A god that can do anything could communicate with humans directly or via a messenger. Neither possibility creates any sort of logical contradiction.
True.
So what's the "good reason?" That really dictates what actions would be reasonable on the part of God.
The good reason is that God cares about humans and has information it wants to convey that are beneficial to humans.
Different forms of communication would be more or less effective at achieving a given goal, so the specifics of what God's goal is would determine which forms of communication would be reasonable.
Absolutely, it would depend upon the goal, what and how much God was trying to communicate.
Yes (to the extent that "reasonable" is the right term to describe a scenario with some very unreasonable assumptions, e.g.an omnipotent and omniscient god).
That is kind of an oxymoron.
What is unreasonable about an omnipotent and omniscient God?
More likely he'd be a false, poorly-thought-out god-concept, but if we're operating from the assumption that God is real and uses messengers to communicate with humanity, then yes: we'd need to explain the apparent flaws in his communication scheme in a way that makes those flaws deliberate. Since the method lends itself to miscommunication and confusion, miscommunication and confusion must be part of God's goal.
It is not necessarily a flaw in God’s communication method, it is just inherent in that kind of communication because of flaws in humans. It is not that God deliberately miscommunicated; it is that humans failed to understand the communication and humans got confused. That does not mean this was God’s goal, only that it was unavoidable.
Why would it be any different if God whispered in the ears of every human being on earth? They could still misunderstand and get confused, and they would not be able to go and read what was written down as is the case with scriptures that can be studied in order to understand them.
I think "trickster-god" is a fair description of a God who sets out to achieve these goals.
Why do you think those are God’s goals, to miscommunicate and confuse people? That does not make any sense unless the God is malicious.
If God was interested in communicating clearly and effectively, he wouldn't do it through intermediaries.
You set up the hypothetical scenario with only two options. I picked the most reasonable option of the two. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's the most reasonable option possible.
So you are saying that direct communication to everyone is more reasonable than messengers?
I want to know what would work
better than intermediaries and I want to know
why it would work better.
“How do you know that anyone/everyone could understand God communicating to them and how do you know that communication would be clear and effective?”
I know because you told me. You made it a given in the scenario.
You said that this God is omnipotent and omniscient. This means that God is capable of communicating directly from humanity and knows how to do it clearly and effectively.
No, it does not mean that, you just
assume it means that. Just because God is omnipotent and omniscient that does not mean humans are capable of understanding direct communication from God.
All of them are leading questions with built-in unsupported assumptions, so all of them qualify as trick questions, IMO.
The questions make no assumptions; they are just questions, silly ones as I said. I was in the mood for some more silly questions.
Which ones are trick questions depends upon what I meant by “trick questions.”