ÿþ<table border="1" cellspacing="150" cellpadding="50" align=""> <tr> <td> <font face=arial size=3> <b>Gone with the Wind</b><br> <font size=1 face=arial>Occasionally updated and edited. Copyright &copy; 2011<hr> Kenn Gividen | <a href="http://www.kenngividen.com">KennGividen.com</a> <br><br></font size=1> <font size=2 face=arial> <img src="http://kenngividen.com/pic/kenn" border="1" width="100" hspace="10" align="left">The invisibility of God is consistent with non-existence. How does one answer that? How does one refute the conclusion that God cannot be sensed because he does not exist? <br><br> Simple: He is assigned the attribute of transcendence. <br><br> A transcendent God, one who transcends nature, is necessarily invisible. His existence cannot be visually sensed. He is also inaudible. He cannot be audibly sensed. God cannot be detected by any natural senses. Consquently we could refer to God as <i><font face=times>insensible</i></font face=times> rather than merely <i><font face=times>invisible. </i></font face=times><br><br> How, then, do we know God exists?<br><br> The answer is found, they say, in the third chapter of John. A prominent Jewish citizen, Nicodemus, approached Jesus with a similar question. Jesus responded by using wind as an analogy: While the wind, itself, cannot be seen, its effects can be seen.<br><br> There are problems with that analogy.<br><br> First, the effects of the wind can be sensed. The effects of God can be surmised, but not sensed. We can see the effects of wind; we can also feel it. It is abundantly verifiable. All one needs do is peer through a window or take a step outdoors. We cannot verifiably sense the effects of God. He does not cause the leaves to rustle, we cannot feel his presence 'blowing' upon our skin; there is no verifiable witness of God's effect on anything or anyone.<br><br> Second, wind is a physical phenomenal cause that produces physical phenomenal effects. God, in theory, is a spiritual phenomenal cause that produces spiritual phenomenal effects. <br><br> The physical cannot sense the spiritual.<br><br> <img src="http://kenngividen.com/001/gonewith01" border="0" hspace="10" align="right" width="25%">Jesus made that assertion when he said, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Virtually all of those listening to Jesus had physical ears. Jesus was obviously referring to <i><font face=times>spiritual </i></font face=times>ears. (See Matthew 11:15.) The Apostle Paul said much the same. The "things of the Spirit of God" are "spiritually discerned." (See I Corinthians 2:14).<br><br> That which is spiritual cannot be physically recognized. How, then, do we know it exists? <br><br> Jesus answered this question when speaking with Nicodemus. As those once born physically can sense that which is physical, those born spiritually can sense that which is spiritual. "Except a man be born again," he said, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." To sense the spiritual kingdom of God one must have experienced a spiritual birth. Apart from the spiritual birth and subsequent spirit life one cannot have 'ears to hear,' one cannot discern 'things of the Spirit of God,' and one cannot 'see the kingdom of heaven.'<br><br> Spiritual birth, then, precedes spiritual understanding, discernment or sensitivity. <br><br> A persistent problem is the eternal loop. Spiritual understanding necessarily precedes spiritual birth and spiritual birth necessarily precedes spiritual understanding. One cannot be spiritually born without first comprehending spiritual matters. Yet, as Paul and Jesus explained, spiritual comprehension is unavailable until after spiritual birth. <br><br> Third, if the physical cannot comprehend the spiritual it would follow that the spiritual cannot affect the physical. <br><br> The Bible, of course, is chuck full of exceptions. The spiritual affecting the physical begins with the very first verse of Genesis in which the existence of the physical universe is attributed to a spiritual being, God. God repeatedly interjected himself into the physical sphere throughout the Bible. The miracles of Jesus and, later, the apostles serve as evidence that the spiritual can affect the physical. <br><br> The spiritual affecting the physical is neither logical nor observable. It is frequently presumed and inferred, but it is never verified. One would think that millions of prayers offered daily by millions of believers would produce at least one substantial, irrefutable miracle. None to date have been forthcoming. <br><br> The famed Chinese evangelist and author, Watchman Nee, attempted to explain how God could pop in and out of the physical realm, being detectable only when He popped in; never when he popped out. <br><br> Nee presented a sheet of paper and a pencil. Stick people drawn on the paper could not sense the existence of pencil. Nee then punctured the paper with the pencil. As long as the pencil penetrated the paper, it was within the observable realm of the stick people. <br><br> Nee's punctured-paper illustration defies the biblical concept of an omnipresent God. That is, God does not exist where punctured, but He exist everywhere all the time. Evangelicals believe God never leaves nor forsakes them. Some believe God is in ultimate control all the time which roils the waters of the free will concept. Others believe God merely exerts himself as providence requires. Both can't be true, as attested in the never-ending debate between Calvinists and Armenians.<br><br> Eventually we come to realize that God is not only insensible, his existence is nonsensical. That it, his existence not only fails to jive with the natural senses, it also fails to be rational. <br><br> The conclusion is that humans invented god concepts as coping mechanisms. The bedeviled details of explaining his insensibility and the necessary divergent and contradictory components of his nature are loose ends that transcend finite human understanding, even when fortified with new birth spiritual insight. God, therefore, will forever remain insensible and irrational. <br><br><hr> -- August 19, 2011