Divine Hiddenness

Why doesn't God make himself more obvious? The question has arisen here again, beginning with Ron noting that cosmologists have not all accepted the Fine Tuning Argument as proof of God's existence. One of our frequent commenters, Paul, has been asking about this for a long time.

This is in some respects more difficult than even the problem of evil. It's not that the answers are that hard to discover or intellectually overwhelming. It's that there is no way to answer it that could satisfy every questioner. The underlying assumption of the question is that God ought to want to show himself to each person in a certain way. God does not agree.

But I will proceed to try to work through the answers that we have. I have not done this before in a systematic way, and it will take more than one post to cover all the ground.

I'll start by working through what seem to be some of the specific assumptions of the question. These come from an apparently anonymous author at Ebon Musings, in an article recommended by Paul.

• There is no visible work of God, in the form of miracles, in the world today.

• Events formerly considered miraculous are now thought to be myth, fable, or misinterpreted acts of nature.

• Believers claim that God can nonetheless be known and perceived through some faith sense. It is most likely the case, however, that this faith sense does not actually exist, due to the unanswerability of questions like, What is it? Where is it? How is it validated or verified, especially in view of contrary reports by different people?

• Even if God exists, if there is no verifiable way of detecting his presence and activity, he may as well not exist.

• God, if he exists, can and should want to reveal himself in some unambiguous way.

These are informal assumptions in the first part of the article. Then there are these formally stated assumptions and conclusions:

Assumption (1): God exists.

Assumption (1a): God desires that people be aware of his existence.

Assumption (1b): God desires that people worship him in specific ways.

Assumption (1c): God has the ability to make his presence obvious and explain clearly what he desires.

Premise (2): God's presence is not obvious in the world.

Premise (3): Many people do not believe in God because of a lack of evidence.

Premise (4): Many people who do believe in God do not agree on what he desires, because of a lack of evidence.

Premise (5): For God to make his premise obvious and explain his desires would remedy both (3) and (4), without having any significant negative side effects.

Conclusion (6): If God exists, he would make his premise obvious in the world and explain what he desires. (from (1),(5))

Contradiction: But no such thing has happened. (from (2))

Conclusion (7): God does not exist. (from (6),(2))

Additionally:

"I would certainly begin to believe in God if I were to witness an unambiguous manifestation of the divine, and the vast majority of atheists probably would as well...What further harm could it possibly do for him to appear and attempt to convince them otherwise?"

And (paraphrasing once again),

• If God revealed himself clearly it would put an end to religious confusion and discord.

• God could, if he chose, reveal himself in such a way that free will regarding belief in him would not be violated.

• Atheists are atheists precisely because of the lack of evidence for God.

• An unambiguous manifestation of God would help unbelievers achieve a necessary, even if not sufficient, condition for worshiping him.

• A loving and compassionate God would not hide himself away.

That's an outline of the problem, which is enough for now. The Ebon Musings article is good, and worthy of much thought, though there are certainly answers to questions and thoughts like these.

As I dive into this, though, I'm certainly not above asking for help from anyone who knows of good web-available resources on the matter. If I've missed any important parts of the argument or its assumptions, please let me know. Thank you.

Part of a Series:

1. Divine Hiddenness

2. Direction-Setting
3. The Demand for a Sign
4. Course Correction
5. Deus Absconditus
6. Starting Over
7. Epilogue

Posted: Wed - April 25, 2007 at 04:02 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Divine Hiddenness

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson