What Would Atheists Do If God Appeared To Them?

One of atheism’s most oft unitized complaints and arguments against God is that He could simply appear to us and that would end all argument pertaining to His existence. However, there appears to be numerous problems with this argument.

The presupposition is that if God appeared to us, individually or worldwide, we would instantly accept that He has done so, and that the experience would cause us to adore Him. If an atheist experienced an appearance of God they may actually deny the experience and even rebel against the God whom they had just met.

They may deny the experience by claiming that it could have been a hallucination (or perhaps aliens were attempting to manipulate human beings).
Prof. Richard Dawkins wrote:

“If I saw a man levitating himself, before rejecting the whole of physics I would suspect that I was the victim of a hallucination or a conjuring trick.”[1]

Certainly, it could be a trick and one aught to investigate but it is fascinating that his reaction to being an eyewitness to something that violates his world-view, that violates absolute materialism, would be to prefer the explanation of it being a hallucination.
Moreover, people generally presuppose that upon meeting God, they would love and worship Him. Not so, imagine an atheist who has spent a lifetime of denying God in deed, thought and word. They have honed not only their arguments against God’s existence but have also argued that if God does exist then his character is neglectful and evil. In such a case a person may very well accept, love and worship God but they may also be repulsed by Him. This is because an exposure to God would likewise expose the sin in us and may cause us to rebel against God’s goodness and justice. But being confronted with the very being whom you blame for all of life’s ills, evils and neglects it may, in extreme cases, even cause people to want to murder God, to beat Him, spit in His face and subject Him to a public, painful and humiliating death.

Jesus taught:

“And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices truth comes to the Light so that his works may be revealed, that they exist, having been worked in God” (John 3:19-21).

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote the following regarding the death of God in his “Parable of the Madman”:

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Thus, if God appeared to every human on Earth the situation would be just as it now is: some would believe and worship, some would rebel, and some would deny. In Atheism’s Circular Logic we have discussed atheist’s opinions about people who claim to have had encounters with God.

What if God appeared to an individual atheist? The atheist could tell others that God has appeared and could begin spreading the word. But the results would be just as they are today: some would believe and some would not. People would ask for proofs and raise objections. The atheist could write a book that explains his experience with God and may even quote what God said. Yet, again the same problems of doubt would arise.

Another problem with the request that God appear to us is the concept of freewill. If God appeared worldwide it would hinder the free will choice to believe in Him. In this case the atheist might object that God has forced us to believe.

Some may recall the custody battle over Elian Gonzales. This boy’s father was in Cuba and his mother in Florida. An interesting story came out about life under Fidel Castro’s Cuba that could serve as a useful illustration here. A story was told about government men showing up at the schools and going into the classrooms. They told the children to close their eyes and pray to God for candy. They were then told to open their eyes and found nothing. They were then told to close their eyes and to pray to Castro. When they were told to open their eyes they found candy before them. This deceptive exercise was meant to bend the will of the children away form God and toward Castro’s authority. The point is that since to a child candy is riches, in a manner of speaking, their freewill was being taken away. They were being manipulated into accepting something based upon the promise of reward—allegiance to Castro equaled joy and lack thereof equaled disappointment.
If God were to appear to a sane and rational person it would, in a manner of speaking, take away their freewill choice—allegiance to God would equal the bliss of salvation and lack thereof would equal damnation. I certainly admit here that all illustrations eventually break down because they are after all just that, illustrations.

Let us lastly presuppose that claims of various theists to the effect that God has indeed appeared individually and nationally. Firstly, the atheist does not believe it for the same reasons that some people would not believe the atheist that had God appear to him. God appeared in order to provide precisely what the atheist wants—proof of His existence and in order to express His will to mankind. This was God’s provision for making Himself known so that He would be known by His people and through His people, by the world.

Thus, the atheist objection that God does not appear to us fails on many fronts. These include the viable speculation that if God appeared to an atheist the atheist would not necessarily accept it nor be able to convince others of God’s existence.

The atheist to whom God appeared might write down his revelation. Yet, what would happen a year, a decade and certainly a century and millennia from the time of the writing? Surely, some would complain that this recorded experience was too long ago to have any relevance. That it was written at a time when we did not know this and that. That the record must have been changed and therefore no longer contain an accurate description of the events that actually took place.

Alas, the atheist to whom God appeared would end up just like the theists of today—besmirched, ridiculed, belittled, and dismissed—by the atheists.

[1] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker—Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986), p. 293