Things Unseen

     Nowadays, it is even difficult to believe in things seen. For instance, Shin Lim, the magician, won 2018's Americas Got Talent television contest. He won because the audience saw things that didn't happen, or better yet, did not see things that did happen! The audience knew that the acts did not really happen because they were all physical impossibilities. Cards do not disappear in thin air. That is against the First Law of Thermodynamics. Shin Lim was so convincing that some may have believed cards did disappear and return.
     There was something the audience did not see: There was much happening which went unnoticed. That behind the scenes unseen stuff is because people have scotomas - "spots in the visual field in which vision is absent or deficient" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). In plain words, the audience was not seeing things because they were not looking there! All the action was outside the focus of people's sights, or somewhere beyond their visual field. Many things happened that the audience did not see, even if they tried hard, as I did. Lim did that by causing the audience to look at the most obvious. I call that, keeping their attention on the shiny objects.
     I don't believe that anyone in the audience was savvy enough to discover the sleight of hand. However, I would suggest most people, both watching television and in person, knew that they were not seeing real miracles but only magic by sleight of hand. Even though they did not see any real maneuvers, most rational people did not believe Lim's tricks were the real McCoy. They knew the results were real, but had no evidence of it.
     I learned a new word the other day - credulity: "readiness or willingness to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence" (ibid). The audience knew there was slight of hand but the only evidence of it was that cards disappeared and reappeared. The cards didn't really change but their perceived existence came and went. Well, that is just like the creation:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Rom 1:20).

     What can rational people agree upon? (1) All physical things had a beginning, and (2) there is physical existence. How did the situation go from something to nothing? Was it sleight of hand? Again, rational people would not believe that some type of magic truly exists. Chance, maybe, made it happen. There are two issues with that: (1) In that theory, there is not even a magician, and (2) magic always needs something to make something. Magicians would say, well it all started with energy without even knowing from whence the energy came.
     For those less astute, I am making a point: evolution is the sleight of hand of the god Chance who is unidentifiable. Philosophers from early times have tried. Paul confronted them at Athens:

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. (Acts 17:23).

     Scientists, like the philosophers of Athens, are still looking for the great magician Shin Lim. Paul basically said, Quit looking; I know who He is! Of course, "He" is God.
     What do gods do for a living? They create! How many gods does it take to create? Only one, if that god is really God. Gods have, by definition, the Power to Create. Because there need be only one God, and there is only one, He doesn't need a Name.
     We don't need to know which God because if God, only one is needed. Thus, God is merely "Existence" because He identified Himself that way. (Exod 3:14). God is not a god of "chance" nor even a magician like Shin Lim. It wasn't by sleight of hand that God created, but by His Unseen Power. Note that I write "Unseen" not "Unknown" because God's Power is His Holy Spirit (Rom 15:13).
     What evolutionists theorize - their hunches - is sleight of hand by the unknown god, Chance. The truth is that the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Christians is the Creator, and it was not by trickery but real. How can we know that? Nothing became something just as Romans 1:20 says.
     Paul verified what God's Word - Jesus - said: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1). I could take that by faith, but there is actual evidence of it: "I think, therefore, I am," (Cogito, ergo sum; Rene' Descartes.) If you did not notice, Descartes accepted God's truth from Romans 1:20 above: I thought, and it is.
     Those with scatomas fail to believe what the "Magician" can do. Because they didn't see the action which created something from nothing, they are skeptical. That's okay with magic, but something from nothing is reality. We know things exist (us) because we are. We are created beings - something from nothing. Think not? From the dust we were made:

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Gen 3:19).

     That is God Creating, not Chance's sleight of hand! God created mankind from dust, and death returns man to the dust. The time in between is called "life', and everyone knows it is real because we are and have experienced it! If God is Existence, mankind is "Experience". We know God Exists because of our personal experience of existence.
     Knowing God personally though we cannot see Him is called "faith". God even defines faith:

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb 11:1)

     Faith is subject to substance and evidence. "Substance" is something which really exists whether material or spiritual.  "Evidence" is something that furnishes proof (ibid). Things are material. Thus, the Creation is proof of the spiritual notion of faith. How do we know God Exists? By our own existence - by the Creation.
     Faith, then, is knowing that God can do, did do, and will do. He had the Power to Create, He Created, and His plan is to re-create. Re-creation is "regeneration" - a re-genesis, as I have written before. Jews believe in all three as Christians do.  Christians have experienced re-genesis and Jews have not.
     Those who have been "born again" (John 3:7) have experienced re-creation. That "magical" event occurs when we accept that God has that Power but we don't. That takes faith, and because God can Create - His gift to mankind - He can re-create. His mechanism for that is faith. Faith is Power given to sinners to be made righteous. Only gods can do that, and God is the only God in Existence!
     Re-creation or regeneration is dependent on God having the Power to Create in the beginning. If He can't Create, how could He re-create? Only God can Create something from nothing, and that is what happens when a person is born again! The old creature is spiritually nothing (dust) and God makes us something - like Him (sort of) until we become glorified and remade in His Image - mankind's Created condition!
     Most people don't believe in God. They have scatomas. They see the "magic" but fail to understand that it was not by sleight of hand, but reality. Because people don't understand reality does not make reality less real. It even takes a magician to perform sleight of hand, so even atheists must believe in Someone. Who did the sleight of hand - making something from nothing? Well, the "magician" called Chance. May I identify that Unknown God for you. He is called Jesus. Jesus is God manifested so that mankind can see Him face-to-face. If we were to "see" pre-incarnate God, we would die because of His Glory:

And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. (Exod 33:20)

     Why did God manifest Himself in the flesh? So that mankind could see Him and live. Indeed, Jesus is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6) and no one can come to the Father but through him. Jesus came so that mankind could "see the Father". Hence, God's Flesh - Jesus - is THE material evidence that God Exists. Jesus often said ego eimi - I AM.
     Therein is the evidence: that there is a real God, and Jesus is He. We need only ask, "What evidence is Jesus real?" Because many saw him perform miracles - not tricks - die, and be resurrected. Shin Lim nor any magician could not do that! Ceasing to be, then becoming again, would be a fine trick. However, God's tomb was guarded so that mankind would not be deceived. In other words, Jesus really died, and was truly resurrected!  Why did God do that "magic"? So that people know that it really  happened and that we could receive the same gift!
     Evidence are things which provide proof. Many who saw Jesus live, die, and live again, left depositions. Many cruel people tried to get the eye-witnesses to recant. They did not, and they were all tortured and/or died for the truth of Jesus.
     What proof do skeptics have that there is no God. Proof is unobtainable; only evidence can be weighed. I have presented the evidence that there is a God. Where is the evidence that there is not?
     Scientists eliminate spiritual "substance" as impossible. By their own admission they have created a scatoma in that spiritual power is their blind spot in their field of vision. Scatomas are biasness because they fail to understand how everything came about. They can't understand that some "thing" had to Create in the beginning. Christian must know who that Person Is:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-4, 14).

    The evidence is that Jesus is God. By faith Christians accept that.  Jesus is God's physical "substance", whereas, the Holy Ghost is God's spiritual "substance". God created, thus the Creator is the Father. Therein, we have the Holy Trinity - three substances in one Person. That "person" is Jesus Christ!
     Now why is faith in the unseen so important? We can't see God but we can see Jesus. Jesus's Purpose was to enable mankind to see God dying in our place. Why would God do that? He so loved the world (John 3:16). That fact is the motivation for what He can and will do: re-create the world and the repentant people within it!