There are only one hundred days until Christmas and I can wait. This is not because I do not love Christmas, but because I do. Christmas is coming, the holiday will happen, and all of it is coming soon!
I was never tempted to peek at my Christmas presents. My parents told me where they were, more or less, and my greatest fear was spoiling the surprise. Perhaps this is why I have never understood certain objections to God’s “hiding.”
We see God’s fingerprints in nature, His work in our spirit, and confirmation of God’s work through philosophical arguments. Why isn’t God more obvious? Since most people have had, have, and will have little difficulty in believing in God, this is an odd objection, but it bothers some people.
God’s existence is obvious enough to most of humanity, but can be rationally doubted. The down-side of this is spoken of frequently, but the up-side is forgotten. My guess (based on evidence) is that I will receive Madden 2016 for Christmas. I hope I receive this game, given the evidence I will receive the game, but perhaps not. Hope might forget. They might run out at the store. She might read this and think that I am too certain and miss a year to make next year better. (Please do not do this, Hope!) The very uncertainty (however slight) whets my desire for Christmas and the game. Of course, I could simply buy it myself right now, but what is the fun of that?
Pleasures put off yet anticipated are all the sweeter when they come.
But isn’t a lack of faith in God damnable? Anticipating Christmas would not be as fun if failure to believe in the magic of Christmas sent a person to eternal hell! Yet there is no reason to think that merely failing to believe is why anyone will go to Hell.
Suppose there is a “God-blind” atheist who through some defect in reasoning capacity cannot see what most human beings can see. He is absolutely sincere in his commitment to the truth, but what persuades most fails to persuade him.
Why think that this will damn him?
We do not know what happens at the moment of death . . . though near death experiences are suggestive. There is every possibility that assuming the sole reason for a lack of saving belief was a “god-blindness” or the sincere perception of a lack of evidence, that God would provide such evidence before death. The Divinity need not mess up the school for souls that is this life by spoiling the surprise for the rest of us if he merely intervenes before the soul of the unbeliever is fixed at the point of death.
Of course, as CS Lewis shows in That Hideous Strength, even with stronger evidence, some souls might resist God. That is a freedom God has given us and Hell is the place we must go if we will go there. If a man refuses against all reason to follow the evidence where it leads, then God will allow him to remain in ignorance.
Of course, the point of this little excursion is not to persuade a present atheist, but to point out that for most of us God is not “hidden” in one sense of “hiding” and is only hidden in a wonderful way. We anticipate His coming, yet we can wait. Life is sweet and though someday life will be sweeter, there is still the next bit of time to go.
We have one hundred days until Christmas and Christ’s coming and I plan on enjoying every one. Inevitably, He will come and the countdown will end, all surprises will be revealed, and a new and better joy will begin. What adventures we will have there, what growth, what forward progress, God knows.
I can wait, but it is getting harder every year!
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