Posted by Evander  4/28/2018 12:21 am | #1 |
Hello
I’ve only just started to look into philosophy, so forgive me if this is a simple question. Reecently I’ve been trying to look into arguments against God’s existence, and other than the problem of evil (in its various forms), the other oft most cited argument is the “argument from divine hiddeness”. Perhaps I’m not understanding the argument, but it never seemed to be that effective for me (especially if there are separate arguifkr God’s existence).
So in short, can someone help me understand the argument from divine hiddeness?
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Posted by seigneur 4/28/2018 3:11 am | #2 |
Religious people might struggle with the fact that they don't see God. Truly religious people (those who see or claim to see God) might define "religious people" as only such who see God. The irreligious might conclude that there is no God, because nobody (or not everybody) sees God.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-hiddenness/ wrote:
[Divine Hiddenness] refers to alleged facts about the absence of belief of God, on the basis of which one might think there is no God.
Last edited by seigneur (4/28/2018 3:16 am)
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Posted by DanielCC 4/28/2018 4:22 am | #3 |
Hello
I’ve only just started to look into philosophy, so forgive me if this is a simple question. Reecently I’ve been trying to look into arguments against God’s existence, and other than the problem of evil (in its various forms), the other oft most cited argument is the “argument from divine hiddeness”. Perhaps I’m not understanding the argument, but it never seemed to be that effective for me (especially if there are separate arguifkr God’s existence).
So in short, can someone help me understand the argument from divine hiddeness?
It is essentially the claim that if God is all loving and desires creatures to enter into a loving relationship with It/Him then His existence and loving nature should be readily apparent and accessible to creatures. As it does not appear to be - the presence of God they will argue is not intuitively apparent in the same way as the existence of light or the passing of time - the best explaination either that God does not exist or that He is not all loving.
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Posted by Evander 4/28/2018 12:30 pm | #4 |
@DanielCC
So would you say that the argument deals more with doubting the existence of God or just the omnibenevolence of God (or can you not have one without the other)? Also do those who espouse the argument believe that it disproves the existence of God or simply that it “makes it less likely”?
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Posted by Miguel 4/28/2018 3:50 pm | #5 |
@DanielCC
So would you say that the argument deals more with doubting the existence of God or just the omnibenevolence of God (or can you not have one without the other)? Also do those who espouse the argument believe that it disproves the existence of God or simply that it “makes it less likely”?
The best versions of these arguments are always evidential/probabilistic. Because it's extremely difficult to defend a logical impossibility involving these things; in principle, God can have any morally sufficient reasons to remain hidden (for instance, maybe it is more conducive to building our character when we aren't just randomly told by God that he unequivocally is there and we have to keep making our own moral choices; maybe we aren't able to psychologically deal with such an event; or whatever). Even if we can't come up with plausible reasons, we're just not in a position to say God can't have morally sufficient reasons to remain hidden (or permit evil, in the arg from evil). So logical versions of divine hidenness would be too hard to defend. So most atheist philosophers today instead defend probabilistic versions of divine hidenness, as well as probabilistic versions of the problem of evil.
The argument can target either the existence of God or just God's omnibelevolence. The problem is it's really hard to defend a conception of God that is not omnibenevolent. Religious believers would not accept it. And even philosophically, it would just be bizarre for God to not be omnibenevolent -- even setting aside thomistic arguments for God's goodness, why would such a divine and powerful being not be omnibenevolent? How could such a being present moral failures? Etc. So, in the end, it's generally just taken as argument for the non-existence of God.
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Posted by DanielCC 4/28/2018 4:11 pm | #6 |
@DanielCC
So would you say that the argument deals more with doubting the existence of God or just the omnibenevolence of God (or can you not have one without the other)? Also do those who espouse the argument believe that it disproves the existence of God or simply that it “makes it less likely”?
Strictly speaking it's the additional feature that God desires other beings to enter into a loving relationship which generates the hiddenness problem (this why it's billed a problem with a specifically religious concept of God)
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Posted by Hypatia 4/28/2018 5:56 pm | #7 |
The argument can target either the existence of God or just God's omnibelevolence. The problem is it's really hard to defend a conception of God that is not omnibenevolent.
How so? If you are a moral nihilist, you could very easily stick to cosmological arguments and defend the existence of a necessary being who is beyond meaningless human concepts of good and evil.
Omniscience and omnipotence are pretty self-explanatory given classical theism, but I'm honestly still looking for good reasons to accept omnibenevolence. Or better reasons than a Kierkegaardian leap to faith, at least.
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Posted by DanielCC 4/28/2018 6:36 pm | #8 |
The argument can target either the existence of God or just God's omnibelevolence. The problem is it's really hard to defend a conception of God that is not omnibenevolent.
How so? If you are a moral nihilist, you could very easily stick to cosmological arguments and defend the existence of a necessary being who is beyond meaningless human concepts of good and evil.
Omniscience and omnipotence are pretty self-explanatory given classical theism, but I'm honestly still looking for good reasons to accept omnibenevolence. Or better reasons than a Kierkegaardian leap to faith, at least.
I think Clarke's argument for the why a necessary omnipotent being would not be immoral (because immorality springs from limitations in power or rationality) if agency were accepted is underated and under-discussed. It's big selling point is that it might not require one to commit to a specific moral theory beyond a very weak moral realism (that there are non-relative moral truths).
Also: people know the main argument for a perfect being - they are just poisoned against it by years of Thomist rhetoric (whether or not it succeeds is ultimately another matter but its success definitely does not require more controversial premises than the very specific accounts of hylemorphism, powers theory and existence many of the Five Ways rely upon).
Last edited by DanielCC (4/28/2018 6:38 pm)
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Posted by Evander 4/28/2018 6:59 pm | #9 |
@DanielCC
Not to derail this thread, but when you refer to "the main argument for a perfect being", does that refer to Anselm's Ontological Argument? I was under the impression that there are few people who believe that it succeeds. Is there anyone here who thinks that it does?
@Miguel
Thanks for your input regarding the probabilistic nature of the argument (from divine hiddenness), that seems to make more sense to me.
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Posted by Hypatia 4/28/2018 11:15 pm | #10 |
I think Clarke's argument for the why a necessary omnipotent being would not be immoral (because immorality springs from limitations in power or rationality) if agency were accepted is underated and under-discussed. It's big selling point is that it might not require one to commit to a specific moral theory beyond a very weak moral realism (that there are non-relative moral truths).
Also: people know the main argument for a perfect being - they are just poisoned against it by years of Thomist rhetoric (whether or not it succeeds is ultimately another matter but its success definitely does not require more controversial premises than the very specific accounts of hylemorphism, powers theory and existence many of the Five Ways rely upon).
Which Clarke is this? The only one I'm familiar with is W. Norris Clarke, but I don't remember this argument in particular. Even a weak moral realism is something I'd have trouble committing to at this point--I lean in that direction, but I've spent far too much time staring into Nietzsche's abyss to think that it must be true. And without that, any argument for omnibenevolence is going to look shaky. What are the strongest arguments for any form of moral realism? I'm back to the beginning with Plato these days.
As for perfect being, my problem is that I've got a bit of a Kantian streak--it seems like we're applying human concepts in a manner in which they need not necessarily apply. I can suspend my epistemological skepticism for necessary being, since I can't conceptualize ex nihilo nihil fit being false, but perfection is such a slippery idea. I'm not really sure what Plantinga means by it, much less Anselm.
