God's absence

1. I'm going to revisit the divine hiddenness argument. The basic idea is that many or most people don't experience God in the way they need, want, or expect. The argument operates on roughly two fronts. A typical presupposition of freewill theism is God's desires that every human being enjoy fellowship with God. Trust him. God wants everyone to be saved. 

But many human beings don't believe in God because they haven't had what they take to be a recognizable experience of God. It could be argued that there are many ways to experience God indirectly, which they fail to register, but the point is that from their viewpoint, if God exists, they should be able to experience him in a more personal, targeted fashion. They just don't recognize God at work in their lives. 

And this is a problem for freewill theism since, on the face of it, it would be easy for God to give them a recognizable experience of himself. So what's the explanation? 

One explanation is that it seems like God isn't there because, as a mater of fact, God isn't there.. Sppearance matches reality. We inhabit a godless universe. It isn't that God absents himself from people's lives, but that there is no God to experience. No one is home. You can keep knocking on the door, but the house is empty. 

Of course, a basic problem with that explanation is the abundance of evidence for God's existence. Indeed, that's one of the aggravating dimensions of the problem. Since there is so much evidence, not just for God's existence generally, but his activity in the lives of some people, why are others bereft?

Another explanation is to deny the universality of the freewill theist assumption. Maybe God doesn't reach out to every human being. Maybe it's not his desire every human being be in fellowship with himself. 

A freewill theist can also postulate postmortem evangelism, where God compensates for his absence in this life in the afterlife. Other issues aside, that has an ad hoc quality.

2. One complication is that many unbelievers say they aren't seeking God. They hate the very idea of God. They prefer a godless universe. If they though God did exist, that would put them in a state of psychological tension. 

3. There is, though, another comparatively neglected front to the issue. The problem is not God's unavailability to humans in general, unbelievers included, but God's unavailability to his own people: Christians and Jews. This is a common refrain or common complaint in the Prophets and Psalmists. So often, God is not available to us when we most need him or want his intervention.

4. That in itself requires some unpacking. In what ways to we need or want God to be available?

i) A cliche example is answer to prayer.

ii) Another cliche example is a sign from God. Not so much that we want God to solve a problem but we just want an indication that he's there, that he's still there. A confirmation that he's real. That he's there, he's aware, and he cares. That we're not totally alone. On our own in the world.

Could be very simple. An audible voice. Or a modest but unmistakable sign. 

iii) Apropos (ii), which may be the same thing or something similar, a hunger for God's "presence" or his "loving" presence in particular. What that means isn't entirely clear. It can be different from a sign. A sign is external to us. It may refer to a feeling: to be suffused with a sense of God's love.

Again, on this view, is God's felt presence in itself an experience of his love, or is the sense of divine love something over and above his felt presence?

5. This, though, goes to the larger question of how we'd like God to be available to us. How often do we feel the need to be in touch with God? Is this mainly in a crisis, or something routine?

Take Adam and Eve in the Garden, before the Fall. Did they feel they were missing something unless the Angel of the Lord appeared to them every day or every week? How long could they go without a divine visitation but be happy and content with each other, the garden, and their children to be?

6. To take a human comparison, consider a young couple riding on the crest of passion. They spend all their free time together. They can't get enough of each other. Yet that's not indefinitely sustainable. It loses its freshness.

Even people who are extremely close to each other can get on each other's nerves, or get bored with each other's constant company. Even people who are extremely close may need to have some time to themselves. They get tired of being together every minute of the day. They have to take a break. Have some time and space apart.

7. On a related note, an extended separation can intensify reunion. An extended separation can revitalize love.

8. Or you might have two brothers who were inseparable until they got married and had kids. After that, not only do they see less of each other, but the need for their mutual companionship diminishes because they now have compensatory relationships. The wife and kids provide a different kind of emotional sustenance. 

To some extent the brothers may even grow apart emotionally, not in the sense that they cease to love each other, but they're now invested in their own family. That develops a potential which was unrealized prior to marriage and kids.

If, say, the wives and kids were all killed in a traffic accident, the brothers might revert. Resume living together as bachelors. Become inseparable again. 

9. In what sense has God created us to need him emotionally? Do we naturally need to have God speak to us or appear to us every so often? Of is this mostly driven by the vicissitudes of life in a fallen world? 

Does God normally supply our emotional needs indirectly through creation? Through other people and natural blessings?

10. Of course, one problem is that in a fallen world we can't necessarily turn to each other for emotional compensations because sin puts a strain on our relationships. It makes our relationships a source of pain. Rather than filling the void of God's absence, it's another way to be hurt. 

11. I was a free range child. I used to go for long walks on my own, sometimes with my dog. It was a forested area with woods, ponds, streams, ravines, and lakes. A lot to explore.

I didn't need my parents to be available for me in the sense of having them around all the time. Rather, I needed to know that I had them to come back to. I had a home. I had security. It was (fairly) safe to explore the woods on my own. And if they weren't home when I got back, there was the confidence in knowing that they would return. Either I was waiting for them or they were waiting for me. There was no anxiety on my part.

12. There is something exhilarating about a divine Incarnation. That you're talking face-to-face with God. Looking into the eyes of God. At the same time, it might make you acutely self-conscious to be in God's presence, in such a palpable, immediate way. 

To take a comparison, boys are very uninhibited around other boys. Would it be inhibiting to be with Jesus? 

13. Because God is rarely available in ways we long for, it forces Christians to seek each other out and try to encourage one other in our joint pilgrimage. There's a bonding experience that occurs in situations of shared trust, stress, risk, vulnerability, or collaboration. There's a certain paradox when friends or Christians pool their collective helplessness. They cant do for each other what only God can do, but it can still be a maturing and sanctifying experience.