through the soul can come the Intuition of Truth as a godly source of discernment
of truth from error. These overlooked areas of the human psyche are the better
places to apprehend God with conviction.
I won't continue through to the end of the video, but I will end with this preaching:
If Jesus isn't your lord, he isn't your savior either. Jesus is worthy to be our lord.
Jesus Himself gave us a parable in which He claimed that most of the people He
preached to would not follow Him because they would not have that man (Jesus)
to rule over them. [Luke 19:14]
Well, folks, God is still at work today, and I'm the living proof of that.
When I first became a believer in he mid-70s, everything went well in my life
for a few years. But then, the old lusts, especially sexual lusts, came back with
a vengeance, and I found no relief from God or the gospel. I went for decades
as a backslidden person, lost in addiction to sex and porn. Then, in 2007, I was
reading the New Testament as research for one of my novels, and I noticed things
I hadn't noticed back in the 70s.
I noticed that there are many verses in the New Testament that guarantee the true
believer to have victory over the lusts of the flesh. I'll present them here:
Let me quote a passage from one of my fiction stories, in which the real Christian
Phaedrus, explains to the failed believers Joahan and Pasha (teenagers) the right
way to get the deliverance power of Jesus in one's life:
My Christian home page with links to my Ilfinor/Tristan fiction stories.
"Phaedrus, Ilfinor said that I could get freed of my desire to frennaq [masturbate].To the question Frank Turek poses of why God doesn't show up more, I respond that
But how is that possible?"
"I thought Ilfi told you how that is possible. You have to be a Christian and to
be all-in with Jesus, because no part-time believer should expect to get long-term
deliverance from sexual lust."
"Well, if that's true, that explains why it didn't work for me and for my friends,
like Johann."
Johann looked down, embarrassed.
"You're not going to argue with me, Johann?" asked Pasha.
"No. What they told us in Youth Group didn't work for me either."
"Was that a Christian youth group, guys?" asked Phaedrus.
"Yes, sir," said Johann.
"So, what was this big plan that didn't work?"
Pasha replied, "They told us to just not look at females when they are not pure
and decently dressed, and that would keep our eyes single, and therefore we'd
be totally free of sexual lust."
"But you found that your lust would bubble up even without looking at intriguing
females, guys?"
"Yes," said both of them.
"Guys, how many kinds of bean are in a nine-bean pottage?"
"You tell him, Johann. I can't count that high today."
"Nine."
"Then why do I always hear only one bean recipes for deliverance?"
"I don't follow you. Maybe that's because I'm not as smart as you."
"Maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe you have just been given the wrong
recipe for deliverance. It all starts with the promise.
Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. -- Galatians 5:16"Okay, that's the what to do; now the how to do it, guys. Listen up and pay
attention to the commands that we must all follow to ensure that we are
'in the Spirit' and thus will benefit from the Spirit of God delivering us:According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory
and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence,
1) add to your faith virtue;
2) and to virtue knowledge;
3) and to knowledge temperance;
4) and to temperance patience;
5) and to patience godliness;
6) and to godliness brotherly kindness;
7) and to brotherly kindness charity.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither
be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that
lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that
he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence
to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never
fall: -- 2 Peter 3-10How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour
that cometh from God only? -- John 5:44He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of
stumbling in him. -- 1 John 2:10But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean
unto you. -- Luke 11:41But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among
you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart,
this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father
is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world. -- James 1:22-27For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect
man, and able also to bridle the whole body. -- James 3:2He that doeth righteousness is righteous. -- 1 John 3:7
Are you kidding? God wants people to follow Him out of love from a pure heart.
The kind of irrefutable demonstration of His existence suggested would obviate that.
Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him, not if he believed He existed. Why do you think the
debate on the scientific evidence for young-vs-old earth goes back and forth and will
until Jesus returns? God left it ambiguous for a reason. He provided enough evidence
of young earth and intelligent design so that the believer can honestly say that God
did not us without witness of His existence [Acts 14:17] and the believability of the
Bible. Yet, he made the world with enough 'evidence' of old earth and support for
naturalism so that no skeptic would be forced to concede the existence of a creator,
and certainly not the Biblical creator. God rarely circumvents our individual free
will by forcing things in such a way as to remove human choice. You either believe
in personal free will or you don't.
God is not hidden to the person who will seek after Him through his heart.
Such a one will find God eventually. But God decided to hide Himself from the
insincere effort by making a universe that can to some degree be explained
without invoking Him. If God had wanted to force His existence on Mankind, He
could have made the earth flat (just as one example), but leave everything else in
the universe the same as it is now. This is the very way the religious flat-earthers
believe that it has to be to forced upon us the existence of God. But that is precisely
what God does not want to do. The earth is a sphere because He made all the
other planets as spheres, and all of them are explainable by naturalistic causes.
Turek's answer is similar to my own.
In mid-June of 2008, I was able to get to Jesus, but with a tremendous change
in status. This time, I woke up with no sexual desires at all, and my level of
interest in sex is and has been near zero this entire time, folks. This is a
miracle, and it's active continually, day after day.
So, how do I explain this? Simple, in the 70s, I backslid because I wasn't really
All-In with Jesus. I wasn't taking the commandments of Jesus across the board
seriously enough. Let me put it this way: The degree to which you are not getting
victory over the flesh and not getting the needed manifestations of God in your
life is directly proportional to the degree to which you have ignored, twisted,
or belittled the very verses of the New Testament that tell us how to get that
victory and those Jesus manifestations. And if you think about it, given that
the promises of God are contingent upon our obedience and cooperation with God
to do things His way, it's only logical!
For Jon Steingard to find God, with no doubts, he just needs to go back to the
New Testament to find those needful verses to which he has ignored, twisted, or
watered down, and decide to do them right this time. And it will work. It was Jon's
fault that he didn't succeed the first time, just as it was my fault that I didn't
succeed the first time. Start all over again, Jon, but this time do it right.
The Bibles says
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to GodPart of that diligent effort is to learn how God wants us to seek Him and serve Him.
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
-- Hebrews 11:6
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.And I bear record that many so-called believers who tried to zealously follow God,
-- Romans 10:2
As for this notion of 'feeling' God, I don't what Jon means. I know that there
are a lot of heretical teachings in the evangelical church these days. I would go
so far as to say that if you want to connect to Jesus, you should disconnect to the
modern evangelicals, who seek experiences and overbearing political power, but not
a true walk with Jesus.
For all these years since I was saved in June 2008, my life has been radically
changed on the inside. There's a new me on the inside. I see Jesus manifest Himself
in my life in many ways, including those significant 'coincidences' I live through.
But most of all, that my experience of lust is near zero in all those years. That's
how God has chosen to manifest Himself to me so far. But I cannot say that God
ever manifested Himself to me in any clear tangible manner. In any unambiguous
physical sense I don't 'feel God'. Perhaps it was just a bad word choice on Jon's
part, but I warn my readers not to expect physical sensations to go with being
truly saved.
As for this analogy between Jon and his sons and God and us, it can't be valid. If
you are going to find the reality of God in your life, you're going to have to worship
God (invisibly) in spirit and in truth, for God seeks those. Jesus, while on earth,
was God in the flesh, manifesting the godhead to everyone with eyes to see, yet the
multitude rejected Him, for they were not disposed to see God in Jesus (not that
they really wanted to see God anyway). They would not have that man to rule over
them (from a parable in Luke 19:14).
I can think of one reason that God does not manifest Himself more freely and brazenly
to the world of unbelievers: The more revelation God gives you of Himself, the more
accountable you are on Judgment Day for that revelation.
My final comment on Jon's decision to draw back from his ineffective 'belief system
in Jesus' and then to try to work his way beyond his doubts is correct! Jon, if you
ever read this, I say this to you: Don't give up. Read the scriptures I have provided
for all in this essay. Understand them. Obey them with all pureness of heart and
diligence of effort, and you will find Jesus. Just don't expect Him to be a
touchy-feely sort of fellow.
I hope to review later some other YouTube videos on this topic, Lord willing.
Remember this: The righteous are mindful of the poor and help them; the wicked do not! (Proverbs 29:7)
You either get control of your lusts and feelings of entitlements or they will
get control of you. -- Ilfinor