I don’t think most people intend it this way when they ask
it, but this question seems to have a lot of potential to be kind of a trap
question. There are basically two ways you can answer; general or specific. If
you just answer in general terms, like saying “anything that meets the normal
standards of evidence,” then you can be accused of not answering the question
(example here;
sorry for the language, I was rather salty at the time). On the other hand, if
you say something specific, like, “if all the stars rearranged themselves to
say “God exists!” and people got it on video, and each area saw the message in
their own language,” then the person who asked the question might get on your
case for making a scenario that you know is never gonna happen. (Just to be
clear, I’m not saying that every
religious person would act this way, but I think there is a real potential for
it.)
So, answering the question can be tricky, but I don’t even
think answering it should be necessary. I think the very fact that the question
needs to be asked is a mild type of evidence against the existence of God.
Imagine if somebody asked you, “what would it take to convince you that the sun
exists?” Well, not much, really. All I have to do is look at it (but only
briefly, because if I look at it for too long, I’ll go blind, and that doesn’t
seem likely to happen if the sun doesn’t even exist). If God really were real,
would it seriously be so hard to figure out which purely-abstract arguments or
easily-reinterpreted evidence would convince us? To me, all the theories about
“divine hiddenness,” and debates between continuationists and cessationists,
are just attempts to rationalize the very clear fact that God’s presence just
isn’t readily apparent in our world, the way it purports to be in the stories
of scripture.
So I think the question shouldn’t even need to be asked, but
it also shouldn’t need to be answered (and if you think that’s just me dodging
the question, then you’re not listening to what I’m saying). Because, here’s
the real kicker. I don’t need to know what would convince me that God exists,
because if a god who really is all-knowing does exist, then he (or it) will know
exactly what it would take to
convince me that he exists. If he’s all-powerful, then he will be able to make
it happen, and if he loves me, then he will want it to happen. In a way, then,
it’s almost a parallel to the Problem of Evil. If God exists and knows everything,
then he not only knows what it would take to convince me, he also knows that I want to be convinced (because I prefer
to believe true things, and spending eternity in paradise wouldn’t be a bad
deal either). So if he knows what it would take to convince me, he knows I want
to be convinced, and he wants me to be convinced (which I grant wouldn’t be the
case if the Calvinists are right, and I’m just not one of the Elect), then why
haven’t I been convinced?
At present, I believe the best explanation is that such a
god simply doesn’t exist.
