Hiddeness of God (Part1)

JL Shellenberg:
(1) If a Perfectly Loving God exists, then there would not be reasonable non-belief.
(2) But there is reasonable non-belief
(3) Therefore, No such God Exists.

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Nietzsche:
Freddy said that it was an "immature intellectuality" that led to the belief in a God who allowed humans to persist in doubt for thousands of years, while simultaneously threatening them with eternal suffering for failing to believe even though it was beyond their control. It is an "immature intellectuality" that leads one to believe in a God who demands of humans to be truthful in a clear manner, while failing to do so himself.

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Bertrand Russel:
What would you say to God if you were to face him: "I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence."

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The Mystics: Saint John of the Cross: God has hidden his face from humanity. This is our "dark night of the soul."

Hiddeness of God (Part2)

Psalm 10:1
"Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"

Lamentations 5:22
"Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long?"

Psalm 13:1-2
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?"

Psalm 22:1-2
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I cry by day but you do not answer."

Psalm 88:13-14
"I cry out to you, o Lord. Why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?"

Psalm 30:7
"When you favored me, Lord, you made my mountain stand firm. But when you hid your face I was dismayed."

Psalm 44:23-24
"Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?"

Isaiah 45:15
"Truly you are a God who hides himself, O Lord of Israel, the savior."

Hiddeness of God (Part 3)

Jacob Ross believes that God's hiddenness is not a problem with God, but with our expectations of God and our concepts of God. He proposes that we reject any anthropomorphic conception of a deity. What he means is that we need to stop thinking of God as a "man," or even as a "person." We need to stop, according to Ross, thinking of God as one whom we can enter into a "personal relationship" with. Rather, he says, we need to think of God as fundamentally "mysterious," and totally beyond explanation. We would do better to think of God as the "Great Nothing," or the "Mighty Ineffable One." God is not hidden, then, he is simply beyond our ability to perceive. Ross suggests that the divine is a reality that none of our theological systems are capable of capturing. It doesn't even make sense, he would say, for the "Great Mystery" to be seen, let alone comprehended.

A couple of responses to these types of perspectives:
(1) I think Ross is right that many of our frustrations and anxieties about God have more to do with our expectations of God than they have to do with God himself.

(2) I also think Ross is right that when we stop "defining" God with human categories, then all of our problems with God disappear.

(3) Unfortunately, even though our problems disappear, so does any sense of meaning. It is a small step from believing in "The Great Nothing" and "The Ineffable One" to believing in "The Great Irrelevant One."

(4) Also, we are well justified to try to comprehend God with at least some human qualities. After all, Jesus was a man AND Jesus was God.

(5) Furthermore, the Bible states that we were made in God's image and that God desires us like a man desires his bride. (How much more relational can you get!)

(6) Finally, God wants to be comprehended (Acts 1:3). Over 150 times in the Old Testament we are called to "seek" God and we are promised that we will be able to find him. In fact, it is impossible to even have faith unless we believe that our seeking will reap comprehension! (Hebrews 11:6)

Hiddeness of God (Part 4)

You want to know if God exists. You REALLY want to know. Soren Kierkegaard knows you do. He knows how bad you want to know.

"But frankly, Scarlett, Soren Kierkegaard doesn't give a damn."

To Kierkegaard, what matters MOST is not how deep and marvelous our knowledge is, but rather how PASSIONATE our faith is. Soren was rebelling against two forces of his time: (1) the cognitive determinacy of Hegel [Hegel believed that truth about God and the world would become gradually and incrementally more and more robust until academia attained CERTAINTY about God], and (2) the domestication of the faith [Believers were, in Soren's opinion, becoming progressivley less and less passionate, and more and more pre-occupied with worldy gain - sound familiar?]

Soren would not tolerate ivory-tower arrogance and the domestication of the church. Nor, he argued, would God allow it. God, in order to ensure believers were passionate, kept himself hidden to the extent that belief would require a RISKY commitment. The assumption was that it takes a passionate person to make a risky commitment like believing in a God who is hidden. In fact, the more hidden God is, the greater the risk. The greater the risk, the greater the passion. Kierkegaard's God is not satisfied with intellectual knowledge and meaningless belief, but rather demands a "Leap of Faith."

