Program / Course 15: The Problem of Evil and Suffering / Lesson 5.4
What you will learn
- Distinguish the philosophical argument from divine hiddenness from the experience of God’s silence.
- State J. L. Schellenberg’s argument and the main Christian replies.
- Describe how Scripture and the Christian spiritual tradition speak of God’s absence.
- Evaluate the replies fairly, noting what each can and cannot explain.
The big idea
Divine hiddenness is the fact that God, if he exists, is not obvious. Some people seek him sincerely and find nothing, and some believers pass through long periods when prayer seems to meet silence. The philosopher J. L. Schellenberg turned this into an argument: a perfectly loving God would make himself available to everyone open to a relationship, but some who are open do not believe, so there is no such God. Christians reply in several ways and also point out that Scripture and the saints speak of God’s silence with candor.
Key terms
- Divine hiddenness
- The apparent absence or non-obviousness of God, both in the world generally and in the lives of particular seekers.
- Nonresistant nonbelief
- Schellenberg’s term for lack of belief in God in a person who is not resisting or rejecting God and would respond to evidence.
- Epistemic distance
- The idea, from Hick, that God stays far enough off in knowledge for belief to be free.
- Dark night of the soul
- A phrase, from John of the Cross, for a time of spiritual dryness and apparent absence of God, understood as a stage of purification.
- Apophatic
- Describing the tradition of speaking of God by negation, since God is beyond human concepts and sense.
- Spiritual desolation
- In Ignatian and other traditions, a time when prayer feels empty and faith is hard.
- Seeker
- A person who is sincerely looking for the truth about God.
Background
Hiddenness is felt in two ways. One is the plain fact that God is not visible. If there is a God who loves people, why does he not make himself known beyond doubt? The other is personal: a believer who has prayed for years and felt nothing, or a seeker who has begged for a sign and received none. The first is a question for philosophers. The second is a question for pastors and for the sufferer.
The Bible speaks of both. Isaiah says, “Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour” (Isaiah 45:15). Psalm 10:1 asks, “Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?” Psalm 88, the darkest psalm, ends with the words that darkness is the psalmist’s nearest acquaintance (Psalm 88:18). The theme runs through the Old Testament, and it shows that the experience was never thought to be a sign of bad faith alone.
The philosophical form of the argument is recent. Schellenberg, a Canadian philosopher, published Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason in 1993. It is now one of the main arguments in the philosophy of religion. This lesson sets it out and answers it from within the tradition.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Schellenberg’s argument
The argument has a simple shape. If God exists, he is perfectly loving. A perfectly loving God would want a relationship with every person capable of it, and would make it possible for anyone who is open to it. Belief that God exists is necessary for such a relationship. Yet there are people who are not resisting God, who have sought honestly, and who do not believe. Therefore no perfectly loving God exists.
Schellenberg adds that the argument is not about the stubborn, who refuse. It is about those whose nonbelief has no fault in it, such as persons who grew up in a culture without Christianity or who lost faith in grief and cannot find it again. He presses the question: if a human parent were hidden from a child who was calling, most people would call the parent unloving. Why not God?
Step 2: Christian replies
A first reply questions the premise that a loving God must make belief easy. Hick, Pascal and others suggest that God stays somewhat hidden so that trust and love can be free, not forced by evidence. A second reply, by Paul Moser, says God is hidden from those who want only an intellectual proof, but is available to those who are willing to be changed, since the knowledge of God is not detached information but personal knowledge that calls for a response. A third reply says that belief is not the same as relationship: a person may be in relation to God without being able to name him, and God may act in people’s lives in ways they do not recognize.
A fourth reply is that nonresistance is rarer than it looks. Scripture says that human beings suppress the truth (Romans 1:18-20), and that God’s goodness can be misread. Critics find this reply the weakest, since it seems to question the sincerity of seekers, and many Christians themselves hesitate to say it. A fifth reply is humility: the argument supposes that humans know what a loving God would do, which is the kind of claim skeptical theists doubt.
Step 3: The strongest objections to the replies
Critics say that the replies prove too little. Free trust does not seem to need the degree of hiddenness found in the world. People trust persons they can see. The idea of divine risk may justify a little ambiguity but not a world in which millions have never heard the gospel. Moser’s reply seems to suit those who are willing to be changed, but does not account for those who have tried honestly and failed.
Defenders answer in part by pointing out that the Christian message is that God has made himself known in Jesus, and that the church is called to carry this on, so that part of the hiddenness is a task of the believers. Others say that the argument requires an estimate of how many are truly nonresistant, which no human can make. The debate is unsettled and the argument is regarded by many philosophers as among the most serious.
Step 4: The silence of God in the life of faith
The tradition has long recognized times when God seems absent to the faithful. John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite, wrote of the dark night, in which the soul is stripped of consolation so that it may love God for himself. Many writers have said that the dryness is not a sign of abandonment but of growth. Others, in the desert tradition, speak of acedia, a weariness of the spirit that must be endured. Teresa of Calcutta, according to private letters published after her death, endured decades of inner darkness while serving the poor.
The tradition also warns that not all silence is a stage of growth. Depression, grief and illness can make prayer impossible, and sometimes what is needed is rest and care, as well as spiritual counsel. Wise guides distinguish the dark night from clinical depression, and recommend both a confessor and a physician when needed. The silence of God is to be endured, but a person in pain should not be left alone with the theory.
