The Hiddenness Argument for Atheism

[Silmarien]

Well I'm not justifying every aspect of human animal relations.

Look at it in terms of how we set limits on childrens behavior, experience, exposure in so many ways. If we treated other adults like that it would absolutely seem tyrannical. But God ("the father") in relation to humans?

I mean, we (hopefully) don't set limits on children's behavior because we're more powerful than they are and eager to show it. Breaking their will and making them accept what we tell them via coercion would definitely be really problematic, to put it mildly. If something is going to harm your child, you shouldn't be doing it.

 

[gaara4158]

Have you heard of Wilhelm Schmidt and Urmonotheismus? The anthropological issues here are pretty difficult too--it's not uncommon to find some sophisticated theistic concepts in aboriginal peoples, so I don't think we can say for certain that monotheism is the sort of thing that evolved over time. It's not impossible that it was the primordial belief and people only afterwards became civilized and fell away into polytheism. When it comes to prehistorical times, we just can't know. So I think 4 still fails.

I hadn’t heard of that, no, but I’ll agree that 4 doesn’t make this argument a logical defeater of theism. It does make the idea of an all-loving, relationship-seeking god intuitively less persuasive, though. You can appeal to the finitude of human wisdom to save any of God’s traits, but the more slippery a concept God is, the harder it is to make a judgment either way on its existence.

 

[durangodawood]

I mean, we (hopefully) don't set limits on children's behavior because we're more powerful than they are and eager to show it. Breaking their will and making them accept what we tell them via coercion would definitely be really problematic, to put it mildly. If something is going to harm your child, you shouldn't be doing it.

No, good parents set boundaries, and deliberately expose the child to new experiences, all in the childs interest. Not as a display of power. Its in this spirit that I think the proposed God could make short work of our resistance to belief.

The more we do this the more I feel like we're in the writer's room on a TV drama, hashing out a new character's ethics and motivations.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No, good parents set boundaries, and deliberately expose the child to new experiences, all in the childs interest. Not as a display of power. Its in this spirit that I think the proposed God could make short work of our resistance to belief.

The more we do this the more I feel like we're in the writer's room on a TV drama, hashing out a new character's ethics and motivations.

But we're not. We're just all sitting around hashing out what some other people group (i.e. mostly the Jews) has handed TO US about character ethics and motivations. Hence, the reason I waste so little time making scrambled eggs out of the Philosopher's God concept.

 

[golgotha61]

J.L. Schellenberg is has lovingly made this argument, that has been around for decades, more accessible to the layperson and gives a good reason to reject theism.

1. If a perfectly loving God exists, then there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person.
2. If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
3. If a perfectly loving God exists, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists (from 1 and 2).
4. Some finite persons are or have been nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
5. No perfectly loving God exists (from 3 and 4).
6. If no perfectly loving God exists, then God does not exist.
7. God does not exist (from 5 and 6) (Schellenberg 103)

By all means engage the argument and examine whether you think its premises are more plausibly true than false and why.

For a larger discussion of the book see:

The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame

If God’s character/identity consisted only of perfect love, then proposition 1 may be seen as true. But God’s identity is not restricted to love. His identity is also one that includes omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, holiness, etc. Holiness is the characteristic that I focus on as being the spoiler for proposition 1.

Because God is holy, He cannot relationship with “any finite person”. God can only relationship with one who is made holy by salvation through Christ.

 

[durangodawood]

...Because God is holy, He cannot relationship with “any finite person”. God can only relationship with one who is made holy by salvation through Christ.

Why cannot God have a relationship with anyone he wants to?

 

[Uber Genius]

If God’s character/identity consisted only of perfect love, then proposition 1 may be seen as true. But God’s identity is not restricted to love. His identity is also one that includes omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, holiness, etc. Holiness is the characteristic that I focus on as being the spoiler for proposition 1.

Because God is holy, He cannot relationship with “any finite person”. God can only relationship with one who is made holy by salvation through Christ.

Nicely thought-out and articulated.
So we have an deafeter for believing that having the attribute of love would be a sufficient condition for relationship. In fact it would be a strange definition of "God" to suggest he were not morally perfect. And the Judeo-Christian-Muslim concept of God has this feature of holiness. However the holiness attribute may be much less intuitive to the average person than divine attributes like all-loving, all-just, morally perfect or all-knowing.

Why must God be necessarily separate from all beings who don't operate the way they were designed to operate - namely, as morally perfect beings? It seems that we might need to justify the attribute of holiness as a necessary attribute of God that was sufficient to explane the data of God's apparent hiddenness.

 

[Uber Genius]

Yeah. Premise one for a Christian is that arguments don't count unless they agree with them already.

