There is a distinction between the empirical observation of the world and the theological observation of the world. The usual understanding of the irreligious is that both are contradictory, and that the empirical observation is preferable. Which observation is preferable accords with one’s faith but their contradiction is undeniably imagined.

Before we actually discuss Empirical Theology, let me describe my Principle of Divine Efficience first as it is key to understanding the remaining.

Principle of Divine Efficience

God does not do things inefficiently. He knows which exact parameters and trajectories are necessary to accomplish his will. A being that is incapable of mistake will not perform an action or state something that isn’t strictly optimal. It is contradictory to God’s nature to assume he does things inefficiently. This is the Principle of Divine Efficience.

The Question of Display

It is often questioned why is it that God does not reveal himself so bluntly as to convince everybody of his existence. The scriptures claim that God’s truth is of such visibility that nobody can rationally deny him, as per Romans 1:20:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse[…]

There is a chapter of discussion to be held on whether such obvious appearances would deny the character of belief and the reality of agency. It goes like this: if God were to subject you to an evident sign, then you would be robbed of the possibility of belief and therefore forced to take in the reality and truth of God, which would take away the blessedness that comes with believing without seeing, as per John 20:29:

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

But this is not the chapter of discussion for today. While this is a complete and convincing reason, it is not the simplest explanation. The simplest explanation actually rests within the Principle of Divine Efficience.

Divine Efficience vis-à-vis Display

If God does his will most optimally, and it is his will to bring you to him, then he will never exceed that you need to believe. God is all-mighty and he could send you an angel to compel you to believe, but you and most others do not need a grand display of divine intervention to believe. What he does to get you to receive him is perfectly adjusted to your heart, and our hearts rarely require a visible miracle to be convinced.

It may feel that we do need such a visible miracle to be convinced, but we have all been convinced of things that have been explained to us without a display of that scale. We often overestimate how much we need to believe, when in reality we need much less. Of course, as imperfect beings, we tend to exaggerate our capacities and our requriements, and only God knows exactly the amount of display and intervention necessary to get us to believe.

However, God knowing exactly how much we need to believe does not mean that we will believe, for acknowledging God’s truth does not translate to acceptance. We retain the capacity of choice. Many will face the reality of the Lord firsthand and still reject him, as per John 1:10-11 and John 12:37:

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him,[…]

The vector which compels men to reject the Lord despite a display personally convincing to them is sin.

Display vis-à-vis Sin

Sin compels men to turn away from God despite signs personally convincing to us. Examples are many but I will enumerate a few, which should be familiar to some.

Of Pride

Take, for example, a renowned academic who built his entire career and reputation on their eloquent, published arguments for atheism. Their identity, friendships, and sense of self-worth are tied to secular reason. In a moment of crisis, they experience an event that is, to their own rational mind, inexplicably transcendent and points directly to the reality of a divine intellect, such as experiencing an immediate answer to a prayer done in desperation. It is a sign perfectly tailored to convince them.

To accept this sign as being from God would require them to dismantle their life’s work. It would mean admitting a fundamental error to their students, colleagues, and readers. The intellectual pride and the professional cost of such a reversal are immense. It is far easier to rationalize the experience away as a trick of the brain or a coincidence than to embrace a truth that would shatter the foundations of their identity. In this way, the sin of pride compels them to deny a sign that they found personally convincing.

Of Greed

Consider a businessman who has amassed a great fortune through ruthless and unethical business practice. His lifestyle, sense of security, and family’s future are built upon this wealth. His child falls gravely ill, and in a moment of utter desperation, he sincerely prays for a miracle. The child then experiences a recovery that the doctors call “one in a million,” with no medical explanation. The father knows, in his heart, that his prayer was answered. You can read a real-world example of such a story in the intercession of Carlo Acutis.

To truly accept that a personal, moral God intervened would be to accept the reality of a moral Judge. It would force him to confront the fact that his entire fortune is built on a foundation of sin. Gratitude and repentance would demand restitution and a change in his ways, threatening the very wealth he cherishes. The love of money creates the incentive to find another explanation. He may credit luck or coincidence, and will shy away from the personal God whose existence demands he gives up his ill-gotten gains. The sin of greed thus shields him from the implications of the sign he received.

