The argument from divine hiddenness

I mentioned this some time ago but I think it's a good enough subject to warrant its own topic. Basically the argument from divine hiddenness argues directly from the existence of reasonable disbelief in God to the non-existence of God and I think it does so very convincingly.

As with most arguments against the existence of God this is only applicable to a certain conception of God, namely one that is capable of and very interested in having personal relationships with its creation. It doesn't apply to a deistic God that is indifferent to what humans believe. So let's start off by defining God as an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent supernatural being that created the universe and desires to be loved and glorified by his (masculine personal pronouns ftw) creation.

Now given the existence of this sort of God there are a few things that we might expect to see in a world that he created. The argument from evil would point out that there shouldn't be needless suffering but that's a seperate issue and a seperate argument. The argument from divine hiddenness points out that there shouldn't be people who are incapable of loving and glorifying God simply because they have not had an opportunity to form a belief that he exists in the first place. Why should such people not exist if God does? Because believing in the existence of God is a necessary precondition to loving and glorifying him and the denial of this precondition to people who would otherwise do so is incompatible with a God who desires to be loved and glorified.

Now it might not be immediately apparent that God's desire to be loved and glorified immediately translates into him necessarily having to give everyone the opportunity to do so. It could be the case, for example, that he doesn't bother to make his existence unambiguously obvious to everyone because he knows that some people just wont worship him regardless of whether or not they believe that he exists. That's a fair point but it must be emphasised that these are not the people that this argument is concerned with. The non-believer in question is interested in having a relationship with the creator of the universe but cannot because he does not believe in such a creator. These people do exist (I'm one of them) and the fact that God remains hidden from them is a pretty good reason to think that he's not there in the first place. Just for the sake of this argument let's label such atheists as people who have regrettable disbelief in the existence of God.

Anyway lets try and put that into a syllogism:

P1 If God exists regrettable disbelief does not

P2 Regrettable disbelief occurs

Conclusion: Therefore God does not exist

As far as I can tell there are two ways of tackling this argument. You could attack premise 1 and try to reconcile regrettable disbelief with a God that desires love and glorification. This would be the equivalent of a theodicy except that it's hiddenness that is being reconciled rather than evil. Maybe Teenaged can help me come up with a new fancy Greek term to describe this reconciliation (a theokreefy perhaps?). I imagine some people might bring up faith in this respect although doing so would concede that faith really is belief without good reason which every theists I've ever talked to has vehemently denied.

The other way would be to attack premise two and maintain that all disbelief is the result of hardheartedness or some kind of internal occlusion that blinds people from the obvious fact of God's existence. I would expect this from the fundamentalist camp and maybe even the likes of danwallacefan who thinks that the existence of God is a properly basic belief. I simply find it intolerable to entertain the notion that there is no such thing as a sincere atheist though.

As far as I can tell there are two ways of tackling this argument.domatron23

[QUOTE="domatron23"]As far as I can tell there are two ways of tackling this argument.ChiliDragon

The reasoning behind the argument as a whole looks sound to me, at first glance at least, but that first premise looks shaky to me.

I'm posting this during my coffee break at work, so please feel free to counter and point out what I missed or what I need to elaborate on. I started my break, saw this post, and what I just posted was the first thing that came to mind. :)

Yeah I figured that premise 1 would be the point of contention for most theists. It is a valid premise though, not a conclusion in and of itself. If it were you could take away premise 2 and still be able to conclude that God doesn't exist but.... well you can't do that.

Anyway, you say that God has made his existence clear by sending signs but some people with regrettable disbelief just don't consider them to be good enough reasons to believe. To me it seems as if you're contradicting yourself. Either God's signs must be strong enough to render regrettable disbelief impossible or they must be weak enough to conclude that he's not particularly interested in engaging his creation with a personal relationship and thus doesn't exist in the way I defined. There can't be a middle ground where his signs make regrettable disbelief impossible and yet regrettable disbelief still occurs.

