Why doesn't God physically reveal Himself?

Why doesn’t God physically reveal Himself??

William Lane Craig has an answer to that question: “Why doesn’t God physically reveal Himself?”

I also have an answer to that question which focuses more on the emotional part of that question.

Here it goes…

When we hear questions like that — “Why doesn’t God physically reveal Himself?” — we tend to forget that God has emotions too. He is not a robot.

(Please note that that question assumes that God exists. If you do not believe that God exists, then that question might not be of significant interest to you.)

As people with emotions, we do have an idea how much it hurts being rejected. We also have an idea how much more it hurts when the rejection happens so many times!

I’m going to tell a story of a scenario that might happen if God reveals himself physically all the time:

Let’s imagine for a while that we are able to create computer programs that can somewhat think like we humans think; and that these programs have a little bit of free will in them. Then someone from our world goes inside their world, the “virtual” world.

Let’s call that someone Juan.

Juan is very happy to meet these human-like-programs-with-a-little-bit-of-free-will in the virtual world – he wants to find out how they are doing.

When Juan arrives in the virtual world, he began teaching the human-like programs how things can be done “better” than how they are currently doing them. Some are happy that Juan is there; some are not. “What is this new program doing here. He thinks he is better at doing things than us?”. Then Juan claimed that he came from the world outside the virtual world, and that even if he is eliminated from the virtual world he can come back anytime he wants.

“Anytime you want? At your own will?”

Some are joyed by that. “Really? Wow!”

Some are skeptical. “There are lots of programs who disappeared before but came back later with more information and more functionality in them. How could you be any different than them?”

The skeptical ones want Juan to prove that he came from another world.

“Remember that difficult problem you had yesterday that I do not know how to solve? I can find someone from the outside world to solve that, then I will go back here with the solution.”

“Okay.”

So Juan went out from the virtual world into the human world. He told his human colleagues about a difficult problem they are having in the virtual world.

One of his colleagues, who is an expert in solving that kind of problem, taught Juan how to solve it. After a few days of learning, and after having all of his questions answered by the expert, he came back to the virtual world to help the programs solve the difficult problem they are having.

“Wow!”. Many human-like programs are amazed by what Juan did.

But the skeptics are still doubtful.

“We have another very difficult problem that we do not know how to solve.”

“Let me see… I do not know how to solve this too. I will go back to my world to ask my colleagues about this.”

“Okay.”

So Juan went out from the virtual world into the human world, again. He told his human colleagues about the very difficult problem they are having in the virtual world.

One of his colleagues, who is an expert in solving that kind of problem, taught Juan how to solve it. After a few days of learning, and after having all of his questions answered by the expert, he came back to the virtual world to help the programs solve the very difficult problem they are having.

“Wow!”. Many programs are amazed by what Juan did.

But the skeptics are still doubtful.

“We have a more difficult problem that we do not know how to solve.”

“I will go back to my world to ask my colleagues about this more difficult problem.”

“Okay.”

So Juan went out from the virtual world into the human world, the third time. He told his human colleagues about the more difficult problem they are having in the virtual world.

After a few days of learning how to solve the more difficult problem, and after having all of his questions answered by his colleagues, he came back to the virtual world to help the programs solve the more difficult problem they are having.

“Wow!”. Many programs are amazed by Juan solving the more difficult problem.

… After a thousand more visits…

… the skeptics are still doubtful.

“Wait… You there… I’m the one who programmed you.”

The ‘you there’ program is shocked. “The one I am skeptical of is the one who programmed me?”, he thought to himself. Well, Juan is a skeptic himself so it is just normal for him to teach his skepticism to the programs he had made.

I’m going to go out from this virtual world, then I’m going to eliminate you at exactly 4pm today, then start installing you back, with a little bit of extra functionality, at exactly 7pm. Would that prove to you that I’m from the outside world?

… 10 years later…

… the skeptics are still doubtful.

If that kind of rejection from the human-like programs happens to us over and over again, and we have control over those programs, what do you think will we do to those programs? Do you think we will continue communicating with them? Or will we just leave them alone? Or will we unplug from the power supply the hardware they are living in, then throw the hardware away?

What if the reason why God does not show himself physically all of the time is to minimize the hurt it will bring him, which also minimizes the hurt it will bring us and maximizes the time of our existence?

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