Why is God invisible?
Practically speaking, “God” is a concept. Conceptually, “God”, in its Essence, is beyond physical incarnation, beyond mental conception.
But is there a philosophical wisdom in the “invisibility” of God?
Free will and faith are central to the answer to this question.
Free will denotes a choice – an effort, or volition, to move in a chosen direction.
Faith is a choice, although some feel so compelled to believe that they feel as if there is no choice. But faith comes from within.
To choose to cultivate divine virtue and to suppress selfish ego – this is an act of faith, and the cultivation of faith and the development of divine attributes are essential for our spiritual development.
Some argue that if the existence and presence of God was more obvious for all, few would need to decide to cultivate virtues such as faith, few would have the opportunity to exercise free will in choosing to develop divine attributes. And the exercise of willfully choosing to cultivate faith and virtue is the purpose of our existence.
Today’s musings brought to you by the book The Eternal Quest for God.
9 comments
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Theo H. Miller
July 8, 2011 at 10:46 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I have pondered the answer. There are a few cclear answers: ;God considers the feelings of everyone and does not test them” beyoud their ability” to (paraphase) their ability to withstand shock; you are in front of a firing squad, you are looking down a 30 story elevator shaft, you see your girl in a secluded restrant wither another man, you hear a disemboided voice in the daytime say “watch out!”, or how often do you see your CEO, how would you delagate athority if a hundred worlds like our own sere populated, how would the daily appearence of the CEO affect the authority of lower management or who answeres your prayerswhat happened to the millions of souls in the afterlife (speculative from the earthly plane only, noone has returned from the invisable world) are they organized if so who is the CEO, if God is ONE how does He delagate authority. I think that you would choose to be invisable.
buggaby
July 8, 2011 at 3:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Maybe it’s like how a fish can’t see the water in which it is swimming. From evolution, it makes sense that many of the ways we see the world is influenced by our immediate surroundings. But as we grow spiritually, we have to see the same reality through “a new eye, a new ear, a new heart and a new mind” (c.f. Baha’u'llah, Gleanings p 284). And that, perhaps, is where the volition comes in.
Maya Bohnhoff
July 11, 2011 at 2:03 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think the fish in water metaphor is apropos. Something I realized as I was discussing the terminology of evolution with some friends is that we’re in the anomalous position of studying our own intelligence using our own intelligence. The “water” in this case is human intelligence. We are immersed in it, which makes it singularly difficult for us to “see” it clearly. It is, in many ways, “Invisible” to us. It is also what makes us “supernatural”—capable of bending the laws of nature, capable of “living in our heads”, and it is THAT capacity, not our sight or hearing or sense that makes us capable of “seeing” the Invisible.
Anonymous
July 8, 2011 at 4:14 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great comments
thanks
Steven
July 12, 2011 at 4:33 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Existence is bigger than a realm where God is invisible. Consider the “next world”. There God is far far more “visible” and we have far less in the sense of free will.
There is in fact more than one thing going on.
Maya Bohnhoff
July 13, 2011 at 11:08 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Reminds me of the story “Flatlanders”. If you’re a one dimensional creature, it’s hard to grasp that what looks like a point is actually part of a much greater structure called an “arc” that only exists in two-dimensional space. Our one-dimensional flatlanders would be as challenged to imagine something greater than a point as we are challenged to imagine something greater than ourselves.
Anonymous
September 19, 2012 at 2:39 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Of course, the most logical and more obvious answer is that god does not exists. I have a feeling though, people want the answer to be something else for their own selfish reason – ‘there ‘as to be something else’, ‘what is the is the purpose of life if its so short,” “I want to live forever” etc – all which are meaningless and do not carry any burden or evidence. Basically people just guess and say whatever they want to be true. This is the reason why science was invented – it was a necessity to move Man further than the dim light at the end of the cave. Still, people do like to peer back…
Maya Bohnhoff
September 20, 2012 at 9:00 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Why is that the most logical answer? You might find logical the obvious idea that oxygen, being invisible, does not exist. But you’d be hard-pressed to exist yourself without it because your system requires it.
I think we are in that same position with God. Krishna says that He pervades and upholds the entire universe. Think of the oxygen analogy. The swiftest means of you recognizing its existence would be its sudden removal. If the intelligence and spirit of God is pervasive, we who breathe in that intellect and partake of it, would find proof of its existence in the instant of its removal.
Fortunately for us, God isn’t going anywhere and He can be seen in everything to some degree, but most clearly and vividly and completely in the intellect of a human being which, as Baha’u'llah puts it, wears the robe of such gifts as the rational faculty that allows us—alone of all animals on the planet—to have this discussion about the existence of the invisible.
Bahram
September 19, 2012 at 5:42 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Another logical answer may be that God is infinte, hence us finite beings cannot really see the essence of the God, the infinte; any conception of God in our minds will never do justice to that Reality. However, we can see His signs, signs of his attributes in every atom of the universe.
To me there are two possibilities for our existence, one is that the universe came out of absolute nothingness, or that there is an infinite “Uncaused Cause” that has created this universe. I personally think the latter is more likely.
William Hatcher, supposedly made a very good case that there has to be an “Uncaused Cause” based only on one assumption and that is that something exists. The proof is beyond me, so I cannot say if his proof is sound.