I suppose I'm kind of bringing up a hidden premise there though so I might as well write it down. This premise would be "If a God desires to be loved and glorified by his creation he would make it unambiguously clear to everyone in a position to be in a relationship with him that he exists". I know theists tend to disagree when you start to make declarations about what God should or shouldn't do but nevertheless this premise kinda underlies the whole argument and it's pretty important in relation to premise 1. Do you agree or disagree with it?

I suppose I'm kind of bringing up a hidden premise there though so I might as well write it down. This premise would be "If a God desires to be loved and glorified by his creation he would make it unambiguously clear to everyone in a position to be in a relationship with him that he exists". I know theists tend to disagree when you start to make declarations about what God should or shouldn't do but nevertheless this premise kinda underlies the whole argument and it's pretty important in relation to premise 1. Do you agree or disagree with it?domatron23

[QUOTE="domatron23"]I suppose I'm kind of bringing up a hidden premise there though so I might as well write it down. This premise would be "If a God desires to be loved and glorified by his creation he would make it unambiguously clear to everyone in a position to be in a relationship with him that he exists". I know theists tend to disagree when you start to make declarations about what God should or shouldn't do but nevertheless this premise kinda underlies the whole argument and it's pretty important in relation to premise 1. Do you agree or disagree with it?ChiliDragon

God isn't taking away any choices by making his existence unambiguously clear, if anything he's making choices possible. Lets say that everyone knows that God exists, do they still have the choice to abandon him and not love or glorify him? Of course they do. Knowing that God exists doesn't affect any decision to love or not love but (and this is critical) not knowing that he exists does.

And of course the only decision that is being made is about how you view God and his love-worthiness, not his existence. You can't just decide to believe that God exists no more than you can decide that the sky doesn't exist or that it isn't blue.

It seldom happens that you enter a religious thread and you end up 100% agreeing with it, but this one is an exception.:o

The OP is so full of win, I have myself found this to be a very powerful reason for the non-existence of the sort of god we are talking about. I am also an atheist with regrettable disbelief.

This is such a simple yet so important an argument. I really dont see any problems with it.

As far as I am concerned it's a done deal that the abrahimic god does NOT exist, it boggles my mind how people cannot understand it.

Lets say that everyone knows that God exists, do they still have the choice to abandon him and not love or glorify him? Of course they do. Knowing that God exists doesn't affect any decision to love or not love.domatron23

Obviously religion is a bit more complex than high school dating, so it's a flawed and incomplete metaphor, but the notion that relationships are a two way street still applies.ChiliDragon

No, no, no it's an absolutely perfect metaphor for the situation being discussed. Your version is a little bit off though because the boy in the cafeteria corner actually knows that the girl of her dreams exists and that she's there to be talked to. That's not the case when it comes to divine hiddenness though so let me fiddle around with the variables a bit and try to reformulate this.

Now in this version we'll make the boy in the corner of the cafeteria God and the girl of his dreams as the regretful disbeliever. The boy desires to be loved by the girl just as God desires to be loved by his creation and the girl is looking for a relationship with some strapping young lad just as many atheists would love a relationship with the creator of the universe. Sounds like the two are perfect to be in a relationship right? Well they aren't because the boy hides in the cafeteria corner all day, never approaching the girl and even disguising himself as a plastic chair or a lunch tray when she walks by him. What could possibly be meant by this behaviour? It's not that the boy is shy or is incapable of showing himself or that it is somehowthe fault of the girl. The only answer is that the boy doesn't actually desire the attentions of the girl or that he was actually just a piece of furniture all along.

Cripes that's a bit tortured but nevermind I think it works well enough. Chili can you see how it doesn't matter whether or not the girl in that situation is actively trying to form a relationship with any nice young man she can find? It's all for nothing if the boy never makes himself seen.

