God’s existenceDraft · awaiting advisor review
If God exists, why is he so hidden?
In short
Christians admit that God often seems hidden; the Bible says so itself. Many think God gives enough light to find him without forcing belief, because he wants trust and love, not mere agreement that he exists. He has also shown himself most clearly in Jesus. Still, the silence many sincere people feel remains a real and painful question.
The Objection
A perfectly loving God would always be open to a personal relationship with everyone capable of one. That relationship requires believing he exists, and God could easily give such belief. Yet many people are not resisting God at all: they would welcome him, search honestly, and still find nothing. Such ‘nonresistant nonbelief’ is exactly what we would expect if no such God exists, so its existence is strong evidence against him.
Put as its strongest advocates would put it.
The Christian Case
- Scripture
The Bible does not hide God’s hiddenness. Isaiah calls him ‘a God that hidest thyself’; psalmists cry ‘how long wilt thou hide thy face?’; Job searches and cannot find him. Faithful people in Scripture felt this silence and said so to God. Muslims, too, speak of God as ‘the Hidden’ as well as ‘the Manifest’ (Qur’an 57:3).
- Philosophical argument
Some argue that if God were overwhelmingly obvious, love and trust would be crowded out by awe or fear, leaving little room for freely turning to him. Pascal put it this way: there is enough light for those who want to see, and enough shadow for those who do not. On this view, partial hiddenness protects freedom rather than denying love.
- Philosophical argument
Believing that God exists is not the same as knowing and trusting him. James notes that even demons believe. Jesus warns that some would not be persuaded ‘though one rose from the dead’. If God seeks relationship rather than bare belief, more spectacular evidence might not achieve what he wants.
- Scripture
Christians believe God has not stayed silent: he has made himself known in Jesus, who ‘declared’ the unseen God. The Bible promises that those who seek God wholeheartedly will find him, and that he is ‘not far from every one of us’, though finding may take time.
- Christians differ
Christians differ on sincere nonbelief. Some, reading Romans 1, hold that everyone has some knowledge of God and that unbelief always involves some suppression of it. Others think genuinely open seekers can lack belief through no fault of their own, and trust that God’s dealings with each person are not limited to this life or this moment.
Where the Evidence Is Weaker
These answers are possibilities, not demonstrations. Critics reply that God could give a gentle, personal sense of his presence without overwhelming anyone, so freedom does not obviously require so much silence. Some people report searching sincerely for years and sensing nothing, and saying they must secretly be resisting is hard to verify and can be hurtful. Why hiddenness falls so unevenly across people and cultures is not fully explained.
Arguments to Avoid
- Telling doubters they simply have not prayed or searched hard enough.
- Claiming God is so obvious that only dishonest people fail to believe.
- Saying that if God appeared in the sky everyone would gladly follow him, which Scripture itself questions.
- Dismissing the feeling of God’s absence as a lack of faith, when the Psalms treat it as part of faithful life.
Read for Yourself
Psalm 13:1–6
1To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 2How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? 3Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; 4Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. 5But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. 6I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.
Job 23:3–9
3Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! 4I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. 5I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. 6Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. 7There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge. 8Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: 9On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:
John 1:14–18
14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Acts 17:24–28
24God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Further Reading
- The Hiddenness of God · Michael C. Rea (2018)
- Divine Hiddenness: New Essays · Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser (eds) (2002)
- Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason · J. L. Schellenberg (1993)The classic case against.
Drafted with Opened AI and awaiting review by Opened’s apologetics advisors. Labels show the kind of support each point has: Scripture is what the Bible says; historical evidence and philosophical arguments can be checked by anyone; “Christians differ” marks questions on which faithful Christians disagree.
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