Of Wrath

Think of a person whose life has been shattered by a great injustice, perhaps facing oppression because they are a marginalized class. For years, they have been consumed by a deep and defining bitterness. This anger has become the central organizing principle of their life. Everything is cold and unforgiving, as the sinful world often is, but then they then have a profound and sincere interaction with a Christian man, a moment of inexplicable peace and love that feels undeniably divine, undoubtably stemming from the man’s faith.

They see that the Christian faith, which the sign points towards, has forgiveness at its very core. To accept this God would be to begin the monumental task of letting go of the hatred that has fueled them for so long. Forgiving the unforgivable feels like a betrayal of themselves as their bitterness feels righteous and justified. It is easier to reject the reality of the divine comfort they felt than to accept the God who would command them to forgive. The sin of unforgiveness, a form of wrath, becomes a wall that blocks the grace of the sign.

And other matters

All these issues, and many other modern matters, are of great controversy and possess an emotional embed that can no longer be subtracted from them. The same, however, is seldom found in non-sinful things. Cultural matters are rarely an obstacle to the faith, Christianity having been deployed to every part of creation and finding compatibility everywhere. Language is another strong barrier and it too has been defeated. Culture and language are neither sin, and therefore do not serve to turn away men from God despite obvious signs.

It is seen that it is sin which prevents Christianity and the Christian deployment of the soul. Anything of a sinful nature injects doubt and denial into signs that are personally convincing. This is how men reject God despite having seen him.

Empirical Theology I: Quantity

When we speak of efficience, we speak of divine efficience, which measures the quantity of miraculous intervention. We do not speak on terms of physical efficience, which relates to energy and work. A most divinely efficient process may be incredibly physically inefficient. Likewise, a maximally physically efficient process may be most divinely inefficient.

A most divinely efficient process may not be all that divinely efficient. Moses splitting the Red Sea was a matter of extreme inefficience, but it was the most divinely efficient provided the circumstances, and therefore it was what God executed. Spawning in a bridge, squashing the Egyptians, or physically transporting the Hebrews across would all have been less divinely efficient at accomplishing God’s will, which was to bring his people to safety.

We can easily extrapolate that as closing the Red Sea rid the Hebrews of their pursuers, gravity bringing the water down after God releases his miraculous hold on it, it also logically observable that it is more divinely efficient than any other solution. Spawning in a bridge would require its destruction to prevent the armies from crossing, squashing the Egyptians would have still required the Lord to transport the Hebrews miraculously across the Red Sea, and physically transporting the Hebrews without touching the army would have required additional intervention to prevent the Egyptians from finding them again.

Empirical Theology II: Orchestration

Finding yourself stranded by the side of a road, in the dark hours of the morning at such a low temperature, surrounded by critters that you hear but do not see, you pray to God so that you may be delivered from this most unfortunate circumstance, perhaps Psalm 91. Despite hours of silence and loneliness, a grandmother in her car drives by shortly after the prayer, safely bringing you elsewhere better.

This is the theological observation. Having prayed to God for deliverance from your circumstances, the Holy Spirit intervened and sent you a car to pick you up. You thank the Lord for answering your prayer and you come back home with a softened heart, having received his grace.

This is the the empirical observation. Having finished her rendez-vous with a friend, the grandmother began driving back home at around the same time you found yourself stranded on the side of the dark road. It was simply coincidence that both you saw each other, not the result of prayer.

Most would assume that only one or the other is true. Often, those who exclusively possesses the theological observation will believe that the car, grandmother, and circumstance wouldn’t have existed without the prayer. Contrariwise, those who exclusively possesses the empirical observation will believe that the car, grandmother, and circumstance would have existed regardless of the prayer. Both are wrong.

God the Orchestrator

Under the Principle of Divine Efficience, as can be observed regularly in a life of prayer, God most often orchestrates his will through natural happening (natural as in part of creation, contrary to divine which is part of God). Most often, a miracle of great visibility is not needed when a much smaller miracle founded on a twist of existence or an alteration to the roll of dice can be entirely sufficient to the execution of his will and the fulfillment of prayer.

