4S: The god debate
Deus absconditus
This is not a mere, rehashed presentation of Schellenberg's argument of divine hiddenness. I am not here to represent his view. I am here to represent my own take on the subject. I had thoughts about the hiddenness problem before I ever heard of Schellenberg. Where there is overlap, don't make the mistake of thinking I am cribbing from his notes. Where there are fallacious arguments, I accept full responsibility. Here we go:
Sincere unbelief
The first thing I want to establish is that belief and unbelief are not contrivances are libertarian decisions one can make. One can want to believe and try to believe and fake it till you make it believe. But you can't really believe in something you don't.
I sometimes question whether or not some Christians really believe in the god they profess. Many seem to be trying to Pascal their way into belief. They choose to believe because they think it is the right thing to do. But that kind of belief is mere contrivance. They are trying to bring themselves into a position of belief. There is a difference between that and actually believing.
The reverse is also true. I suspect there are some atheists who really believe in their heart that god is real, but would rather not believe. They try to convince themselves that they don’t believe. But in the end, the heart doesn't lie. In the same way, Some atheists would like to believe because they are attracted to the story. But no matter how hard they try, their doubts stand as a witness to the disbelief they simply cannot shake.
In this argument, I am only addressing sincere unbelief and sincere belief. You either really believe deep down that there is a god, or you don't. We have no access to one's inner belief and must accept their self-report without ad hominem. If a person sincerely doesn't believe in god, they should not be called a liar regardless of what Romans 1 suggests:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
This whole passage is ad hominem and a complete repudiation of all rules of productive discourse. This is an example of how not to talk to people who don’t believe in your god. Look at the accusations:
- The truth is out there but sinful people are suppressing the truth by their wickedness.
- What can be known of god is obvious, implying that nonbelievers are rejecting the obvious.
- God need not do more to make himself known because he has already made himself plain to so called nonbelievers.
- When it comes to knowing god, people have no excuse.
I have no words for this that are not profane.
If your approach is to launch the ad hominem that we atheists are just lying about our disbelief, we have nothing more to talk about. I have no intention of trying to convince anyone that I am telling the truth about my unbelief. We must start at a position of trusting the self-report of our interlocutors. My starting position is that you really believe and you must start with the position that I really don't. This is the last time I state this in this way: Mine is a sincere unbelief. We have to start from there.
He really wants to be known
There are many god concepts. One is a deist god where he just does his thing and has neither need nor desire to be known by humans. The Christian god is one who wants to be known. One might say that to do his saving work, he needs to be known by humans. So I understand Paul's insistence that he has already done what is necessary to be known by all humans. Many believers are committed to that idea. If god wants to be known, he will be known. If that god does not make himself known, he is not the god of the Christians. He simply does not exist.
With that as a premise (that god wants to be known) we hold that next to the fact that there are people who sincerely do not believe. If one does not believe in god, they don't know god. We cannot know a person we don't believe exists. So we have a serious disconnect: On the one hand, we have a god who wants to be known. On the other hand, we have people who don't know him.
The burden of initiative
To break through this stalemate, someone has to take the initiative. I believe most Christians would agree with me that if a god who wanted to be known exists, he is the one who has to take the initiative in the relationship. The reason is obvious: a person who doesn't know of the existence of another has no burden of discovery.
I am using these two words, "initiative" and "discovery" in the following way:
Initiative is the first move offered by the first mover in the relationship.
Discovery is the act of searching for the first mover in the relationship.
Here is where my views and the Christian's might diverge: I believe that the initiative to make oneself known must also be effective. A shy boy might toss a pebble at the window to the room of that boy's infatuation. But being shy, he scampers off before the would-be recipient of that affection can see him. All she has as evidence for anything is the sound of a tap on her window.
Does she have any obligation of discovery? I think not. She might wonder what caused the tap and she might choose to investigate. But she might also write it off as one of those things that just happens and that it is not worth disrupting what she was doing to investigate it further. You could say that the boy made himself known. But his effort fell woefully short of being effective.
The burden of discovery
The problem of hiddenness is like the problem of evil in that it requires the believer to come up with various theodicies for why people like me don't know he exists. The burden of discovery is one such theodicy which I have coined, myself. So don't bother looking it up.
This is how the theodicy of discovery works: God already has made himself sufficiently known to everyone capable of a relationship with him. Having done his initial part, any problems with knowing god are wholly the fault of the human because they didn't do their part with regard to their burden of discovery. God is off the hook because he threw the pebble. Now, it's on us to discover the source and meaning of the tap on our window.
For this theodicy to work, one has to successfully convey a burden of discovery on the one who heard the tap on the window. Is there a way for the Christian to transfer that burden? If there is, I can't find it.
