Divine Hiddenness: Deus Absconditus

Commenters have told me (here, and before and after) that the version of the Divine Hiddenness argument I've been working on has little to do with their own questions or interest in the topic. I've been writing on a technically developed version of the argument, which was first proposed by J. L. Schellenberg and seems most accessible on the web in a version by Ebon Musings, which was recommended by Paul a couple of times.

I had thought I would stay on the technical version for a while longer, but it's not helping us to focus on the real issues of interest, and it's covered very well in a series of articles posted at apollos.ws. Just by way of illustration, I'm going to spend a few moments on one of those articles, and then try to move on to clarify and respond to the question that our group of commenters is most interested in.

On the apollos.ws page is an article by Michael J. Murray, said to be forthcoming in Cambridge University Press, "Deus Absconditus." Murray addresses Schellenberg's contention that there is no morally adequate reason for God not to reveal himself to every person, if he exists. Murray sees evidence, to the contrary, that God is highly interested in "soul-making," and that this requires that God allow us "morally significant freedom."

"The function of this earthly life, a time during which we are capable of making free choices between morally good and evil courses of action, is to have the opportunity to develop morally significant characters. Developing characters which have moral significance requires that they be chosen and cultivated by their bearers. And this can only be done if creatures are first given the sort of morally significant freedom we have been discussing heretofore. Philosophers have taken to calling this sort of character development 'soul-making,' following the phrase coined by John Hick. Thus, we might say that the function of the earthly life on this view is soul-making, and that a necessary condition for soul-making is morally significant libertarian freedom. Libertarian freedom alone simply will not do here since the point of character development is that one has the opportunity to choose to do good or evil, and by so choosing to become either a lover and imitator of God, or one who 'worships and serves the creature rather then [sic] the creator.'"

Murray further shows that morally significant freedom depends on freedom from coercion, and that God's unambiguous revelation of his existence, character, and rewards would amount to coercion. Therefore God would defeat his own purposes for human existence by revealing himself openly and unambiguously.

This is a 3-paragraph summary of a 25-page article. As I said, it is offered by way of example. The arguments that are undeveloped here are certainly not undeveloped in Murray's article, so I would suggest you take the time to digest it if you desire to respond.

Then we'll try to nail down the exact nature of the discussion we really want to work on here. There has been a real flurry of comments on these articles, with which I have not been participating much, because I'm holding off until we can agree on what the exact question is.

Part of a Series
Divine Hiddenness

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

Posted: Mon - April 30, 2007 at 04:50 PM |

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Divine Hiddenness: Deus Absconditus

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson