Demolishing Triablogue: Answering Steve Hays on the problem of divine hiddenness

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays of Triablogue entitled

God's absence

1. I'm going to revisit the divine hiddenness argument. The basic idea is that many or most people don't experience God in the way they need, want, or expect.

The more advanced form of the argument says the bible-god appears to have become completely apathetic toward humanity since biblical days.

The argument operates on roughly two fronts. A typical presupposition of freewill theism is God's desires that every human being enjoy fellowship with God. Trust him. God wants everyone to be saved.

I would agree with Steve the Calvinist that the god of the bible infallibly predestined many people to end up in hell, so that there was literally no possibility they could avoid such fate.

But many human beings don't believe in God because they haven't had what they take to be a recognizable experience of God.

Many human being also don't believe in the bible-god because they find nothing in the events of today's world that remotely suggest the bible-god is doing anything other than sleeping.

It could be argued that there are many ways to experience God indirectly, which they fail to register, but the point is that from their viewpoint, if God exists, they should be able to experience him in a more personal, targeted fashion. They just don't recognize God at work in their lives.

And this is a problem for freewill theism since, on the face of it, it would be easy for God to give them a recognizable experience of himself. So what's the explanation?

One explanation is that it seems like God isn't there because, as a mater of fact, God isn't there.. Sppearance matches reality. We inhabit a godless universe. It isn't that God absents himself from people's lives, but that there is no God to experience. No one is home. You can keep knocking on the door, but the house is empty.

My sentiments exactly.  When you inspect all parts of a room and see nobody there, that means nobody is there.  It doesn't mean you lack the ability to detect invisible people.

Of course, a basic problem with that explanation is the abundance of evidence for God's existence.

Not a problem at all.  Theistic proofs are usually nothing more than word-games and horrifically ad hoc hypotheses. 

Indeed, that's one of the aggravating dimensions of the problem. Since there is so much evidence, not just for God's existence generally, but his activity in the lives of some people, why are others bereft?

Fallacy of loaded question, I deny that anybody has ever experienced god.  I also deny that anybody has ever experienced being a god in a previous universe.  My failure to check with every person doesn't slow me down in the slightest from drawing such inference. It's going to be reasonable even if not infallible.

Another explanation is to deny the universality of the freewill theist assumption. Maybe God doesn't reach out to every human being. Maybe it's not his desire every human being be in fellowship with himself.

That cannot be reconciled with every verse in the bible, but it is certainly in accord with some parts of the bible.  Calvinism and Arminianism are both equally "biblical", because it's perfectly reasonable to accuse the bible of teaching contradictory doctrines.

A freewill theist can also postulate postmortem evangelism, where God compensates for his absence in this life in the afterlife. Other issues aside, that has an ad hoc quality.

That's what Lydia McGrew thinks, and other groups, including Roman Catholics, deny that hell is the automatic destination of anybody who dies after having rejected the gospel.  I would argue that Jesus' interactions with Gentiles was sufficiently casual and short that he probably wasn't going around screaming at them that they were always one heartbeat away from hell.  He is content to preach and move on, almost as if he doesn't think those people are in any urgent danger of damnation.

2. One complication is that many unbelievers say they aren't seeking God. They hate the very idea of God. They prefer a godless universe. If they though God did exist, that would put them in a state of psychological tension.

Psychological tension exists in the Christian too, since they also complain of divine hiddenness, so that the skeptic has good reason to wonder where the idiot ever got the idea that God wishes to fellowship with people that God obviously takes no interest in.

3. There is, though, another comparatively neglected front to the issue. The problem is not God's unavailability to humans in general, unbelievers included, but God's unavailability to his own people: Christians and Jews. This is a common refrain or common complaint in the Prophets and Psalmists. So often, God is not available to us when we most need him or want his intervention.

Wow, not even being a biblical author and having THAT level of "inspiration" will help you find the answer to divine hiddenness?  If spritually alive people stumble over it, only makes sense for the spiritually dead person to think they'll never do better, and accordingly cease paying attention to the issue if they so wish.

4. That in itself requires some unpacking. In what ways to we need or want God to be available?

I don't ask that question.

i) A cliche example is answer to prayer.

Nothing fails quite like prayer, and those "prayer tests" do not show any statistic indicating greater luck for those who prayed.  The way you prayers get "answered" is more likely due to sheer luck and happenstance.  But people are pattern-seekers, and will, if the need for ultimate significance is sufficiently intense, see patterns where none exist.  Given more than 6 billion people on the planet, that's an awful lot of unemployed Christians who need a car, so sheer chance is going to account for why some of those praying Christians actually do get a car.

ii) Another cliche example is a sign from God. Not so much that we want God to solve a problem but we just want an indication that he's there, that he's still there. A confirmation that he's real. That he's there, he's aware, and he cares. That we're not totally alone. On our own in the world.

Jesus noted that the crowds did not follow him out of interest in his signs, but bevause he was giving them food, sort of arguing that they thought his tricks were purely naturalistic.  John 6:26, thus contradicting v. 2.

Could be very simple. An audible voice. Or a modest but unmistakable sign.

Yup.  Asking for a sign from god is also biblical. Isaiah 7:11.  And expecting today's Christians to perform miracles is justified from a combination of Matthew 10:8 and 28:20.  Yet despite my challenge to all Christians and Craig Keener in particular to direct me to the one modern-day miracle they believe most impervious to falsification, see here, the challenge continues on, unanswered.  See here and here.  You can hardly fault me for drawing the conclusions that there's probably a very good reason nobody wants to put their money where their mouth is.

iii) Apropos (ii), which may be the same thing or something similar, a hunger for God's "presence" or his "loving" presence in particular. What that means isn't entirely clear. It can be different from a sign. A sign is external to us. It may refer to a feeling: to be suffused with a sense of God's love.

