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Thinking God's Thoughts After Him. T1

(Text as at 28/08/2007 14:51:22)

(For earlier versions of this Note, see the table at the end)

This is an interesting and difficult set of question to answer. The questions themselves requires a bit of motivation, which I’ll attempt to supply in the absence of anything specific from the questioner! Then I’ll attempt to answer the questions one at a time.

Firstly, what is the point of these questions? I think the intention is to ask what we would expect to find if God exists and had the intentions the Bible (on the Evangelical and many other interpretations) represents him as having. That is, if I dislike what are alleged to be God’s means of revelation (and, possibly, plan of salvation), did God have any alternatives that avoid these objections and which would have been consistent with his aims? Not that I would expect God to organise himself around my foibles, but the assumption at this point of the argument (adopted “for the sake of the argument”) is that there’s something counter-intuitive about the Biblical revelation and / or the divine plan that requires defence. And this defence is that there was no obvious alternative that God had, or at least none that would not be open to even greater objections.

Now to the questions themselves. Follow the hyperlinks for responses:

1. How would I have made sure all humans believed¹ I existed?
2. How would I make known to them what I was like²?
3. How would I have revealed my overall plan³ to them?
4. If I had become human⁴, how would I have made it clear to everyone I was God?