Here is a sketch I just made of Soren, called:
"Kierkegaard Blowing on the Flame (with small eyes)"

Response:
(1) Kierkegaard is one of my favorite philosophers. He is extremely complicated. One of his books begins with the following sentence: "The self is a relation that relates itself to itself, or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but the relation's relating itself to itself." Awesome! It does actually make sense, but I'll let you read "The Sickness onto Death" for yourself.

(2) Soren's pursuit against meaningless intellectualism and lifeless domestication is a model for theologians to follow everywhere.

(3) That being said, is "Passion" what God wants? And, must God be hidden for us to be passionate? Could Adam and Eve have been passionate in the garden with God's immediate and obvious presence? Did they, according to Soren, simply never have a chance to be passionate with God's presence? If not, did God orchestrate the Fall so that they could attain Passion (eliminating their free choice)?

(4) If Passion is what God wants, and passion is created by risk, and risk is created by God's hiddenness, then it seems like the MORE hidden God is, the better our faith! Or, put another way, the LESS we know about God the better! But this flies in the face of the Bible. God is revealed! He is pleading with us to "seek" him (over 150 times in the Bible) and promises he will be found (see upcoming blog). In reality it seems like the MORE we know about God the greater our faith should be.

(5) Any passion I have for God is based ON WHAT I KNOW OF GOD, not on what I don't know! God's glorious character ignites passion, not his absence!

As fantastic as Kierkegaard is, it seems to me that his epistemology is a little "off." Stay Tuned!

Hiddeness of God (Part 5)

Jonathan Edwards believed that even though God is not obvious, there is adequate and objective evidence to compel belief in God's existence. That being said, not everyone believes. Why? According to Edwards, the presence of evidence is not enough. People must seek out God in order for the evidence to be useful. Furthermore, not only must they seek God, but they must seek him with proper motives; specifically, one must seek with benevolence. They must seek earnestly.

What could motivate earnesty even before one has come to believe? Edwards argues, cleverly, that there is overwhelming evidence for at least the possibility of God's existence. This possibility has extraordinary implications if it turns out to be true. The relevance of these implications should motivate earnest seeking. If the FBI or the police get a call that says, "I think my neighbor is planning to steal candy at the supermarket," the authorities would not respond. However, if the caller said "My neighbor is planning to kill the president," the FBI would come and investigate. The relevance of possibility motivates.

So why isn't everyone motivated to seek God earnestly? Edwards blames 3 things: (1) The noetic effects of sin (We struggle to understand because sin has damaged our ability to form true beliefs) , (2) Human inclination towards idolatry, and (3) Human pre-occupation with things that are immediate (disregard for things eternal).

Here are 2 Ink drawings I made of Edwards, titled "Slurping Coke with Baseball Cap," and "Slowly Chewing on Pancakes."

Response to Edwards:
(1) Edwards is right, I think, that knowing God requires seeking God (see upcoming blog). At the very least, we must cognitively allow for the possibility of such a being in order for the evidence for such a being to be useful.

(2) Edwards is also correct in that who we are is just as important in knowing God as what we know.

(3) The main problem with Edwards' theory stems from his Calvinistic framework. Edwards says that every person who fails to know God is responsible for their failure. Yet, the key character quality for knowledge of God (benevolence) is given to every believer by God (thus making God responsible).

(4) Also, appeals to the "noetic effects of sin" ultimately fail. I understand the appeal. It is tempting, especially when I reflect on all the things I have screwed-up and struggled with in my own life, to blame the noetic effects of sin. YES, sin can impact our thinking, but thinking must remain adequate to form true beliefs - otherwise the idea of "faith" becomes meaningless. If sin inhibits us from forming true beliefs, then belief in God is either "lucky" or "determined" by God, and both of these options remove our freedom (and responsibility). Think of it this way: If this statement is true: The noetic effects of sin damages our ability to form true beliefs, then how do we know this statement is true?