Remember that god is the one who wants us to know him. We don't even know he exists. So it is up to him to make sure we know him. But there is a wrinkle we are only now introducing: Christians don't believe in the simple idea that god wants to be known. They narrow the equation by saying that god wants to be sought. He wants us to seek him and not nearly to know he exists. In other words, it is god who transferred the burden of discovery to us. We cannot find him unless we diligently seek him.
Wanting to be sought and followed is not a successful transfer of the burden of discovery. Let's expand our analogy: The person who threw the pebble chose not to hide, but remained where he could be seen. That's better. The girl or boy opens the window and inquires who the person is and why they are tossing pebbles at their window. Instead of answering, the boy runs off and makes a vague gesture for the person to follow them.
Does that person have any burden of discovery? No. What incentive does she have to leave the safety of her house and routine to follow some stranger through a yellow wood to god only knows where for who knows what purpose? They could if they were so inclined. But a person existing and wanting you to seek them does not a burden of discovery make.
God could write in the sky that he exists and it still would not constitute a burden of discovery. Those who are inclined to learn more about this skywriter are free to do so. But human curiosity is not a burden of discovery. It is merely a choice to take on a burden or not.
Burden of discovery continued...
If god has something very important to tell us that we cannot live without knowing, his burden of initiative is even greater. Analogy time again:
The reason the boy is tapping the window with pebbles is because the person's house is on fire but the occupant doesn't know it. In that case, why is he merely tossing pebbles when his initiative should be much greater. This is not a time for subtlety. This is a time for smashing the window and climbing a ladder to get the person out of the burning house. In this scenario, there is no time for hide and seek games. You could say that the boy is only willing to save people who seek him. But we would call him a capricious monster, and rightfully so.
This is how it is with god. Forget about deep relationships. The house is on fire and we don't know it. God is out there with a ladder to safely retrieve us. But he is content to just send cryptic hints that he exists and is only willing to save those from the fire who diligently seek him. How messed up is that?
With the added information that god wants us to seek him, I conclude that we have even less of a burden of discovery and god has even more of a burden of effective initiative. I can't seek what I don't know exists. I can't even want to seek what I don't know exists. So if I don't climb onto some invisible ladder provided by an invisible god who is there to save me from an invisible fire, it is hardly my fault for not seeking his help. There is simply no philosophically satisfying way to transfer a burden of discovery onto humans. This theodicy fails at every turn.
We cannot seek
As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."
I never knew how to take this passage. But if we take it literally, we are all without hope. It also puts to the lie that believers are those who have sought after god. This is not a job for human seeking; this is a job for divine intervention.
In another text, Paul provides an explanation to why we cannot seek:
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
As nonspiritual people (whatever that means) spiritual words and messages seem foolish to us. Further, we cannot understand them because those spiritual messages can only be discerned through the spirit which we do not have.
This is a logical bear trap from which there is no egress. No one seeks god and no one can seek god because we don't have the tools for seeking. It has to come from without. God is the only one who can free us from this trap. It is an oxymoron to say that we should be seekers when we don't have the spiritual tools for doing the seeking. If it is all foolishness to us, then god has to take more initiative to make it clear. That is not on us. We're busted.
Hidden to those least able to seek
Part of the case I am building is the fact that the people who are least able to seek are the ones from whom this god is the most hidden. We seem to have received a special penalty for our lack of discovery.
I am constantly told by Christians, or it is heavily implied that god has no incentive to make himself known to me since I wouldn't convert to Christianity anyway. What's the point? God is not interested in a platonic relationship where we get to know each other and have a relationship based on non-commitment. There lies the problem.
I can't seek god because it seems like foolishness to me. I am a nonspiritual person who simply cannot make sense of spiritual things. I can only make sense of them in a secular, materialistic way. That is how I am so made at this time in my life. So because I find certain Christian propositions nonsensical, god doesn't want to have anything to do with me. He hides because I don't want to know a being I don't believe exists. If that is how he operates, then it cannot be said that he wants me to know him at all.
Because of my experience with and study of Christianity, I am not in an intellectual position to honestly seek him. One reason for that is many of the things I understand about this god make him an unsavory fictional character. I would not start a fan club for Darth Vader. Even if I thought he was real, I wouldn't seek him. Christians believe that the devil is real. But I have no serious desire to seek him because from what I understand about him, Satan is a villain.
But wait... What if my knowledge about Satan is wrong? If he exists, shouldn't I try to seek him and get his side of the story? Of course not. I have no burden of discovery for Satan any more than I have one for god, especially since both of them seem rather distasteful to me.
