The following is taken from Travis Dumsday's Article: Divine Hiddenness, Free Will, and Victims of Wrong-Doing:
"Imagine a possible world where evil is still very much a problem due to God's permission of moral freedom, but where divine hiddenness is no problem at all; a world where people still commit and suffer frequent moral wrogns, but where Schellenberg's preffered model of divine disclosure obtains and everyone has had a constant awareness of God's presence from age seven onward. In such a world, those who suffer moral wrongs suffer those wrongs while remaining explicitly aware of God.
"Imagine a possible world where evil is still very much a problem due to God's permission of moral freedom, but where divine hiddenness is no problem at all; a world where people still commit and suffer frequent moral wrogns, but where Schellenberg's preffered model of divine disclosure obtains and everyone has had a constant awareness of God's presence from age seven onward. In such a world, those who suffer moral wrongs suffer those wrongs while remaining explicitly aware of God.
Now, perhaps, just perhaps, an already virtuous agent who has, moreover, thought through the problem of evil, will be able to suffer those wrongs without resenting the ever-present God for not intervening on her behalf. But it is plausible to think that many individuals, particularly the less mature (whether in age or character), would absolutely come to resent God, perhaps even hate Him. Consider a ten year old girl being severly bullied on the playground, or suffering the wrenching heartache of her parents' divorce, or the death of a sibling. All the while she is aware of God's presence. One might think that such an awareness would prvodie comfort, and perhaps for some it would. But it only embitters her. After weeks of begging God to stop the bullying/divorce/impending death and being gently told in reply that He must not due to the need to preserve moral freedom (or the stability of the laws of nature, or some higher explanation beyond her finite umderstanding, etc.) her response is growing enmity towards God.
It is difficult to say how common such a scenario would be on Schellenberg's model of divine disclosure, but one suspects it would be far from unknown. So perhaps God has refrained from adopting this model, and thus remains at least temporarily hidden to some, not in order to preserve their moral freedom (which freedom He wishes to maintain for other reasons), but in order to preserve the possibility of eventual positive relationship with many whose permanent estrangement would be a genuine risk on Schellenberg's model, a genuine risk of too early and too constant a revelation of the divine presence.
It is sometimes thought that one of the reasons why divine hiddenness is such a concern is that the fact of God's remaining hidden seems to make the problem of evil all the more intractable. If only we could be assured of God's presence in the midst of our suffering, some think, then we would be assured of His reality and comforted in our suffering. No doubt for some this would be true. But for others, especially the morally and spiritually immature, a sense of God's presence in the midst of intense suffering, when God will not relieve that suffering, would only spark resentment and serve to block future positive relationship."
WOULD IT BE BETTER IF WE KNEW WHY:
In addition to Travis Dumsday's point above, I would add the following points:
Consider two kinds of possible worlds including God and evil. One kind of world is the "morally transparent" world where the reasons God allows suffering are "near the surface" and so fairly easily discernible by us. Another kind is a "morally inscrutable" world where the reasons why God allows evil are either buried "beneath the surface" or in the distant future. In the 1988 dialogue with Bruce Russell where Wykstra introduces the deep(inscrutable)/shallow(transparent) universe distinction, Russell notes that transparency seems to be an intrinsic good. Rowe (2001, reply to Bergmann) notes that the Parent Analogy Wykstra originally appealed to backfires, because a loving parent would want their dear children to understand, and an all powerful parent would have the ability to make it happen (I dress it up a bit).
RESPONSE: It may be logically impossible for God to actualize his morally sufficient reasons He has for permitting the evil in the world if they were completely transparent to us either because He told us, or because we could apprehend them ourselves. It would be like asking God what number I was thinking of in my head and when he told me, I changed the number in my head to make his prediction wrong. Likewise, if God were to permit some evil, and we knew the reason, then we might act in ways that would make it the case that God's morally sufficient reasons wouldn't come about.
Second, in a world where God was intervening to stop pointless evil from occuring, we might well imagine atheists (of a soft sort), arguing that an omni-God could create a world in which He didn't have to tinker with the events through supernatural intervention, and that since we observe a tinkering God, such a God must be less than all powerful, and/or all-knowing. If God wisely chose not create such a world of Newtonian providence, and instead went with our actual world which exhibits Leibnizian providence, then such a world would seem to entail "deep" goods that are inscrutable to us as well. Of course, this assumes that there aren't any worlds feasible for God that are both Leibnizian, and morally transparent with respect to evil in the world. Nonetheless, for all we know, such worlds are not feasible, and we would still have a successful undercutting defeater.
