Im not a christian and Im sure there are many Christians and non Christians who will give a ton of different answers.
Personally, I think the reason the Christian religion does not condone the use of magick, is because magick gives us mortals spiritual agency and the ability to rely on ourselves rather than depend on and give totally control to the Christian God. Which from my experience, giving total control of your life and complete trust in the god is a large part of Christian teachings. Something magick could interfere with.
And as to why he hasn't dumbed us down somehow, well I believe first of all the Christian God doesnt have that kinda power over me and even if he tried to have that power over me my patron goddess would defend me. Also many Christians I think would say, their god allows humans to have free will and the ability to make choices.
According to Judeo-Christian (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) beliefs, God is all powerful and not afraid of anything. He says that magick and the occult are an abomination and that it is a sin to worship anything besides Him. So, long story short... He just doesn't want people to do those things, basically. There's really no explanation.
To make a long story short: if you are still basically 100% dependent on an entity for protection and guidance, you gravely limit yourself. If you limit yourself and invest all of your power into one entity, you give it more power over yourself. Basically you become weaker so it becomes stronger, and the more people that give in, the stronger it becomes, and all entities want power.
God doesn't dumb us down, humanity has that handled pretty well in my opinion.
The monotheistic religions manipulated people's ignorance and fear- it told them that after death they would be tortured for eternity and that they should be content with being poor and suffering as it brings them closer to God. Up until victorian times most people couldn't read unless they had a good but of money to pay for education.
They knew only what was taught by those who were superior to them and this included their parents and the priests in church on a Sunday. Fear is a good way to control a population from raising themselves up until there is surely a 1% minority with all the wealth and power.
Luckily once education became more widespread, people began to question and search for answers and Darwin finally published his treatise on natural selection and evolution. Atheism was born out of this (hooray!).
Now humanity is slowly beginning to become a race of individuals and not mindless sheep who are afraid to challenge the way the herd is heading with church as their shepherd.
The church wouldn't want you practicing mysticism or magick as they are probably scared you might find their religion void of love, free will and spirituality. You may actually have a mystical experience and actually see the universe for what it is- a collective experience which humanity goes thorugh, one which should be united in love and not hate. The absense of fear, once you realise there is nothing to fear they lose their control of you.
Well for one Christian god is afraid of human potential and yet at the same time he is not due to simple fact that there is no way for us to actually truly reach him or any other god for that mater(spiritual communication doesn't count as human spirit alone just doesn`t have potential to be a threat).
And reason for not dumbing us down is because he already made us self-destructive(vengeful bastard, we chose free will over paradise and...), which basically means he just doesn`t give a dam about human kind(this is all off course if you believe what bible said).
The Christian God does not fear or hate magic. It's man that fears magic. The early Christians and Jews even used magic. The Bible has been mistranslated and remade so much that it's not even a holy thing any more. Ever heard of ,"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."? It was originally ,"Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live." That bible verse was targeting people who used herbs and potions to kill and harm people. And plus, the Christian God is most definitely a war God. If he really did fear or hate magic, we'd all be dead right now instead of discussing things on an online forum.
Coming from a strong Christian background (though I no longer consider myself Christian), I will answer this from my perspective of what Christians/God have meant.
I do not feel that God fears magic. After all, if he created us, why would he create something that could potentially do him harm? The Bible even states that God is within each of us and can be found everywhere, "Look under a rock and I shall be there". This line of thought is in almost every major religion. So it can be taken that God and/or his power is (at least in part) within all of us and all that surrounds us.
Many of the said Christian religions were initial very ritualistic and magical in their own right. In fact what Christ was said to have done (his miracles) were considered by many to be magic and spells. If I am not mistaken Christ himself has never condemned witchcraft. He was a teacher of love for all, acceptance of everyone, and doing no harm to anyone.
There are a couple of points (already made by others) that I believe to be true. Firstly, that during those times it was exceptionally rare for anyone, outside of scholars or scroll keepers, to be able to read or write. This worked very well for those in high positions of power and influence.
Secondly, the Bible in its Hebrew form, can never, I repeat, can never be fully and correctly translated into English. It just simply isn't linguistically possible. There are too many variances and gaps between the languages to get a verbatim translation. Over time, the Bible has been translated, rewritten (as in the different versions, i.e. King James), that no telling what has been lost, or reworded, and has grown too far from its original intent.
I believe, in the end, it was more the Church that feared the power and knowledge the people could gain (whether from magic or by other means). As far as the Christian God, I think if he ever had problems with the occult, it was not out of fear of the peoples knowledge or power. I think was it was more two trains of thought. One, that God himself said he was a jealous god, and perhaps he felt jealousy when his creations were not focused on him. Second, (and this applies to many things in life) that magic can be a powerful thing, but when abused, or misused, it can be dangerous in many fashions.
Besides, if God didnt want us to be knowledgeable (or wanted to keep us dumb) he would have used his omnipotent power to prevent us from eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Free-will or not, if you believe what the Bible says, God is well within His power to take away our choices, but as of yet, has not done so.
Anyway, my two cents on the matter. This is from somebody who is now no longer a Christian, but explaining it to you as best as I saw it when I was a Christian.