Step 5: What can be said
A fair summary: hiddenness is a genuine difficulty, and no reply fully removes it. The replies from free trust, the call to change, and the limits of human judgment each contribute something. The scriptural witness permits the cry of how long. The tradition teaches that God is present even when felt to be absent, though it admits that this is a matter of faith and not of sight. The cross is the final instance, where the Son cries out and receives no answer except resurrection on the third day.
- What does Schellenberg mean by nonresistant nonbelief, and why does his argument depend on it?
- Why might God allow some ambiguity about his existence? Is the reply convincing?
- How does Moser’s reply change the question from evidence to response?
- What is the difference between the philosophical problem of hiddenness and a believer’s experience of silence?
- How should a spiritual guide distinguish a dark night from depression?
- Which Psalm of lament speaks most truly to the experience of God’s silence, and why?
Examples
The sincere seeker
A young woman raised without religion reads the Gospels and prays each night for a year, asking God to show himself. She hears nothing and concludes that no one is there. Schellenberg’s argument uses cases like hers. A Christian reply must say something to her, other than that she was not sincere. (A constructed example.)
A believer in the dark
A deacon who has served faithfully for decades finds that prayer has gone dead. He keeps going to services and keeps praying out of habit. His priest tells him this is a known stage and asks him to see a doctor as well. The two forms of care reflect the tradition’s practical wisdom. (A constructed example.)
Psalm 88
Psalm 88 prays to God from beginning to end without an answer. Its last words are that darkness is the psalmist’s nearest acquaintance. Its presence in the Bible tells readers that prayer without resolution is permitted, and that the church has kept it as holy.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic spiritual writers such as John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Thérèse of Lisieux describe periods of darkness as part of the path to union with God. Catholic philosophers answer Schellenberg by various replies, including that God speaks through creation, conscience and the church, and that faith includes a response of the will.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology teaches that God is beyond all knowing, and that the proper response to his absence from the senses is to wait in prayer and humility. The Jesus Prayer and the tradition of the Hesychasts emphasize that God is met in the heart. Orthodox writers see hiddenness as bound up with the mystery of God more than as an argument to be refuted.
Protestant
Luther’s idea of the hidden God who is found in the cross, under the appearance of the opposite, treats hiddenness as part of how God works. Reformed and evangelical philosophers such as Moser and Plantinga offer replies to Schellenberg. Puritans wrote extensively on spiritual desertion as an experience of believers.
Philosophical and secular views
Schellenberg and others hold that hiddenness is the strongest argument for atheism or for agnosticism about God. Others think the argument assumes too much about what love requires. Many secular thinkers note that religious experience is widely reported, and so do not consider absence the whole picture.
Why it matters
Many people who leave the church or never enter it do so because God seems absent, not because of a philosophical argument about evil. Many faithful people also suffer silence. A student who understands the argument and the tradition can speak honestly with both groups.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Feeling that God is absent means you have lost your faith.
Correction: The Psalms and the saints record such times in the faithful. Feelings of presence come and go, and the tradition separates them from faith itself.
Misunderstanding: Everyone who does not believe is refusing God.
Correction: Some are, and some are not. Christians who say that all unbelief is resistance claim to know the hearts of others, which Scripture reserves to God (1 Samuel 16:7). Schellenberg’s argument turns on this point.
Misunderstanding: The argument from hiddenness has been answered.
Correction: It remains actively debated. The replies are serious, and the argument has also been serious. Neither side has convinced the other.
Knowledge check
What is Schellenberg’s argument from divine hiddenness?
He argues that a perfectly loving God would make himself available to all who are open to relationship with him, so that no one who is open would lack belief. Yet there are sincere nonbelievers who are not resisting God. Therefore there is no such God. The argument is not about the stubborn but about those whose nonbelief seems blameless.
What are two Christian replies?
One says that God stays somewhat hidden so that trust and love can be free and not forced. Another, from Paul Moser, says that God is available to those willing to be changed, since knowing him is a personal response and not a detached piece of information. Others add that relationship may exist without belief, or that no one can know how many are truly nonresistant.
How does Christian spiritual tradition speak of God’s silence?
John of the Cross wrote of the dark night as a stage in which consolation is removed so that love may grow. The Psalms voice complaints such as How long and Why hidest thou thyself. The tradition also warns that depression or illness can look like desolation, and advises seeking both a spiritual guide and medical care.
Why do some philosophers think the argument is serious?
It does not rely on counting how much suffering exists. It relies on a plain fact about the lives of seekers and the nature of love. The replies can seem to question the sincerity of seekers or to assume knowledge of God’s reasons. For these reasons the argument is regarded by many philosophers as among the strongest against theism.
Think it through
- Have you ever sought God and met silence? What did you do with it?
- What would you say to a sincere seeker who has never experienced God, and what would you avoid saying?
- How is the silence of God different from the silence of the friends in Job 2:13?
Independent assignment
Silence in the Psalms
In your own notebook, write about 400 words. Read Psalms 10, 13 and 88 in the King James Version. For each, note how the writer addresses God and whether there is a turn toward trust. Then write a paragraph on what these psalms suggest about how a person should speak to God in silence. Add a short note about whom you would turn to if you or a friend were in a long dark period. Keep the work private.
Further study
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hiddenness of God Read the whole article for the arguments and the replies.
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées Read selectively on the hidden God and on the heart’s reasons.
- Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Read selectively on the Eastern tradition of unknowing.
- Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Read the sayings on acedia and endurance.
- Isaiah 45:15 Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.
- Psalm 88:18 A psalm that ends in darkness.
- Psalm 10:1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD?