Friday, April 18, 2014

#59 Invisibility

You may have heard someone say at some time that “God cannot exist because no one has ever seen God.” In this article I’m going to discuss invisibility and why that does not disprove God. In fact, God has to be invisible.

Let’s think about some things that are invisible. Just because something is invisible does not mean that it is not real.

In my Proof for God #45 on The Eye [1], I noted that our eyes cannot see any light outside of a rather narrow “visible spectrum”. The visible spectrum is only 1.5% of the whole range of light rays that exist. We cannot see most of the ultraviolet or infrared parts of the spectrum. There are some animals that can see things that we cannot see.


Some people have the ability to see auras, which are energy fields that most people cannot see. There are many discoveries in the field of Kirlian photography that show life/energy forms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Some people seem to have the ability to see and communicate with the spirits of the deceased which are invisible to the rest of us. I think most of us will admit that there are limitations to what our physical eyes can see and therefore being visible is not necessary to really exist.


There are lots of ordinary things that are very real but you can’t see them. How about a glass window? You can see very clearly right through it, but we know how solid it can be. There is even such a thing as bulletproof glass.


Air cannot be seen, but where would we be without air? However, if you have ever stood in a strong wind, you know it could blow you over. Wind can move huge ships and tornadoes cause tremendous destruction. That’s a very powerful force, but you can’t see it.



There are other amazing forces like gravity and magnetism that scientists don't know where they came from. They are invisible, but very powerful.

Other things you can’t see are carrying amazing amounts of intelligent information. Think about the radio and television signals all around you. If you tune into one of these invisible channels, you can get sounds and videos from possibly tens or hundreds of channels for music, news, or movies. All of that is somewhere in the air around you right now, simultaneously, but you can’t see it, touch it, taste it, hear it, or smell it in any way.

You probably have a smartphone that allows you to carry on an intelligent conversation with another being somewhere else on the planet. That person is invisible to you, but you don’t question whether he or she exists. Smartphones allow you to watch a movie or even live events like sports. Someday maybe someone will invent a “hotline” to God.


What about all the people in history? How can you be sure your great, great, great, great grandfather really existed? You've never seen him and neither has anyone else alive. You have to conclude that he must have existed because you exist. Otherwise you are the product of an immaculate conception some generations back.


Just because you may have never seen God, does that mean that no one else has ever seen God either? Hardly. That would be a pretty foolish thing to conclude. Most people have never seen God. But they obviously have not seen everything that could be seen. Millions, if not billions, of people claim to have experienced God and some insist they “saw” God in some form. Those who have had a “Near-Death Experience” often relate an experience like seeing God.


Testimonies of God are written down in every language all over the world and all throughout history. It’s pretty hard to discount all that evidence and call it categorically false just because no scientific experiment, based solely in the material world, can verify it. It doesn’t matter how intellectually brilliant a scientist may be if he/she is looking in the wrong place. To say that you know for sure there is no God is a staggering declaration that you know the truth beyond all these other people who must therefore be ignorant or deceived.     

Here’s something else that is invisible but still very real… ideas. They are very real and provide driving forces in people’s lives: freedom, truth, goodness, honesty. People are willing to give up their lives to gain freedom. Then there’s the greatest motivating force of all, love. It cannot be seen. You recognize it by its effects, by what is created by its power, and what lengths people will go to in order to possess it.


If God were visible, that would put physical limitations and boundaries on Him. Can we put boundaries around love and truth and freedom? Clearly not. By definition, God is the one who created the whole universe. He created time and space, and ideals. So He would necessarily be “beyond” or “outside” of time and space. Or maybe “throughout” is a better explanation. God should not be inhibited by having to be in one place. He needs to be in all places simultaneously and thus be available to every person who wants a relationship with Him. No matter where you go, you can have access to God. No matter who you are among all the people in the world, you can have access to God. If God is love, and support, and comfort, how wonderful for all of us.


Of course, if you believe God is mean and nasty or repulsive, then you don’t want that kind of God anywhere near you. That would be a horrible reality and you would fight against it. If God is more powerful than Santa Claus, then He can “see you when you’re sleeping and know when you’re awake.” If you do something wrong, then He can see you, judge you, and punish you. That needs to be revolted against, right?

God has to be real. Everywhere around us is the evidence. People have been experiencing God throughout history. All of nature is a testimony to God because we can’t even dream of how to duplicate such beauty and complexity.

In our lives, the most valuable things are not our worldly possessions, but are all the invisible and intangible things like love and freedom. It is impossible that those invisible things originated from rocks and chemicals by random accident.

There must be God.
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[1]  Proof for God #45 The Eye. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/11/45-eye.html 

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