Seems incoherent since it is a sweeping generalization that is false on its face. I'm a Christian and I published the OP! Secondly the atheist who developed the argument thinks premise is reasonable.
Thirdly, all arguments about all topics work based on premises that are considered to be more likely true by all parties.

Because people trying to nail down the divine like an insect specimen is funny!

Same for when they make grandiose "rules" that implicate how things must be beyond our or any other universe (like they do with kalam). Massive overreach beyond our grasp. I find that funny. But I'm weird. I know that.

So you don't like this argument for atheism?

Or do you think philosophy in general is a "massive overreach."

Finally, "People try nail down the divine, like an insect specimen," seems strange. Do you think that if such a being as God existed he would leave people in the dark about aspects of his nature?

Your reference to "grandiose rules," like they do in the Kalam, seems absurd.

Have you seen or read of anything that comes into being uncaused (sans equivocation)?

Does every scientific discovery since the 1928 Hibble discovery confirm a universe that has a beginning?

So just about every scientist in the world agrees with the 2 premises "Grandiose rules, of the Kalam."

 

[Uber Genius]

Why cannot God have a relationship with anyone he wants to?

That could be added as a premise to schellenberg's argument! It would serve to poison the wells to the holiness inference mentioned above.

Nailing down just what holiness is and why it matters is difficult. In a nutshell the idea is (and it is controversial) God is so different and transcendent that he is completely set apart form other persons in existence. So different that other persons can't be in his presence or in relationship with God unless:
A. They are operating as morally perfect beings in the way God designed them to operate.
B. They have been able to follow a process that confirs holiness on them.

 

[durangodawood]

So you don't like this argument for theism?

Or do you think philosophy in general is a "massive overreach."

Finally, "People try nail down the divine, like an insect specimen," seems strange. Do you think that if such a being as God existed he would leave people in the dark about aspects of his nature?

Your reference to "grandiose rules," like they do in the Kalam, seems absurd.

Have you seen or read of anything that comes into being uncaused (sans equivocation)?

Does every scientific discovery since the 1928 Hibble discovery confirm a universe that has a beginning?

So just about every scientist in the world agrees with the 2 premises "Grandiose rules, of the Kalam."

"Hiddeness" is a terrible rigorous argument against atheism. I do concede that its a pretty good point to test against ones intuition tho.

I agree that most scientists consider the big bang something like a beginning. But I do not think they have firm notions at all about whatever realms it may have emerged from. The time and space bounds of our universe are a sort of wall we cannot see past. That doesn't mean we can know there's nothing over the wall. Pretty sure most scientists would agree.

Thats why kalam makes grandiose claims. To many unjustified assumptions about what, if anything, is/isnt "over the wall" are required to make the argument work.

 

[durangodawood]

That could be added as a premise to schellenberg's argument! It would serve to poison the wells to the holiness inference mentioned above.

Nailing down just what holiness is and why it matters is difficult. In a nutshell the idea is (and it is controversial) God is so different and transcendent that he is completely set apart form other persons in existence. So different that other persons can't be in his presence or in relationship with God unless:
A. They are operating as morally perfect beings in the way God designed them to operate.
B. They have been able to follow a process that confirs holiness on them.

Interesting. My sense from certain old testament God-person encounters is that the person involved might be very flawed with no evidence of special processes undertaken. In other words they seem like "normal" human beings.

Im not very well read. But just on the face of it Jacob doesnt seem super special, and he had a face to face encounter! And its almost a Christian doctrine that 'regular' people can have a prayer relationship with God.

 

[Uber Genius]

"Hiddeness" is a terrible rigorous argument against atheism. I do concede that its a pretty good point to test against ones intuition tho.

Argument against theism... Not atheism.remember the conclusion is "God does NOT exist."

I assume you just made a typo.

I agree that most scientists consider the big bang something like a beginning. But I do not think they have firm notions at all about whatever realms it may have emerged from. The time and space bounds of our universe are a sort of wall we cannot see past. That doesn't mean we can know there's nothing over the wall. Pretty sure most scientists would agree.

The realm scientist agree the universe came from was:
No space, no time, to matter, no energy, no laws.

That is the very definition of "nothing!"

Further you are arguing from ignorance, that is to say just because there is no time in the history of the universe where something came into to being from nothing we are just ignorant and a future science we no nothing about could possibly produce something that we theorize has never happened in the history of the universe oh and would itself destroy all scientific knowledge!

Wait what was that last part, you say?