Stay tuned.

Hiddeness of God (Part 6)

Many people respond to the Hiddenness-of-God problem in the same way they respond to the "problem of evil." After all, the hiddenness of God becomes most vivid when we are suffering. For instance, when Jessica died of cancer I spent over a year pursuing the question "does God even exist" and if so, "where is he?" Furthermore, you would never hear me cry out: "Where is God!" while I am at the beach with friends, or listening to a loved one play the tuba (unless they are screechingly lousy at it).

All that being said, the hiddenness-of-God problem is different than the problem of evil. Think about the holocaust. Would the suffering and evil of the holocaust be in any way diminished if God had miraculously appeared to the Jews for, say, 10 hours several days before they were sent off to the concentration camps? No. The hiddenness-of-God problem is about the tension between God's practical absence and his apparently incompatible expectation for us to believe in him. The problem of evil is about the tension between God's character and God's apparently incompatible creation.

One of the basic arguments against the problem of evil is also used in response to the hiddenness-of-God problem: SOUL-MAKING. The soul-making "defense," as it is called, basically says that evil and suffering exist for the construction of our our characters (souls). The hiddenness-of-God version says that God hides himself because it is also beneficial in the construction of our characters. After all, the argument goes, if God were obvious, then people would believe out of compulsion, not out of free choice. And free choice is necessary for responsibility.

I would say several things about Soul-Making theodicies:

(1) I agree that who we are (and who we are becoming) is VERY important to God, and that God leverages anything and everything in the compassionate nurture of our characters.

(2) That being said, there is an assumption in this perspective that is suspect; namely, that freely choosing God requires that God be hidden. But is this so? Were Adam and Eve not free? What about the Israelites after marching through the miraculous partition of the Red Sea? (remember how quickly they built altars to pagan gods?)

(3) Another assumption in the perspective that is suspect: that this is the way God wants it; that this current duplicity on God's part is all part of his divine plan. But the general sense that I get in reading the scriptures (especially the Pentateuch) is that this is specifically not the way God wants it. Rather, God is grieved that Adam and Even (and all of humanity) had to be removed from the garden (God's presence).

(4) Ultimately, I am skeptical of any theological perspective that says God needs evil, suffering, or hiddenness for some "greater good" that he can not get in any other way. God hates evil. God despises suffering. God longs to be present.

So what do I think is a better explanation of God's hiddenness? Stay tuned.

Hiddeness of God (Part 7)

For me, a satisfactory response to the hiddenness of God problem will take into account at least these 5 intuitions:

(1) That there must be something about God that is really KNOWABLE in order for faith to be meaningful.

(2) The more we know about God the GREATER our faith should be.

(3) The act of seeking should be of central importance.

(4) Such a response, that endorse REAL knowledge of God, should be distinguishable from meaningless, ivory-tower intellectualism

(5) And finally, we should be careful not to assume that just because God is currently hidden that this is the way things HAD to be, or that this is the way God WANTS it to be.

For my next and final Blog on this topic I will do my best to articulate what I think is the best response to the hiddenness of God problem - a response that takes into account these 5 intuitions. Stay Tuned.

Hiddenness of God (Part 8)

I've only been to a Bondage Nightclub once. It was when I was working at Abbott Hospital. One of the nurses was celebrating a birthday and invited many of her co-workers to the club in Minneapolis. You can imagine how apprehensive I was to go to such a place, what, with me being a theology professor and all. What kind of sick, perverted things would I expose myself to? Was I taking the first step towards an inevitable downward spiral into the furthest depths of carnal debauchery? What would my co-workers think of my God when they see me stepping into such a place?

Fortunately, it only took me a few minutes to see the nightclub for what it really was. Yes, there were cages hanging from the ceiling with women dancing and contorting themselves into suggestive positions. Yes, there was thumping, haunting music and leather-clad people dancing erotically on the dance floor next to a giant pulpit with an upside-down cross. If I was a little less perceptive, I might have been deeply disturbed by what I saw. But then, up near a mezzanine where two women were connected by their facial piercings, and through the fake smoke (used to create a sense of haunting mystery I guess), I saw, in absurd contrast, a glowing red EXIT sign.