Your argument is so far very well constructed and more thorough than most, but I think it is more likely to strengthen an atheist's belief than to convert a theist, because of those premises.ChiliDragon

Yeah I'd agree that it's probably more convincing to an atheist. Any theist has most likely confronted and overcome this issue long ago either by finding evidence for God or by rationalising away his hiddenness.

Actually, depending on God's nature, that choice could very well be taken away by proof of his existence.ChiliDragon

Oh I'd also love to hear more about this.

[QUOTE="ChiliDragon"] Actually, depending on God's nature, that choice could very well be taken away by proof of his existence.domatron23

Oh I'd also love to hear more about this.

While I agree with you that it's all for nothing if the boy never makes a move, I think we're viewing the metaphors from two different angles. In your example the boy is God. In my example, the girl is. And so we are back the differences in starting premises again.ChiliDragon

Well yes our two metaphors were different but frankly I think mine was more accurate. In yours the boy knows that the girl exists but was at fault because he wasn't prepared to make the relationship happen. In mine the girl doesn't know that the boy exists (this is the issue of hiddenness and it's not worth making a metaphor if you don't include it) and the boy is at fault for not making his existence known in order for the relationship to even be possible in the first place.

Now unless you're arguing that regrettable disbelief doesn't occur then I think my version is to be preferred. Do your starting premises include a universal belief in the existence of God?

Actually, depending on God's nature, that choice could very well be taken away by proof of his existence.

The Christianity version is roughly this:

If there is an all-loving, omni-potent and omniscient God that deeply loves us, then if he was to prove his existence to us the choice between ignoring God or following God would be roughly akin to to choice between

A: live a miserable short life and let that be all you have,

or,

B. live forever in complete happiness.

I'm pretty sure it technically still qualifies as a choice, since there are two options, but it's a bit like asking someone if they want to drink cyanide or not. One of the options is so distinctly worse than the other that it's more of an illusion of choice than the real thing.

Did that make more sense?ChiliDragon

I definitely agree here, a choice with such ridiculous consequences is hardly a choice at all. If anything though this is a condemnation of God's afterlife system first and a reason for divine hiddenness second.

There is the typical response that is mostly used when this sort of thing comes up in discussions about Pascal's wager though and that is that making a decision to believe in/love/glorify God because of the consequences of doing or not doing so is insincere and an omniscient God would be able to discern that insincerity.

Besides that though it might help to ask yourself why you love God. Is it because you don't want a miserable short life or because you do want to live forever in complete happiness? Well I would hope not, surely you have reasons besides the threats and promises associated with death. If such reasons make your choice to follow God meaningful then surely they would apply equally to anyone else including somebody who thinks that the existence of God is an obvious fact.

Great stuff, 'regrettable disbelief' is certainly a problem for the modern conception of the Abrahamic God.

The only way to reconcile your argument with the modern idea of God, would be to infact deny the existence of regrettable disbelief, but I would wager that this is a hard stance to maintain, for reasons you've already outlined. Also, considering God's supossed omnipotence, his ability to make people aware is not in question.

Well yes our two metaphors were different but frankly I think mine was more accurate. In yours the boy knows that the girl exists but was at fault because he wasn't prepared to make the relationship happen. In mine the girl doesn't know that the boy exists (this is the issue of hiddenness and it's not worth making a metaphor if you don't include it) and the boy is at fault for not making his existence known in order for the relationship to even be possible in the first place.domatron23

Now unless you're arguing that regrettable disbelief doesn't occur then I think my version is to be preferred. Do your starting premises include a universal belief in the existence of God?domatron23

I definitely agree here, a choice with such ridiculous consequences is hardly a choice at all. If anything though this is a condemnation of God's afterlife system first and a reason for divine hiddenness second.domatron23

Besides that though it might help to ask yourself why you love God. Is it because you don't want a miserable short life or because you do want to live forever in complete happiness? Well I would hope not, surely you have reasons besides the threats and promises associated with death.domatron23