Why does God need books?

[Glaurung]

Why does God need books (or other written text) to spread his word? Seems like an incredibly inefficient means for an all powerful being. Surely an all wise and all powerful God could have come up with something better. I mean such things as sacred text and oral tradition, that is so crude and clumsy it seems more like something people would come up with.

This assumes that having as many people believe as possible is God's design. Sure, God could rip open the very fabric of physical reality and descend from heaven with legions of angels at His side and tell us His will. That would almost certainly bring all but the most determined (to the point of being deranged) non-believer to belief. But for God to impose Himself so directly would probably be catastrophic for the flow of human history. At the very least it would force us to faith when the Gospel is meant to be an offer. Faith itself is a gift, not an imposition.

My faith teaches that the knowledge of God is implanted within the human soul. God isn't hidden for those who genuinely want to find Him. But it takes humility and a lot of prayer.

 

[InChrist]

Or maybe language is not that important. I mean how would you know?

Besides, language and words communicate concrete meaning; statements about things, historical accounts, revelations, instructions, etc. A painting or music could mean various things to different people (especially abstract), but language is more precise, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.

 

[youknowme]

People don't "invent" an all powerful God. It's just not something self-centered humans would come up with.

It is exactly the type of thing self-centered humans (created in his image) would come up with. Why do you think God is a "he"?

 

[osgart]

Ok so God is supremely powerful but not allmighty.

Because we would be perfect creatures by now and sin would be a total snapoff gone.

 

[InChrist]

It is exactly the type of thing self-centered humans (created in his image) would come up with. Why do you think God is a "he"?

I don't think God is a he, it is just the pronoun used in the Bible. God is Spirit.

 

[osgart]

Or God chooses not to supremely perfect his creatures instantly in the most peaceful and bounteous of ways because we would go insane if done that way. But even that is a power God has. To make us perfect in perfect peace.

Or maybe Gods justice demands suffering over long periods of time for our sins. So God withholds his power for the sake of his justice.

 

[George-ananda]

Why does God need books (or other written text) to spread his word? Seems like an incredibly inefficient means for an all powerful being. Surely an all wise and all powerful God could have come up with something better. I mean such things as sacred text and oral tradition, that is so crude and clumsy it seems more like something people would come up with.

Right, so If you quiet your mind and look inside the mystery is solved there. In the meantime we need words and I find modern words from say Eckhart Tolle, Neil Donald Walsh and etcetera better than the Bible and Quran for a modern person.

 

[Workman]

Why does God need books (or other written text) to spread his word? Seems like an incredibly inefficient means for an all powerful being. Surely an all wise and all powerful God could have come up with something better. I mean such things as sacred text and oral tradition, that is so crude and clumsy it seems more like something people would come up with.

The ‘Book’ is for those whom ‘Fail’

 

[Tumah]

Why does God need books (or other written text) to spread his word? Seems like an incredibly inefficient means for an all powerful being. Surely an all wise and all powerful God could have come up with something better. I mean such things as sacred text and oral tradition, that is so crude and clumsy it seems more like something people would come up with.

Seems to be working fine for us.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Why does God need books (or other written text) to spread his word? Seems like an incredibly inefficient means for an all powerful being. Surely an all wise and all powerful God could have come up with something better. I mean such things as sacred text and oral tradition, that is so crude and clumsy it seems more like something people would come up with.

Wrong question to ask.

God does not need anything. In some distant galaxy I’m sure God creates and destroys all the time so I’m sure something as insignificant as books is way beneath the Creator. The significance of books is in relation to the primitive nature of humankind. Since we communicate through verbal and non-verbal ways, written language is a way we can communicate with each other and pass down knowledge to generations.

We are not at a level where we can telepathically communicate our thoughts to each other instantaneously so therefore we settle for books and written messages.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Seems to be working fine for us.

“Some” of us.

 

[Workman]

“Some” of us.

Few of us

 

[Tumah]

“Some” of us.

You're not "us".

 

[Trailblazer]

Few of us

If God had never used Messengers (Prophets) who reveal scriptures, hardly anyone would believe in God because the main reason people believe in God is because of those scriptures. 84 percent of the world population has a faith and those faiths all have scriptures. So obviously, it is more than a few of us, it is most of us.

 

[Workman]

If God had never used Messengers (Prophets) who reveal scriptures, hardly anyone would believe in God because the main reason people believe in God is because of those scriptures. 84 percent of the world population has a faith and those faiths all have scriptures. So obviously, it is more than a few of us, it is most of us.

Obviously everyone has faith in themselves, but question is does one have faith in their heart? Nope! Everyone has a problem expressing their love to a friend or to a stranger(homeless). Can you see where faith is muddled?

 

[Trailblazer]

Obviously everyone has faith in themselves, but question is does one have faith in their heart? Nope! Everyone has a problem expressing their love to a friend or to a stranger(homeless). Can you see where faith is muddled?

Not everyone has faith in themselves, and some people have no problem expressing their love to friends and strangers.
I am not sure what you mean. How is faith muddled?

 

[loverofhumanity]

All powerful means all powerful. That means God could make us fully understand without books or the like regardless of the limits of humans.

I am just going to keep repeating this until it sinks in. . .

Of course He could have but He chose not to.

Why?

 

[Workman]

Not everyone has faith in themselves, and some people have no problem expressing their love to friends and strangers.
I am not sure what you mean. How is faith muddled?

No that’s where your wrong faith can come in different certain ways, today we have a lot of people having too much faith in themselves, becoming their ego or such! If that’s what I see in most that are in this forum then what’s of the whole world we live in? The book teaches on how to have faith through your heart! And that’s what lacks in today’s world!

 

[Workman]

I am not sure what you mean. How is faith muddled?

Science muddles your faith, it is why you one cannot believe with having facts or objectives

 

[Trailblazer]

Of course He could have but He chose not to.

Why?

Please excuse the interruption, but Baha'u'llah explained why:

“He Who is the Day Spring of Truth is, no doubt, fully capable of rescuing from such remoteness wayward souls and of causing them to draw nigh unto His court and attain His Presence.“If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen…”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 70-71