Theists: would you view the truth?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Would you not do as many on AF say and attribute any apparent miracles to mass delusions or extraterrestrials? Seems to me from my time here that any explanation, no matter how implausible, is preferred over divine intervention.

What would it take to convince you that you'd met an omniscient and omnipotent being?  Suppose I'm claiming to be God, what evidence would I need to provide you with for you to conclude that I am God?

Coming from anyone else I would have ignored this question.

You are not presenting your self-professed divinity to a skeptic but rather to a believer who already has established criteria for the reception of such claims. (I am here assuming that my encounter with you does not engender some kind of spiritual gnosis or theophany that removes all doubt. Which of course it hasn't.)

So in your case weighted against the 5W of Aquinas, it is immediately clear that as a limited and finite creature you satisfy none of the necessary and sufficient conditions of general revelation. Your being is not fully in act nor is your existence necessary nor is your being foundational to causation. (Don’t even begin to try comparing yourself to Christ in His Glorified State, because if you do then I would expect you to also present a compelling Christology, something I doubt you are remotely prepared to submit.)

All that said, that does not exclude you entirely from laying claim to other manifestations of the divine. In that case you would have to define your relationship to the God as either a minor deity, avatar, an angel or other holy host, or perhaps some kind of prophet. These types of special revelation are considered in the context of prior special revelation. Whatever message you present would be compared with Holy Scripture for continuity of the tradition. Your prophetic utterances, however cryptic, would be evaluated to confirm that they are not contradicted by the actual events and the events of your life would express the condition of the Word in our time. Whatever actions you perform would be compared with the express purposes found in prior revelations. And although it is not a requirement, the time, place and circumstances of your appearance could be relevant depending on the specifics of your claim. Having satisfied all the above criteria then I would be prepared to acknowledge that you were in some sense divine.

But of course, neither you nor any of the previous AF members presenting this juvenile objection in the form of a smart-ass schoolboy question meet any of those conditions. Unlike the stubborn incredulity of the typical atheist, I can at least say I am open to the possibility and armed with the tools to make an informed evaluation.