Divine Hiddenness: Shouldn’t God Be More Obvious?

Nobody in my church was shaken by Richard Dawkins’s claim that God is a moral monster. However, Alex O’Connor explaining why he is not a believer by highlighting the problem of divine hiddenness hits much closer to home. In the silence of seemingly unanswered prayer, could I be wrong? If God exists, why is it not more obvious? In this article, I address key questions about divine hiddenness from a pastoral perspective and offer several ways Scripture equips us for faith in the presence of the hidden God. Table of contentsWhat is the hiddenness argument?Is the hiddenness argument sound?How does the Bible address divine hiddenness?Conclusion What is the hiddenness argument? Divine hiddenness refers to the lack of indisputable evidence for an all-powerful and all-loving God. If such a God exists, shouldn’t it be obvious? Canadian philosopher John Schellenberg is a leading proponent of the hiddenness argument.1 If God exists, Schellenberg says, he would be an “unsurpassably great person” who “could not be other than unsurpassably loving toward other persons.”2 For Schellenberg, this means God must always be open to a relationship with anyone willing to be in such a relationship. Yet, S...