The atheistic argument from Divine Hiddeness:
Assume the following:
1. God exists
2. God made man in his image
3. Necessarily, if God made man in his image, then it’s God’s duty to make Himself known to the creatures whom bear his image in any circumstance whatever.
4. God didn’t make himself known to me.
5. God doesn’t exist (since 3 entails the necessity of God making myself known to me if he exists, and I don’t know he exists, then necessarily God cannot exist).
The rebuttal to the argument from Divine Hiddeness: the argument from Divine Subtlety, which finds premise three suspect:
Surely premise 3. is too strong to be prima facie true. Imagine a possible world where God is subtle, where he only makes Himself known to those who have the eyes to see, ears to hear, and a pure heart. Imagine that God is such that only those who are willing to discern His existence are able to see that he exists. If such a world is even possible then premise 3 is necessarily false.
So is it possible that God is subtle? There’s no contradiction in the above description, so it’s at least logically possible. But is it metaphysically possible? Maybe despite the logical possibility of it being true, maybe it must be ruled out for metaphysical reasons. But what would such a reason look like?
Maybe the following:
6. God so loves his creatures that He would never not let them know that He exists.
Is 6 blatantly obvious? No, for maybe God has reasons for being subtle, like
7. God so loves His creatures He wouldn’t force them to believe He exists unless they wanted to believe.
Is 7 possible true? Surely, for
8. Love never moves the beloved if the beloved must be moved against the beloved’s will.
8 seems obviously true, and I’d invite anyone to find an exception. Since 8 is true, then 6 and 3 are false, and so the argument from Divine Hiddeness collapses.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
is God possibly subtle?
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1 comment:
"7. God so loves His creatures He wouldn’t force them to believe He exists unless they wanted to believe.
8. Love never moves the beloved if the beloved must be moved against the beloved’s will.
8 seems obviously true, and I’d invite anyone to find an exception."
I personally affirm 8 as obvious, but don't see how it entails or implies 7. For example, I have made myself known to people who have not loved me. Couldn’t it be possible for God to in fact make Himself known to everyone without exception, but in such a way as to not destroy their freedom?
I can even think of a Biblical example of such a scenario. During the Millennial Kingdom, Jesus will rule the entire world with a rod of iron, although every human during that era will be in willing submission to, and co-regency with, Him. It will be a paradise. However, at the end of Christ’s Kingdom, there will be a rebellion, Satan will be loosed for a short time, and Christ will put it down, sit on the Great White Throne, and judge everyone. Then He will remake the heavens and the earth.
Everyone who joins the rebellion will have been made aware of God (assuming here the Christian conception of Jesus as God), and yet they will not love Him.
But even if we share eschatological differences, I can think of a scenario that we might agree has already occurred.
Before the earth was created, God existed, and He created some angelic persons. At some point, one of them, in the face of God, having shared intimacy with Him, chose to sin against Him by pridefully attempting to usurp His throne. Satan was then cast out of Heaven, and he managed to incite a number of other angelic persons to rebellion such that they followed Him out of heaven.
However your construal of the story goes, and whether you actually think it happened, I see no logical contradiction in it. It could have been possible for God to somehow make His existence known to every human, and yet allow them the choice of whether to love Him.
In fact, doesn't making your existence known to everyone enable them to make the choice whether to love you?
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