Right before his death in 1662, highly respected Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal penned a wonderful answer to the question: why doesn't God completely overwhelm us with His Presence and therefore eliminate all human doubt and unbelief? This extended quote is from Pascal's incomplete notes, on "Defense of the Christian Religion," which was published as a part of Pensées,a collection of his writings on religion and philosophy:

"When [the philosophers] gave us God as an object of study, it was only to exercise our pride and arrogance; they reminded us that we were like Him and of a similar nature. But they did not remind us of the other side, of the unpleasant truths regarding our sinful nature, our failure to fully trust in God. And other intellectuals, ignoring God's existence altogether, reminded us of our similarity to the beasts and sought our favor by giving us an excuse for our beastly behavior.

The cure for our misery and our misbehavior remains the same. It was God's gracious will to redeem us and to open the way of salvation to those who seek it. Also, God has granted us the right to choose against our own salvation- by our continued disbelief in God's grace and mercy. Humanity has shown itself so unworthy that, for the most part, it chooses against God- and therefore chooses against His one and only true Savior. It is right for God to allow some, for their hardness of heart, to fail to receive what He grants to others by a mercy they have not earned.

God has not appeared in a manner manifestly divine and absolutely capable of convincing everyone, but neither has His divinity been so hidden that He could not be recognized by those who sincerely sought Him. He wished to make Himself perfectly recognizable to these. His sheep will always hear his voice, and be attracted thereto.

Thus wishing to appear openly to all those who 'seek Him with all their heart' and remain hidden from those who shun Him, He has qualified our knowledge of Him by giving signs which can be seen by those who truly want to find and know Him and not by those who do not. There is enough light for those who desire to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition."

The eminent Anglican theologian John R.W. Stott put it this way: "Just as it is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to reveal Himself. True, he hides himself from the wise and clever, but only because they are proud and do not want to know Him; He reveals himself to 'babies', that is, to those humble enough to receive His self-disclosure ... The chief reason why people do not know God is not because He hides from them, but because they hide from him."

Dr. Colin Brown, a professor of mine at Fuller Theological Seminary, reminded us: "It is not a case of proving first and then believing. We cannot believe theological truths for non-theological reasons. Rather, it is only when we encounter the living God in faith that we are in a position to grasp the truth of Christian faith. God then enables us to see with spiritual eyes what we could not previously see. The spirit is able to understand what the mind of the flesh is unable to conceive." The Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostle Paul, no doubt inspired Dr. Brown's point: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned...But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:13-16)

Finally, as an addendum to the above-explained answer to the original question, I must remind the readers that scripture clearly indicates that God will in fact make Himself unambiguously evident at the end of the Age, when Jesus Christ returns in force and every eye sees and every tongue confesses that He is indeed the King of kings and Lord of lords. But why does He remain relatively hidden during this present Age? As others have suggested from the scriptural evidence, it could be that God is presently choosing His bride (although He has already chosen her before the foundation of the world), that He has been bringing to faith His elect out of the nations and beginning the process of separating the sheep from the goats. God is revealing to the world those who really want to believe in Him- and those who do not. By God's choice, this elect group of believers may turn out to be a small minority of human beings ("the chosen few").

Bottom line: None of us deserve this privilege of believing in God, of hearing and obeying His words as revealed in scripture; it is only by His amazing grace that any of us get it. Just because so many atheists and agnostics (and pretending Christians) choose to ignore the evidence, it will not stop me from trying to convince them of the truth. Perhaps God will work through me (and you) to help some lost sheep find their way back to the Shepherd of our souls.

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