(July 18, 2015 at 9:59 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(July 18, 2015 at 9:45 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Scripture describes God as a hidden God. This means you have to make an effort of faith to find him, and there are clues you can follow. If that weren’t so, if there was something more or less than clues, we would not be free to make a choice about Him. If we had absolute proof instead of clues, then we could no more deny God than we could deny the sun. If we had no evidence at all, you could never get to faith. God gives us just enough evidence so that those who want Him can have while those that don’t want Him are not forced to do so. Those who want to follow the clues will.
The Bible says, Seek and ye shall find.” It does not say that everybody will find Him; it doesn’t say that nobody will find him. Some will find him. Who? Those who seek. Those whose hearts are set on finding Him and who follow the clues.
The evidence that God has established has been finely tuned to allow you to find it without overwhelming your free will and coercion.
That, incidentally, is my second problem, because I don't think just pointing to the carrot and stick serves the believer particularly well in this case. Randy, I've seen you talk about god's inherently good nature, I presume that you have some other reason for being a christian than your fear of hell and desire for heaven? You must, surely, be a member of your religion for a reason other than that, yes? Would not presenting that case, in the light of the sure fact that it finds its source in an objectively real being, be sufficient to convince anyone else? If we knew that god was real, wouldn't his views be sufficiently convincing to get us on his side?
And now I"M jumping ahead...
But I couldn't help responding to that last bit quickly.
My response is this: Yeah, if you actually sat down and read the Catechism cover to cover, I don't think you could help coming away from it being impressed. It's been underdevelopment for 2,000 years, and its been finely tuned by some of the most brilliant minds that ever walked the planet.
Catholicism is not some little 30-member store-front church, Esq. For all its weaknesses splashed across the front pages of the daily newspapers, its answers to the questions men ask - about life, death, ourselves and God - are pretty solid.