God could have, with all his power, sent in an extreme miracle where angels would have been ordained to lift you from your dark circumstances. It would have led to the same outcome as you receiving a lift back home by a nice grandmother. However, it would have much less divinely efficient. It is simply more efficient to have had the grandmother pass by at around the same time; maybe God extended her time spent at her friend’s home for this.

If one were to perform an extensive investigation on the grandmother and her travels, they would arrive at the conclusion that she didn’t spawn into existence when you prayed for an exit from your problem. This does not contradict the theological position, for it is your prayer, foreseen by God, that altered the circumstances. More often than not, natural happening as a result of prayer is still God’s intervention. The observant ones see the obviousness of God’s intervention where less observant ones would assume entirely coincidental forces were at play.

It is good to remind ourselves now that God exists outside of time. He has foreseen your prayer and can orchestrate things in advance for it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, as an example, says:

To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore He establishes His eternal plan of ‘predestination’, He includes in it each person’s free response to his grace.

Empirical Theology III: Creation

If one understands the Principle of Divine Efficience, then he longer sees barriers between the empirical understanding of the creation of the world and the faith. It is, of course, something that must be reminded to all Christians. New scientific discoveries never contradict the reality and truth of God.

The Big Bang becomes a matter of evidence. Without an explosion of matter forming all things conducive to life, God couldn’t have executed his will, or at least not as efficiently. Perhaps there is an hypothetical alternate to the Big Bang for forming the universe and its contents, but then it is less efficient, and therefore undesirable.

Evolution also proceeds the same. Without an iterative, evolutive process for developing life, life could have formed far less efficiently. We see that evolution results in organisms capable of living symbiotically within their surroundings; if evolution allows for life most adapted then why would God choose any lesser? He orchestrates all things, and we see our evolution grants us quasi-infinite adaptability.

In this way, we can also gain answers to every other concern. A good example is the question of why is the universe so large, despite existence being made for us, tiny beings within the universe? Assumptions regarding God’s desires aside (such as that he made the universe so beautiful for us to enjoy), it is most likely that the rest of the cosmos is consequential detritus from the processes that God undertook to most optimally bring about creation. The stars, the planets, the galaxies and so on are side-effects of optimal creation. Of course, it doesn’t mean that God hasn’t then made them beautiful, or didn’t factor in the desire of the “heavens [to] declare the glory of God” as in Psalm 19.

Empirical Theology IV: Suffering

If God orchestrates all events so optimally, why does it necessarily seem to roll-in disease, disasters, and pain that, to our human eyes, feel inefficient, even divinely, often being a source of doubt and concern as to the truth of faith and the reality of a loving god?

First, we must gain a broader understanding of divine efficiency. An optimal system for nurturing free, rational beings requires a consistent and stable evolving universe. It would be inefficient for God to ceaselessly and atomically intervene in the world to prevent every issue, all ultimately caused by the fall of man. To be most divinely efficient is to uphold the trajectory of creation, which we have corrupted. What seems like a localized inefficiency is actually part of a maximally efficient larger system. What appears to us as a pointless tragedy may be, in God’s timeless view, a necessary component of an unseen and perfectly efficient orchestration for a greater good we cannot fathom.

Second, God has already provided us the means through which we can resolve suffering. It is absurd to say that God has yet to love us and rid of suffering, when he himself has suffered and through it, provided the medicine we need. Atomic so-called inefficiencies are made null in the face of the ultimate cure. The most divinely efficient mitigation for all the torment that we face is found within the promise of redemption and eternal life through Jesus Christ. The spiritual healing of Christ conquers the root cause of all suffering, sin, and its consequence, death.

We read in Revelations 21:4:

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

This also answers the question of why there has been, in the eyes of some Christian, a silence from God. We read in the first testament of prophets directly interfacing with the Lord, and then the same through the Holy Spirit and the Son in the second. Yet, now that we live in the post-testament period of God’s creation, we see very little of these interventions. It is because the sacrifice of Christ rendered all extreme interventions irrelevant and unnecessary. The sacrifice of Christ was the most divinely efficient intervention to end all suffering. Now, we simply wait for the world to come.