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Define "showing": The collection and observation of some information via our sensory inputs (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)
Okay, but let's use still air as an example. We do not collect or observe any information via our sensories persay in regards to air... yet we see that it exists in the ability to make it react with things (like blowing up a balloon).
Hence, observation is not limited to the sensory inputs. It also includes observation by deduction, or, by using our uniquely human cerebral cortex.
If observation by deduction is inclusive of "showing", then we re-define "showing" as: The collection and observation of some information via our sensory inputs (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste), and/or the deductions that are extended from these base collections and observations.
Leaving aside all the sensory input observations (since we can all empathize and understand them) lets focus on the deductive observations. Air in a balloon is a simple one. A not so simple one is finding the circumference of a circle. A less simple one is finding the volume of a cone. An even less simple one is finding the maximum volume created by a pyramid using only 100 feet of wood.
Most of us can't immediately answer the previous three questions because they are a more complicated form of observation. But an important (very important) note is that even though we do not know the answer, the answer exists and is there and can be found through adequate deduction. The above examples use mathematics because we can all understand the infallability of math because of the limited number of base observations that go into a more difficult deduction.
What happens to a child when it is raised by homosexual parents is a highly complicated and variable problem. Yet the truth to such a problem exists. Some answers exist only in probability and some in more definite terms. Yet at the deepest roots, everything in this existence is the result of probability... even math.
What I'm getting at is that every observation that is not a base sensory one is one made by deduction. And deductive observations are just as reliable and true (as the example with the balloon shows that air is as real as seeing sunlight or feeling fire). The more distant from our base sensories the deduction gets, the more difficult it is to actually understand the observation. We all know what 1+1 is yet we do not know how to figure out the volume of a sphere as easily. This is because 1+1 is extremely local to our sensory inputs (we can see and even count two objects at any given time to deduce the answer).
If we can all humbly agree that there are mathematical problems out there that would take us years to solve (as there certainly are and have been numerous mathematical problems that took mathematicians years and years to solve), I'm pretty sure we can all humbly agree that to observe God we would have to deduce a whole hell of a lot for a very long time.
If God showed himself to us via the senses, it would make us understand him similar to how we would understand the volume of a cone by buying an ice cream cone.
We see the cone and see that there is volume in there, but do not have any knowledge about it... hence, we do not actually see or know or understand the cone. We're almost oblivious to its existence because we know almost nothing about it.
Hence, if God were to present himself or herself to us, it would take a lot of observation and deduction to actually understand what we are seeing.
It is almost as if if we begun to understood everything around us and deducted more and more and more, our eyes would focus, our ears and nose and our hands would begin to recognize the pattern of "God" in everything around us.
So, in conclusion, this all means that we can assume that God is showing himself to us because even if he wasn't, we wouldn't know the difference.
Just like if we saw a box that looked like a box we would conclude it's a box. But what if it was a special box that was perfectly shaped and formed and equal in every dimension. What if it was so precisely equal that no human on the planet could have possibly created it, not even with the finest laser. That would be proof of something otherworldly, right?
But we'd never know cause we'd just think it's a box.
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The most important thing to know is that observations made via the senses are not reliable for we forget them over time.
Observations via deduction become knowledge. They never expire, and as time continues they do not compress or dissolve.
If we were to observe God before us via our senses, as time progressed we would invalidate and even forget.
If we observe God via deduction, that knowledge can never be taken away from us, even if we wish it to.
It is beautiful, in a sense, that through this line of thinking we now know that God does not want us to see him temporarily. He only presents himself to us in an infallable and unforgettable way: through knowledge.
"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."
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