The Invisible Principal

Is faith a necessary part of God's plan--his test for us on this earth? Imagine the following scenario.

You are the principal at a large high school, let's say 2000 students. Your main goal as principal is to prepare your students for the real world--for adulthood. You've developed a specific program which your students must follow in order to have a successful career and a happy life after graduation. This is the only way. If they fail to follow the program they will struggle in their career and be miserable for the rest of their lives. 

How would you ensure that as many students as possible follow the program?

First, I would choose only one student, who I'll call the Rep, to tell about my program. Then I'd have him spread the news to the other students. I would make sure he told them that the news was coming from the principal, but if any students questioned his authority or the validity of the program, rather than directing them to me, he was to disparage them for not believing him. I would never set foot in the school or speak directly with any other students.

Before the Rep graduated, I would have him pass the torch on to another student and explain the program to them. I wouldn't be bothered to meet with the new Rep in person. If a change needed to be made, I might pass a note to the new Rep, or leave him a cryptic voicemail, but an in-person meeting would be extremely rare.

Second, if any other students claimed to be the Rep and put forth their own false program, I would not step in to stop it. I would expect the students to somehow know which program was the right one and which ones were false ones. If they chose the wrong program, they would pay the consequences after graduation. Unfortunately only a small percentage of the students will end up believing my Rep, which is unfortunate, but oh well. What could I have done more?

Finally, I would make sure that no students in my school had any contact with previous graduates, or any adults for that matter. I would have my Rep make bold and confident claims about the effectiveness of my program, but I would not show them any data about past graduates, nor let them speak to past graduates to validate those claims. Any students who attempt this are doubting my authority and are therefore not fit for my program.

Does this sound absurd? Of course it does. If you were a student at this school, how could you possibly be expected to choose the right program, unless you just happened to be friends with the real Rep?

If this program were truly so effective, and I wanted all my students to follow it, I would do everything within my power to ensure that they understood it fully and bought into it. I would use all the evidence at my disposal to persuade them that it was in their best interest to follow the program. 

In religion, there's sometimes this idea that if God gave us proof of his existence and his plan, it would somehow ruin his plan. The idea that faith is a necessary part of his plan is absurd. How are we supposed to know which plan (religion) to have faith in? Without real evidence of any of them--without the principal standing up in person to deliver his plan--we are left to the accident of birth and the whims of circumstance and intuition to decide which one, if any, to believe.

If I were a God whose highest priority and primary purpose for existing was "the bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men" (Moses 1:39), I wouldn't be leaving it to chance and counting on people's credulity to accept my plan. I would give them the evidence.

Otherwise God's test of faith is really just testing us to see if we can guess which religion is the right one, and that's just rude.