The difference between the two cosmic bullies is that Satan doesn't want me to know him and god supposedly does. If I have the wrong idea about him and that is the reason I want nothing to do with him, isn't it on him to make himself known to me and correct my misapprehensions about him? Wouldn't he want to clear his name and give me a chance to know the real god? Instead, Christians tell me that because I have an aversion to the evil god they have presented, then he will leave me to my delusions and never reveal himself until it is too late. That is truly the essence of an evil god. Christians need to rethink their position on that.
To say that god hides from those who say they don't like him is to describe him as the wimpiest of snowflakes. Other deities must laugh at such a god for his thin skin. Please stop presenting this view of god as it makes him even more unsavory than we thought. A child that declares that he hates his parents does not actually deserve to be abandoned by those parents because that child didn't want to have anything to do with them. You win over that child by being faithful to your commitment to take good care of them.
Insufficient
The rebuttal to this argument is to resurrect a version of Romans 1 where one points out all that god has done to reach out. However, none of that matters if the efforts were insufficient for the task of effectively communicating and persuading. Let's look at a couple of these outreach efforts Christians often bring up:
Creation itself It is often said that the fact we are here and are a part of this universe is enough to prove god's existence. That might be convincing to someone who knows nothing of science. While we can't definitely answer the question of where it all came from, we can't rationally jump to the conclusion that a god did it. Of the people who spend their lives studying such things, a staggering number of them don't find a god to be a convincing answer to why all this is here. When I look up, all I see is sky, not a man in the sky.
Miracles I don't see miracles. I see people giving suspicious testimonies of miracles. Whenever there is such a claim that can be thoroughly examined, the outcome is always less miraculous and more natural than it was when first reported. Miracles are just another place for god to hide. He does miracles that are convincing to some but that are completely hidden to the people who are least able to believe.
Why waste signs and wonders on those who already believe, or who would be able to believe with less effort? Why not reserve, or at least offer those convincing signs and wonders to those of us who would be convinced?
There was the pericope where Jesus went back to his home town but couldn't do many miracles due to their lack of belief. That is dead backward. It suggests that the only people who can see a miracle are those who can prove they don't need to. In that story, the message is you have to start by believing before you see the sign that causes you to believe.
The key takeaway for this point is that in stories, god gives people firsthand encounters that convince them. For those of us who don't believe, he offers only stories of people who had experiences. To believers and others he likes, he gives experiences. To nonbelievers, he gives stories. And we are told that those stories should be enough to convince. Newsflash, they aren't.
Historical facts What constitutes a historical fact? We could have historical data on people, places, and events in the ancient world only via what was documented about that time. The bible is the key piece of documentation for the majority of Christian truth claims that could serve to convince.
The problem is that the Bible is shrouded in a lot of mystery, allegory, poetry, and apocalyptic symbology. One of the most common mistakes people make when reading the Bible is failure to understand the genera of the particular text and reading as if it were something more literal. Well-known Christian teachers make this mistake all the time, and they went to seminary. It seems perfectly reasonable to be unconvinced by a source that seems riddled with contradictions, incorrect information, and a sheen of inscrutable mystery.
One example would be when Jesus declared that he spoke in parables precisely to keep people from understanding him. His insiders were the only ones who got the full explanation. Okay. I'm an unspiritual outsider. So the Bible shouldn't make sense to me. And it doesn't. Therefore, it can hardly be a convincing effort on the part of a god.
The gift of the spirit This last one is probably the one most Christians would try. They would say that god did not abandon you to your condition, rather, he gifted you with some measure of his spirit so that you can recognize your need to seek him. He already did what you are demanding he do.
Unfortunately, it doesn't pass the effectiveness test. He gave some enough spirit juice to seek and find him. But others didn't get enough. Perhaps he gave everyone the same amount. But that doesn't matter if some are worse off than others and need more juice to achieve the same result. If I didn't get enough juice, then my lack of belief isn't my fault.
At this point, the Christian has nothing left but ad hominem. God gave us sufficient spirit juice but we quenched the spirit or rebuffed the spirit in some way. We were just too evil for god to reach us. Oh, well.
But how does this work? Is god only able to reach the low-hanging fruit? Is he about seeking and saving the lost or just seeking and saving the easy? Lost people include hardened sinners who have known only sin in their life. If the spirit can't break through to that kind of person, then I see no reason to call him an all-powerful god. He's defeated by the likes of me. I'm just too evil.
There is also the problem of verification. The only reason I know I'm supposed to have some piece of the spirit is because someone made that claim. However, I feel or see no evidence of this spirit working within me to accomplish anything. I'm just supposed to take the word of Christians that god did his best to wake up my spirit but I somehow quenched him.