The absurdity of the sign exposed what was really happening. Think about it: The whole atmosphere was intended to be erotic, perverted, twisted, BAD, immoral, dark. "Come explore your darkest, deepest, most secret desires, and IN CASE OF FIRE EXIT HERE!" It was so contrived. The stain-glassed church windows, the upside down cross, the cages, the smoke, and "Bud Light Is Refreshing!" signs that glowed from from random places in the stupid, misty ambiance.

But the really sad thing was that you could see people giving themselves over to the contrived narrative. People danced and postured in sexually suggestive ways, with erotic expressions and outfits designed to conform to the big lie. Why they gave themselves over to it, well... I have psychological speculations that maybe I'll discuss some other time. But the fact is, they wanted this certain experience (whatever that experience was) SO BADLY that they chose to ignore the way things really were around them, ignoring the elements that contradicted the lie, and acted as if it were all true: Acting as if they really were some strange sex slaves in some demonic underworld, somehow obligated to sensually satisfy themselves despite "the horrid shame of it all" (the religious stuff, by the way, is meant to fuel the flames of shame). Of course, the more demonic and shameful the more they would be aroused.

Some time later I was at a local mega-church during a worship service and happened to notice, through the darkness of the room, past the black tapestries (intended to "blacken out" any sense of the real world), through the mysterious mist billowing from the "mysterious mist" machines, and on both sides of the stage, two glowing EXIT signs. Then I looked at the worshippers giving themselves over to the music, with reverent postures (arms to the sky) and transcendent (almost erotic) expressions. Of course, I was immediately hit with sudden dread and fear that my religion might be a big lie like the bondage nightclub; the whole ambiance contrived to create a sense of reverence and transcendence.

The issue is pressing. Is there really some big person up there that we are singing to and raising our hands to? Is there a heavenly audience? Or is this all a big, dumb religious show? Where is this audience? Where is this God?

Some believers claim to "experience" God. I do not necessarily disbelieve them. But they certainly do not experience God like the disciples (see John leaning back and resting against Jesus' chest in John 13:23, 21:20) or like Adam and Eve (where God is rustling through the bushes in the cool of the day; see Genesis 3). And even if they do actually experience God, does every believer? Can I know that I am experiencing God? Doesn't Satan come as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14)? This is tough for me. There have been 2 occasions where I have had experiences that I have convinced myself were special experiences of God's grace. One in Mexico when I was 19 and one on December 9th of 2005. Both of these incidents lasted several hours and I could clearly sense when each started and ended. They both involved an incredible sense of peace. They both involved an uncanny sense of vision and clarity. And they both preceded significant character change in my life. But do I know that they were experiences of God's grace? No. I really don't. They could have been anything. In fact, they both followed highly emotional incidents as well, and could have been a normal psychological defense against emotional stress.

Even if it was God's grace, must I know it to be so? I really do not think so. The God of the Bible expresses deep desire to be our God and for us to worship only him. But he is not a needy God. He doesn't need to "get credit" for every good thing that he does. He does things because he loves us, not so that he is loved by us. The reality remains that God is hidden, and yet we are called to increase in faith. God's hiddenness creates anxiety and many people want to eliminate this anxiety by seeing God in many places. They observe and proclaim "what God is doing in my life," as if they just received an e-mail from him outlining his tactical plan for their life. They proclaim "where God wants me right now" as if they just recently returned from God's office in Omaha. Again, I am fully open to the possibility that I simply lack "spiritual eyes." I really am. But God is hidden. Humanity was kicked out of the Garden. And I just think some people (indeed, many people) proclaim things about what God is doing and they have NO CLUE what God is doing. I know this is not "nice," but my reverence for God prevents me from making claims about God that are not well founded. But maybe I am letting my reverence get in my way. Maybe I am supposed to be trying to figure out what God is doing, but I really don't think so. I think we are called to seek WHO GOD IS, not what God is doing.

