Hiddenness of God (original) (raw)
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Hiddenness of God, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016)
2016
“Divine hiddenness,” as the phrase suggests, refers, most fundamentally, to the hiddenness of God, i.e. the alleged fact that God is hidden, absent, silent. In religious literature, there is a long history of expressions of annoyance, anxiety, and despair over divine hiddenness, so understood. Understood in this way, divine hiddenness poses an existential problem for those who have such experiences. However, “divine hiddenness” refers to something else in recent philosophical literature, especially since the publication of J.L. Schellenberg’s landmark book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (1993). In this context, it refers to alleged facts about the absence of belief of God, on the basis of which one might think there is no God. For example, Schellenberg argues that, since there are nonbelievers who are capable of a personal relationship with God and who do not resist it, there is no perfectly loving God, while Stephen Maitzen argues that naturalism better explains the “demographics” of nonbelief than theism and Jason Marsh argues that naturalism better explains “natural nonbelief” than theism. Understood in this way, divine hiddenness constitutes putative evidence for atheism. We leave divine hiddenness understood in the first way to those fit to address it—rabbis, imams, priests, pastors, ministers, therapists, spiritual directors and the like—although some of the recent philosophical literature addresses it (e.g. DeWeese-Boyd 2016; Garcia 2002). This entry focuses on divine hiddenness understood in the second way.
Introduction: The Hiddenness of God
New Essays
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.
Divine Hiddenness and the Concept of God
International Philosophical Quarterly, 2019
John Schellenberg’s version of the divine hiddenness argument is based on a concept of God as an omnipotent, morally perfect, and ontologically perfect being. I show that Schellenberg develops his argument in a way that is inconsistent with each of these aspects, from which it follows that the argument in question proves to be unsustainable.
Nonresistant Nonbelief and Divine Hiding: Some Theistic Considerations
The argument from divine hiddenness centers on the claim that God’s hiddenness from nonresistant nonbelievers counts as evidence against his existence. The argument could be raised this way: given the alleged facts of widely-experienced hiddenness of and the absence of belief in God, on the assumption that theism is true, what we observe in the world is surprising or evidentially unexpected. On the other hand, on the assumption that theism is false, what we observe in the world—both epistemically and experientially—is what we should expect. In this paper, I assess the most recent incarnation of J.L. Schellenberg’s argument from nonresistant nonbelief and present what I think are potential solutions to (or ways to reevaluate) the problem.
The Problem of Divine Hiddenness
Oxford Bibliographies Online, 2013
“The Problem of Divine Hiddenness” is an infelicitous phrase for two reasons. First, while it suggests that God both exists and hides, this phrase actually refers to a strategy of arguing that various forms of nonbelief in God constitute evidence for God’s nonexistence. Second, it suggests that there is only one problem for theistic belief here, while in fact this phrase refers to a family of arguments for atheism. This entry focuses on contemporary arguments from nonbelief to atheism. The most important of these is defended by J. L. Schellenberg. Schellenberg claims that a loving God would ensure that there is no reasonable or inculpable nonbelief in his existence, since this belief is required for human beings to enter into a relationship with God, and since (according to theism) having such a relationship with creatures is a great good, and indeed is one of God’s most important goals. But, Schellenberg argues, since such nonbelief occurs among those capable of belief in God, theism should be rejected. The citations collected under General Overviews, external link all concern Schellenberg’s argument. Other authors have independently constructed different arguments from nonbelief to atheism, and these are surveyed under Other Arguments from Nonbelief, external link. The final five sections of this bibliography survey responses to arguments from hiddenness to atheism. Most of this literature explicitly concerns Schellenberg’s argument, but many of these replies could also be directed against the other arguments surveyed here. There are important connections between the problem of divine hiddenness and the problem of evil, and the relevant literature is discussed in a preliminary section entitled Divine Hiddenness in the Context of the Problem of Evil.