Nothing unbiblical in this expectation either, God is capable of causing people to believe whatever he wants whenever he wants, even if the person in question is steeped in gross idolatry.  See Ezra 1:1.  Even if they are actively hostile to Christianity more than today's athetists.  See god literally blinding Saul/Paul with the light, Acts 9, 22, 26.

Again, on this view, is God's felt presence in itself an experience of his love, or is the sense of divine love something over and above his felt presence?

That's too stupidly Gnostic for me to care to comment on beyond this.

5. This, though, goes to the larger question of how we'd like God to be available to us. How often do we feel the need to be in touch with God? Is this mainly in a crisis, or something routine?

No relevance to me, i don't desire divine presence, for the same reason I don't desire self-deception.

Take Adam and Eve in the Garden, before the Fall.

Why?  The story is nothing but fiction, hence, the basis for declaring all people "sinners" and thus in need of salvation is also fictitious.

Did they feel they were missing something unless the Angel of the Lord appeared to them every day or every week?  How long could they go without a divine visitation but be happy and content with each other and the garden?

Then perhaps you never noticed the bible verse which condemns interest in controversial questions.  1st Timothy 6:4.  Sure, you can trifle that it's only condemning "morbid" interest in controversial questions, but you dont' have any criteria for identifying the piont at which Paul would think one's interest in controversial question became "morbid", so it probably makes more sense to not even open the door.  Just like if you don't know the point at which gazing at strippers becomes adultery-by-lust, probably best if you don't even walk in the club. Your love of dancing on the edge could be argued to signify spiritual immaturity, lest you stupidly think that the more about apologetics you know, the more spiritually mature you get?

6. To take a human comparison, consider a young couple riding on the crest of passion.

Surely a smart guy like Steve Hays doesn't need to ask Christians to think about other people having sex?

They spend all their free time together. They can't get enough of each other. Yet that's not indefinitely sustainable. It loses its freshness.

Because its completely naturalistic.  See here too.

Even people who are extremely close to each other can get on each other's nerves, or get bored with each other's constant company. Even people who are extremely close may need to have some time to themselves. They get tired of being together every minute of the day. They have to take a break. Have some time and space apart.

7. On a related note, an extended separation can intensify reunion. An extended separation can revitalize love.

Something that divine love should not have to engage in just to keep things fresh.

8. Or you might have two brothers who were inseparable until they got married and had kids. After that, not only do they see less of each other, but the need for their mutual companionship diminishes because they now have compensatory relationships. The wife and kids provide a different kind of emotional sustenance.

To some extent the brothers may even grow apart emotionally, not in the sense that they cease to love each other, but they're now invested in their own family. That develops a potential which was unrealized prior to marriage and kids.

If, say, the wives and kids were all killed in a traffic accident, the brothers might revert. Resume living together as bachelors. Become inseparable again.

9. In what sense has God created us to need him emotionally?

I detect no such need.

Do we naturally need to have God speak to us or appear to us every so often? Of is this mostly driven by the vicissitudes of life in a fallen world?

I would say that since God refuses to seek us, we have no duty to seek him.  He's the one with all the answers, he can no more expect sinners to contradict their nature than he can expect himself to contradict his own nature.

Does God normally supply our emotional needs indirectly through creation? Through other people and natural blessings?

If we get emotional needs met through other people, why think 'god' has anything to do with it?

10. Of course, one problem is that in a fallen world we can't necessarily turn to each other for emotional compensations because sin puts a strain on our relationships. It makes our relationships a source of pain. Rather than filling the void of God's absence, it's another way to be hurt.

11. I was a free range child. I used to go for long walks on my own, sometimes with my dog. It was a forested area with woods, ponds, streams, ravines, and lakes. A lot to explore.

I didn't need my parents to be available for me in the sense of having them around all the time. Rather, I needed to know that I had them to come back to. I had a home. I had security. It was (fairly) safe to explore the woods on my own. And if they weren't home when I got back, there was the confidence in knowing that they would return. Either I was waiting for them or they were waiting for me. There was no anxiety on my part.

Signifying nothing, since that's all empirical, whereas the hiddenness of god is due to his allegedly non-empirical nature.  If God didn't want us to draw confident inference based on our 5 physical senses, maybe he shouldn't have given us those senses.

12. There is something exhilarating about a divine Incarnation. That you're talking face-to-face with God. Looking into the eyes of God. At the same time, it might make you acutely self-conscious to be in God's presence, in such a palpable, immediate way.

Preaching to the choir.  Dismissed.

To take a comparison, boys are very uninhibited around other boys. Would it be inhibiting to be with Jesus?

Jesus' own family apparently didn't think so.  See Mark 3:21, 6:4 and John 7:5

13. Because God is rarely available in ways we long for, it forces Christians to seek each other out and try to encourage one other in our joint pilgrimage.

Which then becomes nothing but one mammal trying to help another, thus likely leading to further problems.  If God would just do his fucking job like he's supposed to, there would be no need for sinners to seek solace from other imperfect beings, and the likelihood of increased problems would diminish.

There's a bonding experience that occurs in situations of shared trust, stress, risk, vulnerability, or collaboration. There's a certain paradox when friends or Christians pool their collective helplessness. They cant do for each other what only God can do, but it can still be a maturing and sanctifying experience.

I fail to see how any of this bullshit from your post does anything toward reconciling divine hiddenness with the existence of God.