Introduction: The Hiddenness of God

Abstract

Many people are perplexed, even troubled, by the fact that God (if such there be) has not made His existence sufficiently clear. This fact-the fact of divine hiddenness-is a source of existential concern for many people. That is, it raises problems about their very existence, particularly its value and purpose. The fact of divine hiddenness is also, according to some people, a source of good evidence against the existence of God. That is, it allegedly poses a cognitive problem for theism, in the form of evidence challenging the assumption that God exists. (Here and throughout we speak of "God" as broadly represented in the historic Jewish and Christian theistic traditions.

Predicting Divine Action

“… Divine Hiddenness : If someone thinks that lack of belief in God’s existence disconfirms theism, then they typically base this argument on predictions of divine actions such as the following: “God would desire a reciprocal personal relationship between himself and every being capable of it” (Wainwright 2002 , 98) and “God would put his existence beyond reasonable nonbelief” (Schellenberg 1993 , 3). Conversely, those who don’t think these phenomena significantly disconfirm theism tend to base their arguments around predictions such as “God would not force himself upon us…[but] would leave it up to us to enter into [a loving relationship with Him]” (Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 , 13) or “God would [refuse] to bring people to belief unless they were sincerely open to [a certain sort of] moral transformation” (Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 , 16–17, paraphrasing Moser 2002 ). As with evidential arguments from evil, the extent to which divine hiddenness phenomena confirm or disconfirm theism will depend on the probability observers assign to these predictions.…”

“…Indeed, when we return to the specific predictions of divine action quoted in the discussion of natural theology above, we always find references to God’s power and knowledge used to ‘remove excuses’, but references to God’s morally unsurpassable character used to defend the claim that God would do the action in question: I’ll re-use our two divine hiddenness theodicies as concise examples: “God would not force himself upon us, as that would make the relationship a sham . [Therefore] He would leave it up to us to enter into [a loving relationship with Him]” (Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 , 13, my emphasis). And, “God would manifest His perfect love by refusing to bring people to belief unless they were sincerely open to [a certain sort of] moral transformation” (Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 , 16–17, my emphasis).…”

“…[Therefore] He would leave it up to us to enter into [a loving relationship with Him]” (Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 , 13, my emphasis). And, “God would manifest His perfect love by refusing to bring people to belief unless they were sincerely open to [a certain sort of] moral transformation” (Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 , 16–17, my emphasis). Our beliefs about right and wrong, both in terms of quite general principles, such as preventing unnecessary suffering as in Rowe’s evidential argument, and in terms of quite fine-grained judgments, such as claims about what sort of activities the best interpersonal relationships involve, provide the evidence for predictions of divine action and hence the resources for natural theology.…”

Divine Hiddenness

“…Lacking convincing goods we know about, theistic critics sometimes turn to goods we don ' t know about (see, for example, McKim 2001 andHoward -Snyder 2005 ), thus evincing what Draper (1996) has called skeptical theism. Lacking convincing goods we know about, theistic critics sometimes turn to goods we don ' t know about (see, for example, McKim 2001 andHoward -Snyder 2005 ), thus evincing what Draper (1996) has called skeptical theism.…”

Is God hidden, or does God simply not exist?

“…Or maybe sometimes God would allow for non-culpable non-belief of that sort because beholding God's perfection and glory would make certain people (at certain times) jealous and resentful (see Dumsday 2012). Or maybe sometimes God allows for non-culpable non-belief of that sort in someone because they're interested in having a relationship with God for the wrong reasons (see Dumsday 2014; Moser 2002Moser , 2008). If we could find reasons like these that a perfectly loving God might have for being hidden from people who would otherwise be capable of a relationship with God, then we might be able to find ways to reject the perfectly loving assumption and resist the problem of divine hiddenness's conclusion.…”