Why Does God Seem “Hidden”?
Before looking at the evidences and arguments for God’s existence, therefore, it is helpful to have a framework for considering why God would be hidden enough to warrant those discussions in the first place. We will start by considering the most basic question of all.
Is There Any Evidence of God’s
Existence?
Many atheists feel this way about God.
They say there is no evidence of His existence and no valid reason to go
looking for Him; those who “find” God are just engaging in wishful thinking. In
other words, God is not hidden at all—He just does not exist. For example,
atheist author Dan Barker says, “I am an atheist because there is no evidence
for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no
evidence, no belief.”[1] Best-selling atheist
author Richard Dawkins says, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to
evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of,
even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”[2] Barker and Dawkins, like
many atheists, state this supposed lack of evidence as a universally
acknowledged fact and go on to claim that theists are unreasonable for
believing in God anyway. It is critical to understand, however, that this is not
a universally acknowledged fact.
Neither theists nor atheists are willing
to believe in something without evidence. Theists believe there is evidence
for God’s existence (even if He is somewhat hidden) and believe because of
it, not in spite of lacking it.
How can people draw such vastly
different conclusions? That is just the nature of any kind of evidence.
Evidence itself does not say anything—all evidence requires human
interpretation. And because evidence requires human interpretation, there will
always be differing conclusions, depending on a person’s available information,
life experiences, and motivations.
Therefore, as you consider the evidences
and arguments in the following chapters, it’s vital to bear in mind that just
because God has not made His existence undeniably obvious, it does not
necessitate the common atheistic conclusion that He has given us no evidence.
Theists and atheists simply disagree over the interpretation of the
evidence.
Is There Enough Evidence of
God’s Existence?
Rather than say there is no evidence for
God, many people say the evidence is not strong enough. Enough, however,
is a highly subjective quantity. What might be enough for one person to believe
in God might not feel like enough for another person. For example, consider
this wish list from one atheist blogger:
If I saw an unambiguous message from God, I would be persuaded of his existence. If I saw writing suddenly appear in the sky, in letters a hundred feet high, saying “I Am God, I Exist, Here Is What I Want You To Do”—and if that writing were seen by every human being, written in whatever language they understand, comprehended in the same way by everyone who saw it—I would be persuaded that God existed.[3]
Although I personally do not need God to
skywrite in order to persuade me of His existence, I can certainly relate to
the desire for that kind of revelation. If we were honest, many of us would
love to encounter God in such a direct way. But when God does not reveal
Himself, as we would personally like, it does not logically follow that there
is not enough evidence to conclude He exists. Rather, there are two questions
we should ask ourselves.
First, is our standard of proof reasonable? The blogger we just quoted is looking for absolute certainty. Yet if we applied a similar
criterion to anything else in life, there is little we would be able to claim
we know. We lack that kind of undeniable evidence for many things. Do we have undeniable
evidence, for example, that Abraham Lincoln existed? No, but we all assume he
did based on the preponderance of evidence. We should not necessarily expect
that the evidence for God’s existence would be different (more on that
shortly).
Second, what is the best explanation for the evidence we do have— things like the origin of the universe, the complexity of life, and our innate moral knowledge? The importance of this question cannot be overstated. To see why, consider for a moment how you would respond if you discovered one evening that someone broke into your house and stole everything. You have no idea who would have done this—there are no obvious suspects. The police arrive, and after finding out there is no undeniable evidence of who committed the crime, they wish you luck and leave. Is that what you would expect them to do?
Of course not! Maybe no one left a clear
note confessing he did it, but you would still expect the police to look at the
evidence that does exist and create a suspect profile accordingly. The
question would not be what kinds of evidence the police would like to
have, but rather what is the best explanation for the evidence they do have.
Similarly, we can draw up our own list of evidence we wish God would give us,
but that is neither here nor there. We are not absolved from the need to draw
conclusions about the evidence we have just because we wish the evidence were
different. Our subjective standards can be a poor guide to determining what is
true.
But Why Wouldn’t God Make
Himself More Obvious?
While it is not logical to conclude God
does not exist simply because He has not made Himself known according to every
person’s subjective wishes, it is reasonable to ask why God would not
reveal Himself in more obvious ways. We may not have undeniable evidence that
Abraham Lincoln existed, but Lincoln’s existence also does not have immediate
bearing on our lives.
If God is perfectly loving and good, it
seems He would make His existence so obvious that no one could deny
it—especially when people long to encounter Him more directly.
The force of this question is compounded by two biblical truths:
(1) God wants “all people to be saved and to come to
the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) and
(2) Jesus is the only path to salvation
(John 14:6).
If our belief and trust in Jesus has
eternal consequences, why would God remain hidden—even a little? This tension
was powerfully stated by the atheist German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844–1900):
A god who is all-knowing and all powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intention—could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out the prospect of frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of truth?[4]
While we can only ever have a limited
understanding of why God has chosen to reveal Himself in certain ways, at
certain times, and in certain amounts, philosophers have long identified at
least one possible reason that God may choose to remain as hidden as He does:
to preserve our free will.
Generally speaking, free will is our ability to make choices without external coercion. If God wanted us to genuinely love Him, it was necessary to create us with some degree of free will. Otherwise, we would be nothing more than robots, lacking the ability to have a genuine relationship with our Creator. This fact has bearing on the question of God’s hiddenness. If God revealed Himself in an undeniable way, He would effectively be taking away our freedom to seek and love Him. Rather than coerce us into belief and trust, He gives us the space to either genuinely pursue or avoid Him.
Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal
(1623–1662) put it this way:
Willing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from him with all their heart, God so regulates the knowledge of himself that he has given indications of himself, which are visible to those who seek him and not to those who do not seek him. There is enough light for those to see who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.[5]
Importantly—especially as it relates to Nietzsche’s concern—the Bible says that when we do seek God, we will find Him (Deuteronomy 4:29). While God might not reveal Himself in the undeniable ways many would prefer, this verse implies that God has revealed Himself in sufficient ways for allowing genuine seekers to find Him. From a Christian perspective, that includes general revelation (knowledge of God through natural means, such as the observation of nature, philosophy, and reasoning) and special revelation (knowledge of God through supernatural means, such as the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ).
What About Those Who Say They Cannot
Find God?
But what about those who do not find
God, even when they say they look?
Does their unbelief seem to contradict
Deuteronomy 4:29? The answer is in Romans 1:18-20—all people know God exists,
but some suppress the truth:
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
While we are never in a position to
identify why a given person claims to not believe in God, we know from the
Bible that some people will not put their faith in God no matter how much
He reveals. The Israelites, for example, witnessed the kinds of supernatural
events that many today would yearn to experience, but that did not result in
their unwavering belief and trust in God (for reference, see the entire Old
Testament). In the New Testament, we read of how Jesus performed miraculous
signs but there were still people who chose not to believe (John 12:37). If God
skywrote today, you could bet that many would still deny His existence.
Clearly, faith in God is a matter of both the heart and mind—regardless of how
hidden He may seem at any given time.
[1] Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith (Madison,
WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1992), 87.
[2] A lecture by Richard Dawkins extracted from The
Nullifidian (December 1994).
[3] Greta Christina, “6 (Unlikely) Developments that
Could Convince This Atheist to Believe in God,” Alternet, July 4, 2010, www.alternet.org/story/147424/6_%28unlikely%29_developments_that_could_convince_this_athe
ist_to_believe-in_god.
[4] Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, trans. R.J.
Hollingsdale (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 89-90.
[5] Blaise Pascal, Pensées (New York: E.P. Dutton,
1958), 118.
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