Divine Hiddenness in the Christian Tradition
A critique of J. L. Schellenberg's argument from Divine Hiddenness: Schellenberg's conclusion that since apparently there are 'capable inculpable non-believers in God' the cognitive problem of divine hiddenness is actually an argument for the non-existence of God. Schellenberg's conclusion seems at least partly based on his misunderstanding or disregard of significant aspects of the Judeo-Christian tradition and certain assumptions, especially regarding nature of religious belief as well as primacy and instrumentality of reason. I suggest that given the kind of God proposed by the Judeo-Christian tradition it is not necessary that reasonable non-belief in His existence be impossible; moreover it may even be the case that possibility of reasonable non-belief is necessary given the nature and purposes of God as proposed by the Judeo-Christian tradition
In philosophical circles such as ours, we have become accustomed to expressing our religious ideas, and offering our analyses and arguments regarding these ideas, in terms that are associated with what we call "theism." I take this usage to be a convenient abbreviation. 1 Perhaps we should better characterize the terms that we like to use and the concepts with which we operate as belonging to "monotheistic" discourse, rather than as simply being "theistic." Moreover it should be noted that our discussions almost invariably relate to monotheism of a very specific type, such as the type that has become foundational in all the current religious traditions which are the successors of the Hebrew scriptures, namely, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Because this is so, there are two things that we shall do well to take into consideration. First of all, we must note that the theological discussions within these three great historical traditions have sometimes been more inclusive and of wider range than what is just contained in these simple monotheistic terms, no matter how foundational these terms may be. Each of the traditions has included philosophical currents and mystical movements that have modified, in different ways, the basic concepts behind the skeletal monotheistic terms with which they have operated. Of this we shall speak more later on. Second, we must recognize that when, in the course of our philosophic discussions, we do formulate our ideas in the simple monotheistic terms, as these are understood by the ordinary believers within those religious traditions, we do so at a cost. That cost is the puzzlement and frustration attendant upon the realization that this shared concept of the monotheistic personal God is irredeemably anthropomorphic, since our model of God is based upon the primacy of human agency and human personality. 2 This model is also largely anthropocentric as well, because our interest in God's activity comes to explain all sorts of things that concern us as human beings. Moreover, the measure of the good and evil that we attribute to the world that we believe to have been created by God is our measure, the measure of human beings. The puzzlement of which I talk reflects the fact that we can easily come to recognize that we want to say so much more about the divine than this model can possibly bear. We may want to move beyond the most simple and direct religious messages that this concept of God,
REVIEW - The Hiddenness of God
Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, 2020
Michael C. Rea is Rev. John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion. In this book, Rea deals with two problems induced by divine hiddenness. They are [1] the argument against the existence of God, most notably by J. L. Schellenberg; and [2] the challenge of the idea of God’s love. Rea’s approach to the issues involves two steps to respond to these two problems respectively. The first step involves two arguments to show that the hiddenness problems are based on an unfounded assumption about divine love. The first argument, in Chapter 2, is that Schellenberg’s problem is based on a concept of God which is different from and fails to target specifically Christian belief in God. For Rea, the problem of divine hiddenness is fundamentally “a problem of violated expectations” (p. 25).
Divine Hiddenness and the Suffering Unbeliever Argument
European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2019
In this essay, I propose two arguments from Thomas Aquinas’s reflection on theism and faith to rebut Schellenberg’s claim that divine hiddenness justifies atheism. One of those arguments, however, may be employed so as to re-propose Schellenberg’s conviction, which is crucial to his argument, that there are ‘non-resistant’ or ‘inculpable’ unbelievers. I then advance what I call the suffering unbeliever argument. In short, the unbelievers mentioned by Schellenberg are expected to suffer because of their non-belief, which — as Schellenberg says — prevents them from achieving the greatest possible well-being. If they suffer, however, they cannot consider themselves unbelievers, since one cannot suffer from not having been given a certain good if one believes that the good in question has never existed. If they do not suffer, on the other hand, there is simply nothing for which they can consider themselves inculpable (and God culpable).