Science studies the physical world in order to discover causal relationships between elements of that world. But if nothing, no space, time, matter, energy, laws of nature has causal properties as your argument above suggests then "Nothing" could be behind evolution or gravity or electromagnetism or the strong and weak nuclear forces. Since we have an infinite amount of nothing to work with.

So we could never isolate causal chains since "nothing" has the maximal causal power of creating universes so it certainly can cream subset features of same.

Thats why kalam makes grandiose claims. To many unjustified assumptions about what, if anything, is/isnt "over the wall" are required to make the argument work.

fallacies known as argument from ignorance, proposition that destroys all scientific knowledge, therefore "Kalam makes grandiose claims."

But why am I replying to "durandgodawood," since by your logic it is more likely that "nothing" caused the post that I am replying to since we have an actual infinitive amount of "nothing" and only one instance of "durandgodawood."

 

[durangodawood]

Argument against theism... Not atheism.remember the conclusion is "God does NOT exist."

I assume you just made a typo.....

Yes.
What a difference an "a" makes.

Will have to get to the rest of your post later, as work only permits time for silly one-liners from me.

 

[Uber Genius]

Wait, where is the actual argument for this conclusion? I see only one premise stated.

You cut off the additional premises and the conclusion "God does Not Exist," at the end of the OP

 

[Uber Genius]

Did you ever read Great Expectations?

Yes. Maybe in high school. In what way do you think Great Expectations relates to the Hiddenenss of God argument? It is not intuitively obvious to me that it does but it has been 40 or more years since I read the book.

 

[Uber Genius]

I suppose you could put these items in wording which more of us could readily understand, if you want more input relevant to what they mean.In case I understand this right, which I can't guarantee > God does not just sit around hoping and being open to humans wanting to share with Him. But God is personal with every human being, in one way or another >

"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," we have in James 4:6 and also in 1 Peter 5:5.

So, according to God's word, God is already personally relating with each human, according to if the person is proud or humble! However, in order for us to deeply and sensitively share with God in His love > Romans 5:5 > we need how God corrects our nature, so we become capable of submitting to how He rules us in His own peace > Colossians 3:15 > Hebrews 12:4-14.

So, I find this first argument statement to be very limited, not representing who God is. But yes God is perfectly loving and kind.

I think this means that someone has to be resisting God, if God is so loving and the person is not sharing with God like he or she could be. And yes all have been born in sin, so we were not able to submit to how God would share with us. We were by nature resistant > we all "were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." (in Ephesians 2:3)

So, in sin our nature was resistant. So, ones have not only been resisting, but have been resistant. So, these arguments do not refer to the God presented in the Bible, I would say. Therefore, these arguments are against one who is not God, if my representation is correct . . . I would say. The person, then, has succeeded in proving the nonexistence of some imagined one who does not exist

I have already offered enough about this, possibly.

If all have been born in sin, then all by nature have been resistant; so there is no possibility, then, of there being certain ones who do not resist God while they do not share with Him.

By the way, if we are talking about Jesus being God, Jesus is forgiving and wants us to forgive generously and with compassion and caring and even as much sharing as someone is trustworthy for sharing. So, if anyone is not forgiving, like this, this person is resisting how God want

I suppose you could put these items in wording which more of us could readily understand, if you want more input relevant to what they mean.In case I understand this right, which I can't guarantee > God does not just sit around hoping and being open to humans wanting to share with Him. But God is personal with every human being, in one way or another >

"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," we have in James 4:6 and also in 1 Peter 5:5.

So, according to God's word, God is already personally relating with each human, according to if the person is proud or humble! However, in order for us to deeply and sensitively share with God in His love > Romans 5:5 > we need how God corrects our nature, so we become capable of submitting to how He rules us in His own peace > Colossians 3:15 > Hebrews 12:4-14.

So, I find this first argument statement to be very limited, not representing who God is. But yes God is perfectly loving and kind.

I think this means that someone has to be resisting God, if God is so loving and the person is not sharing with God like he or she could be. And yes all have been born in sin, so we were not able to submit to how God would share with us. We were by nature resistant > we all "were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." (in Ephesians 2:3)

So, in sin our nature was resistant. So, ones have not only been resisting, but have been resistant. So, these arguments do not refer to the God presented in the Bible, I would say. Therefore, these arguments are against one who is not God, if my representation is correct . . . I would say. The person, then, has succeeded in proving the nonexistence of some imagined one who does not exist

I have already offered enough about this, possibly.

If all have been born in sin, then all by nature have been resistant; so there is no possibility, then, of there being certain ones who do not resist God while they do not share with Him.

By the way, if we are talking about Jesus being God, Jesus is forgiving and wants us to forgive generously and with compassion and caring and even as much sharing as someone is trustworthy for sharing. So, if anyone is not forgiving, like this, this person is resisting how God wants loving.

