Divine hiddenness is the concept that God is hidden, silent, or even absent altogether. The theme of divine hiddenness, silence, and darkness has a rich history in Judeo-Christian and Islamic theology.

Historical Judeo-Christian references to divine hiddenness

Old Testament In the Old Testament, God is described as being hidden and as hiding. One example is Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?....I cry by day, but you do not answer...." Another is in Isaiah 45: "Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior."

Anselm of Canterbury Although he did not address divine hiddenness as an argument against God the way contemporary authors do, Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) linked divine hiddenness to an unfulfilled purpose of seeing and knowing God in his Proslogion: Anselm further saw a theological tension between God's omnipresence and the fact that Anselm did not see God. Anselm himself did not see this as contradicting Christian belief, however, as he was a prolific Christian thinker, developing the ontological argument and contributing to work on the atonement.

Divine hiddenness as opposed to evil Peter van Inwagen has argued that divine hiddenness could be the case apart from evil. J.L. Schellenberg has also extensively argued that his hiddenness argument stands apart from arguments from evil, making hiddenness a distinct (if related) topic. Yujin Nagasawa has argued that a particularly wrenching form comes when hiddenness and evil are intermingled, which he calls "the problem of divine absence."

Divine hiddenness in atheistic thought

Nietzsche In the introduction to a volume of papers discussing whether divine hiddenness is evidence against theism, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser cite Nietzsche's question as anticipating this contemporary theme: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions—could that be a god of goodness?"

Argument from nonbelief The argument from nonbelief, also called the hiddenness argument, trades on divine hiddenness to argue for the nonexistence of God.

See also

Deus absconditus Argument from nonbelief Silence (Endo novel)

References