Problem: In the Kyle Butt/Dan Barker debate, Dan Barker alleged that He “knows” the God of the Bible cannot exist because “there are mutually incompatible properties/characteristics of the God that’s in this book [the Bible—EL] that rule out the possibility of His existence” (2009). One of the supposed contradictions that Barker mentioned was that God claims invisibility, yet has been seen. (His assertion is found 10 minutes and 55 seconds into his first speech.) Since biblical passages such as Exodus 33:20-23, John 1:18, and 1 John 4:12 teach that God cannot be seen, while other scriptures indicate that man has seen God and spoken to him “face to face” (Exodus 33:11; Genesis 32:30), allegedly “the God of the Bible does not exist.
Continue reading →
Problem: Throughout the Bible, we see conflicting messages on the visibility of God. On the one hand, God appeared to Abraham (Gen. 17:1; 18:1) and Moses (Ex. 6:2-3). In fact, Moses recorded that the elders “saw the God of Israel” (Ex. 24:10). However, in this passage, Paul says that God is “invisible” (1 Tim. 1:17), and at the end of this letter, Paul writes that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16). God told Moses that “no man can see me and live” (Ex. 33:20), and John wrote, “No one has seen God at any time” (Jn. 1:18; c.f. 5:37; 6:46). Critics argue that the Bible seems to be offering a clear contradiction on the visibility of God.