So the argument is Scellenberg's, the summary of the argument is from someone at UNoversty of Nôtre Dame.

If I understand your point correctly we have a defeater for thinking an all-loving God would have a relationship with all people non-resistant people because
A: there are no such non-resistant people
And
B: God also has an attribute known as Holiness that is essential to him making it impossible for even non-resistant people (if they existed) to engage in a relationship with him despite his all-loving nature.

 

[durangodawood]

....The realm scientist agree the universe came from was:
No space, no time, to matter, no energy, no laws....

Are you sure about this?
My understanding is theres a bunch of conjecture about it, but nothing approaching an agreed upon understanding. Where did you get that idea?

...Further you are arguing from ignorance, that is to say just because there is no time in the history of the universe where something came into to being from nothing we are just ignorant and a future science we no nothing about could possibly produce something that we theorize has never happened in the history of the universe oh and would itself destroy all scientific knowledge!....

Seems entirely plausible that the rules we observe within our universe would continue to be valid whatever we discover about the "over the wall". I would point out that theists typically agree too. If God is whats over the wall, must He conform to our scientific understanding of our material universe lest the whole scientific project be rendered invalid?

 

[Uber Genius]

Are you sure about this?

Yes.

The Scientific Evidence

Let us turn our attention to the Standard model, the Hot Big Bang – which everyone knows about but so few are willing to live with the implications. In a nutshell the standard big bang model describes the expansion of space-time from an initial singularity predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. It needs to be clear that if the big bang model is true then space-time is absolutely finite, as time tends to zero then the volume of space tends to zero. The singularity is not simply a change in matter or form but rather the absolute beginning of space-time.

Physicist Paul Davies, “If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme, we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero. An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of space-time itself.”[ii]

“Almost everyone believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang”- Hawkings[iii]

George Ellis explaining the implications of the Friedman-Lemaitre Universe Singularity Theorem says, “This is not merely a start to matter — it is a start to space, to time, to physics itself. It is the most dramatic event in the history of the universe: it is the start of existence of everything”[iv]

So that’s one thing that needs to be clear is that the standard model leads to an absolute beginning of space-time, not just a change in pre-existing matter from one form to another – but an absolute coming into being of space-time itself. The point where general relativity breaks down is the singularity, where space-time comes into existence.

see:Did the universe begin to exist or is eternal?- a brief survey

The holdout is Larry Krauss.
See Tricks New Atheists Play (Part 2)

 

[durangodawood]

Yes.

The Scientific Evidence

Let us turn our attention to the Standard model, the Hot Big Bang – which everyone knows about but so few are willing to live with the implications. In a nutshell the standard big bang model describes the expansion of space-time from an initial singularity predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. It needs to be clear that if the big bang model is true then space-time is absolutely finite, as time tends to zero then the volume of space tends to zero. The singularity is not simply a change in matter or form but rather the absolute beginning of space-time.

Physicist Paul Davies, “If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme, we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero. An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of space-time itself.”[ii]

“Almost everyone believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang”- Hawkings[iii]

George Ellis explaining the implications of the Friedman-Lemaitre Universe Singularity Theorem says, “This is not merely a start to matter — it is a start to space, to time, to physics itself. It is the most dramatic event in the history of the universe: it is the start of existence of everything”[iv]

So that’s one thing that needs to be clear is that the standard model leads to an absolute beginning of space-time, not just a change in pre-existing matter from one form to another – but an absolute coming into being of space-time itself. The point where general relativity breaks down is the singularity, where space-time comes into existence.

see:Did the universe begin to exist or is eternal?- a brief survey

The holdout is Larry Krauss.
See Tricks New Atheists Play (Part 2)

All that^^^, its about the universe itself. Thats NOT what we've been talking about. We've been talking about whats beyond the universe, be it God, or some other eternal and uncreated order from which universes emerge, or nothing.

Beyond the universe is where kalam is operating.

 

[Uber Genius]

would point out that theists typically agree too. If God is whats over the wall, must He conform to our scientific understanding of our material universe lest the whole scientific project be rendered invalid?

Are you referring to Spinoza and Hume?

God only conforms to science (not our scientific understanding which is of course always in flux but to an ultimate scientific explanation) if he is the God of deism/pantheism!

The Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is not bounded by time and also transcends his creation. He is personal so not possibly univocal to the pantheistic notion that God just IS his creation. God is not limited to space-time. He is immaterial so not part of the physical world at all. So I would need to see some reference in context before I could respond, but this is not the God of the Bible.