From my perspective, that is just another unfalsifiable claim from believers that I have no obligation to believe or investigate further. You can claim anything you want about spirits trying to contact me and fix me. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Just know that your testimony about this active spirit is not equal to my experience or knowledge of it. This is just another aspect of god that is hopelessly hidden.
Conclusion: Not by sight
Jesus told his disciple that it was better that people believe without seeing. Our walk of faith is not by sight. Then, there's this from Isaiah:
Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and Savior of Israel.
Perhaps it is simply the nature of the Christian god to be hidden for long stretches of time. He was very busy in the beginning. But then people fell into forgetfulness and started worshipping other gods because they hadn't had the presence of the real god in so long. He was hidden.
God allowed his people to be taken into slavery and didn't say a peep for 400 years. Even then, it was only to a single person. He was hidden.
We can identify various diaspora where god's people were scattered to the four winds and they took up worshipping other gods and assimilating into their new culture. Generations were born into a time when god was hidden.
At some point, we get to the last prophet and the curtain falls -- Fade to black. The dark ages between that and the birth of Jesus was roughly 400 years. During that time, god was hidden.
The announcement of Jesus went to a handful of foreigners and a handful of disreputable shepherds. Herod was told secondhand and went on a murdering spree so that no one could learn of him. When Jesus matured and started his ministry, he insisted on secrecy. He spoke of mysteries and wasn't exactly Jesus Christ superstar at that time.
By the time he faced his death, only a handful of people knew who he was and was convinced by his message. That means that everything was going according to plan. He told his disciples that he spoke in mysteries so that the masses wouldn't understand. He only insured that his elect sheep would hear his voice. To the rest, he was either a mad man or a legend. Either way, his true identity was largely hidden.
There was no one who saw him rise. Those who met him shortly after didn't know who he was. For some unknown reason, he was hiding his true identity from those who were closest to him. He was very careful about revealing himself. Many were there to call for his death but only a handful of people got to see him after he rose.
Think about that strange fact. He could have shown up at the Sanhedrin court while it was in session and presented himself as the inextinguishable god of the universe. He could have swung by Rome and had a more fruitful conversation with Pilot. He could have ridden into town with two flying donkeys led by one with a red nose named Rudolf. He could have set up shop in Jerusalem and remained there to this day, stubbornly refusing to die and proving that he has conquered death.
The world cannot contain the books filled with possibilities of how he could have made himself and his godhood known to everyone. But he didn't want that outcome. He didn't want to be known that way by the maximum number of people. To most of the world, he wanted to be hidden.
It cannot be said that he was hidden to everyone. He had his favorites. Paul was a Jesus denier and Jesus knocked him off his horse by way of introduction. Some people who were sick or injured met those who could heal them. For no good reason we can see, those people got the firsthand experience of being healed. All the rest remained crippled and blind. Throughout time, god showed up for a few but remained only a story or rumor to others. Too bad if you were one of the others.
I always end these arguments with a note that whatever they believe a person should do to seek, I already did. My resume of religious seeking is as long as Paul's. Don't tell me about reading the Bible. I've read it more than you whoever you are. Once upon a time, I taught myself enough functional Greek so that I could really read the New Testament. While you were shooting marbles with your friends, I was studying commentaries during recess.
Don't talk to me about prayer. I've done it more than you and more fervently than you. I have worn out my knees and driven permanent wrinkles in my face from being in the most humble prayer posture I could imagine while in my secret places talking to god. I have worshipped with all my heart and with all my might. I have acknowledged my sinful condition and begged for god to create in me a clean heart. I have been there, done that, worn the T-shirt, and had it stenciled on my foreskin before being circumcized.
When it comes to resumes of faith and seeking, mine's bigger than yours. But that doesn't matter. If a god wants to be hidden from you, no amount of seeking will find him, nor fasting nor praying nor singing his praises nor study nor repentance nor self flagellation nor anything else will help you find a hidden god. You might counter that these are all human efforts. To which I would counter that I am human and my efforts are all I have.
I also have only my human understanding. If I beg to get to know someone for years and get no response, it might be best to pack up whatever is left of my dignity and move on. They are just not into me. Perhaps god has his reasons. But I can't even confirm that this god exists. If he does, I recognize no good excuse to leave me hanging. I don't believe I ever had a burden of discovery. But I took it on anyway.
You can have your comforting theodicies. I have no need of them any longer. I'm done with hide and seek. If he wanted to test and see where my breaking point is, he found it. I have moved on. I have laid down my false burden of discovery and I implore others to do the same. This hidden god knows how to find you and knows how to make himself known to you. If he doesn't do it until it is too late, then he wasn't the kind of god you really wanted to find in the first place.
I am not hidden and I can be easily found in the comments.
David Johnson
