This is a carryover from a dialogue that has been ongoing between me and an Atheist on another forum for about five years... Yes, five years and we are still going around in the same circles. I posted something about this about six months ago but I am back with a slightly different slant.
Synopsis: The issue at hand is that this Atheist thinks that God should communicate directly to everyone in the world (all 7.4 billion people) because that is “what he considers” the only credible method of communication. In his opinion, if God does not communicate directly to everyone, that is evidence that God does not exist. One of his premises is that a God would want everyone to believe in Him, and direct communication to everyone would be “the only way” to accomplish that.
My position is that God
wants everyone to believe in Him but God does not
need everyone to believe in Him because an omnipotent/omniscient/fully self-sufficient God does not need anything from anyone. If an omnipotent God needed everyone to believe in Him, He could have communicated directly to everyone. So, since God does not do that, there are only three logical possibilities to choose from:
- God uses Messengers, knowing that not everyone will believe in them.
- God does not communicate at all.
- God does not exist.
There is no option #4, that if God exists, God would communicate directly with everyone, because God has not communicated directly with everyone.
In other words, since there is no evidence that God has ever communicated directly to everyone we can assume that is not what God wants to do, if God exists.
Credibility is not the issue here, this issue is
the best way to communicate to accomplish what God is trying to accomplish.
Who would know the best way to communicate to humans in order to accomplish what God wants to accomplish, humans or God?