Is God Agnostic?
How Hard is it to Discern the True God?
I’ve realized how easy it might be to deceive humans. How can a finite creature recognize an infinite being? How could an “infinite being” even be certain that it was infinite?
I imagine that we moderns could do quite a good job of tricking an uncontacted tribe in the remote jungle that we were a new deity. For example, we could buzz their village with airplanes and have “mana” float down from the sky. We could “appear” in projections onto stage fog or enhance our presence with costumes and have our voices boom through loudspeakers. The effect could be further enhanced through micro-doses of drugs in the food we give or the smoke that wafts through their village. I am reminded of the Arthur C. Clarke quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” In fact, this kind of thing has already been documented in the Cargo Cults that sprang up among the Stone Age peoples who witnessed the technology of World War II -and this was all without us trying.
If the tribes of Polynesia mistook World War II tech for the power of the gods what is to say that us moderns could not ourselves be deceived by another civilization appearing on Earth with a comparative jump in technology? If we take the UFO phenomenon seriously this might already be happening. Craft that defies gravity, ignores the mediums of water and space, technology that can heal cancer and stop aging -all these things might capture our own imaginations and prompt our worship. What was the Fatima Event of 1917? Is our modern civilization itself a Cargo Cult?
From a more spiritual perspective if demons are real and Satan himself “masquerades as an angel of light” how can we discern a good angel from a bad angel just pretending to be good? Biblically we could argue that a good angel will refuse worship (“You must not do that! …Worship God.” Rev. 22:8) and that we can “know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:20) but these “demons in angels clothing” might be very hard to discern if they are subtle (Rev. 13). If humans are held accountable for being deceived by powerful signs enacted by fallen angels then we can conclude that God has given humans a powerful sense of spiritual discernment but does this same discernment give worship to the Old Testament God who deceives kings (Ex. 14:4), genocides nations (Deut. 20:16), and slaughters children (1 Sam. 15:3)?
Finally, if God is real how could even he be certain that there is not a being more powerful or holy than himself? In God’s great power he could be quite certain there was none before him and none greater but in his great power of imagination couldn’t he always imagine there was a being greater than himself and never be quite sure he was the Final God?
I find this line of thinking quite troublesome. It’s what leads me to be agnostic. It would seem to correctly discern the Omni-God one would need to be the Omni-God itself, and I don’t see how even an Omni-God could not entertain doubts that there could always be a power still greater than itself. I am willing to worship the Omni-God but how can I discern this being when I am so finite? For now, the wisest path seems to be to humility but ultimately withholding worship of any being because worshiping a false god seems worse than worshiping none at all.
Therefore this is my prayer:
God of Gods, if you exist, I pray to you.
If you are the most powerful but not the most good, I withhold my worship in hopes of one with both glories.
I recognize that I am dust and easily deceived, so how am I to recognize you when many come in your name saying “I am He”?
When I look at this world it seems more the work of a Demiurge or the apathy of the Deist’s god. If I am right to reject my creator when will you come to set things right?
Am I praying to the void? If we are all sparks of an ambivalent universe experiencing itself why this God shaped hole within me?
I do not understand. I would like to understand. I request help.