And the real tragedy that I see, in my opinion, is that the people who often proclaim what God is "doing in my life" often proclaim that WHO God is "is a mystery." My reading of the Scriptures doesn't resonate with this at all. In fact, I think it is totally backwards. I believe we are created to know who God is and to seek out who God is, while what God is doing is God's business and beyond our comprehension. God (himself and what he does) is hidden. Who God is has been revealed.

Hiddenness of God (Part 9)

I would argue that much of our anxiety about God’s hiddenness is not aroused so much because of the intellectual problem, but is rather aroused by deep FEAR. Gut-wrenching, lip-quivering, heart-squeezing fear… that, just maybe, God has forgotten you. That God has excluded you from his eternal presence. That God has rejected you forever from goodness and laughter. God's current absence is a perpetual confirmation, a horrid evidence, of the most frightening rejection possible. Fear and dread. Deep, heavy, humid dread, like being buried alive in a duffel bag, like shooting through space, unable to breath, kicking, and tumbling towards the sun.

The "hiddenness of God" is largely about fear of God’s rejection. I can feel it in my own heart. I can see it in the eyes of philosophers. The "hiddenness of God" problem is a relational problem just as much as it is an intellectual problem, and the solutions to the problem must also be relational. I emerged from seminary fatigued and crawling across the broken glass and scattered debris of a Master’s degree. One counter-intuitive truth dangled before my mind during my entire journey there. Etched deeply into my theological windshield is this truth:

God is hidden and God is revealed.

Many people embrace one to the exclusion of the other. But they are both true. And if there is just one thing about God that I leave seminary fully confident of it is this: We can know God. In fact, if this were not true (say, if God were a total mystery), then we could not call the Bible "revelation." Indeed, the status of Scripture hinges on the fact that we can truly know God. Both reason and my personal pilgrimage in the Spirit convicts me of this truth, and one more:

Knowledge of God is not merely cognitive.

In fact, I would argue that it is barely cognitive. This has never been easy for me. My mind is a catapult, and my heart is its fragile trigger that launches me into every problem: thinking, thinking, thinking; Dissecting and analyzing and testing and rethinking; Hypnotized and pre-occupied. Distracted and disengaged; Examining and managing the carnival of arguments and propositions before my mind.

But knowledge of God is primarily character-ological. Knowledge of God emerges from who we are, not what we know. Why or how this works, I can only speculate. Somehow it seems that we must make ourselves compatible with truth in order to comprehend it. The most profound example of this is John 7:17. Here, Jesus gives a clear argument for the reality of who he is: “If you want to know if I am God – like I say I am – here is how you can know: obey the commands.” Knowledge is the product of our obedience, not our intellect. Faith grows as our character grows. Indeed, “Blessed are the Pure in Heart, for they will see God” (Mt. 5:8).

The Bible itself does not seem intended to flood our brains with knowledge, but to provoke our hearts to action. To stoke courage and hope. To prompt our spirits towards righteousness. Even the “renewing of our mind” (Rom. 12:2) is done in the context of what we do with our entire person (12:1). It is not so much new knowledge that renews our minds, but new action – namely, giving ourselves as a living sacrifice!

The problem of God’s hiddenness is barely a cognitive problem. This is good news because not everyone can do systematic theology, or analytic philosophy, and as it turns out, nobody really has to. But everyone can manifest agape love, and everyone can obey the commands of God, as “his commands are not burdensome” (I John 5:2-3). The profound reality here is that "who we are" taints "what we can know." Consider what David says about God in 2 Samuel 22:26-28, "To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. And your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low."

Jesus stretches out his wounded hands to us and offers us many convincing proofs, with the primary purpose of deflating the doubt in our hearts, because doubt keeps us from passionate commitment to God. Jesus also demolishes our intellectual houses of cards and our ivory towers, because intellectualism keeps us from life and arouses false confidence in our own contingent minds. God is hidden and God is revealed. Thus, God combats doubt and God combats intellectualism. We should combat them both as well.