3 - Deus Absconditus

Summary

Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?

Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.

Why do you hide your face?

Psalm 44:23–4

It is no surprise to discover that few (if any) have found the existence of God to be an obvious fact about the world. At least this is so in the sense in which we normally use the word “obvious,” as when we say that it is obvious that the World Trade Center weighs more than a deck of cards or that it is obvious that Van Gogh is a better painter than I. Despite St. Paul's claim that God's eternal power and divine nature “have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Romans 1:20), few (if any) think that such is as “clearly seen” as the book you now hold in your hand.

This fact has raised troubles of at least two sorts for the theist. First, it leads the theist to wonder why God postpones that time at which, according to Christian tradition, we will see God “face to face.” Since, at that time, God will be as clearly seen as the book you now hold in your hand, what accounts for the delay? Why is there this period of the earthly life where God's reality is less than obvious? Second, the theist has to confront the fact that God's hiddenness seems to lead a number of people to reject God's existence outright and thus to be a contributing cause to what the traditional theist would regard as a great evil: unbelief.