Third, it may not only be the case that it is logically impossbile for God's morally sufficient reasons to transpire if we knew what they were, but if we knew what they were, we may resent God for them so that it is better for us to have a coarse-grained grasp rather than a fine-grained grasp of His morally sufficient reasons. For example, in Karate Kid, Mr. Miagi had to teach Daniel Son martial arts through an indirect means for reasons that He had to keep hidden from Daniel Son until the time was right, but had Mr. Miagi told Daniel Son why He was having him paint the fence, and wax the car, Daniel Son would have been upset, demanded that Mr. Miagi teach him martial arts instead of have him do household chores for him, and left Mr. Miagi never to return.
Fourth, this objection assumes that when we think about what we would actually do if we were trying to put ourselves in the 'beforehand' position and say what kind of world we think would be created that we are able to accurately judge what kind of world would be best just as well as God. But, it seems to me that we would simply come up with the best sort of world we could think of. However, it ought to be obvious that the best sort of world that could be created by a perfect being would be radically different from the best sort of world I can think of! Here are just a few reasons, which are commonly cited in the skeptical theism literature:
So sure, I could sit down and think about what I would expect, a priori, that God would do, but I shouldn't have much confidence in the result, and so shouldn't be too bothered by the world's failure to conform.
The reason this argument falls to these skeptical considerations is that it asks us to consider the world as a whole, something that we are not well equipped to do (taken from prosblogion).
Fifth, suppose that the suggesstions put forth so far are correct, then it would still be the case that even though God cannot tell us specifically the reason for evil in the world, He could and should tell us generally in order to assure us, comfort us, and rationally believe in Him. I agree with this, strongly! Indeed, if God did this, it would be strong evidence that we live in a world where God's morally sufficient reasons are deep. It is for this reason that I think the problem of evil is 99% divine hiddeness/silence. This is why theodicies and skeptical theism are helpful, but not decisive defeaters to the problem of evil because God is absent and silent as far they go. However, I have written two other posts that deal with divine silence, and I have a whole separate blog section dedicated to divine hiddeness. Please see: Our Cognitive Faculties are Wired with an Overriding defeater to Apparent Pointless Suffering in the World under the Problem of Evil Section, and A Mutation of the Problem of Evil in Light of Skeptical Theism under the Problem of Evil Section as well.
It is difficult to say how common such a scenario would be on Schellenberg's model of divine disclosure, but one suspects it would be far from unknown. So perhaps God has refrained from adopting this model, and thus remains at least temporarily hidden to some, not in order to preserve their moral freedom (which freedom He wishes to maintain for other reasons), but in order to preserve the possibility of eventual positive relationship with many whose permanent estrangement would be a genuine risk on Schellenberg's model, a genuine risk of too early and too constant a revelation of the divine presence.
It is sometimes thought that one of the reasons why divine hiddenness is such a concern is that the fact of God's remaining hidden seems to make the problem of evil all the more intractable. If only we could be assured of God's presence in the midst of our suffering, some think, then we would be assured of His reality and comforted in our suffering. No doubt for some this would be true. But for others, especially the morally and spiritually immature, a sense of God's presence in the midst of intense suffering, when God will not relieve that suffering, would only spark resentment and serve to block future positive relationship."
WOULD IT BE BETTER IF WE KNEW WHY:
In addition to Travis Dumsday's point above, I would add the following points:
Consider two kinds of possible worlds including God and evil. One kind of world is the "morally transparent" world where the reasons God allows suffering are "near the surface" and so fairly easily discernible by us. Another kind is a "morally inscrutable" world where the reasons why God allows evil are either buried "beneath the surface" or in the distant future. In the 1988 dialogue with Bruce Russell where Wykstra introduces the deep(inscrutable)/shallow(transparent) universe distinction, Russell notes that transparency seems to be an intrinsic good. Rowe (2001, reply to Bergmann) notes that the Parent Analogy Wykstra originally appealed to backfires, because a loving parent would want their dear children to understand, and an all powerful parent would have the ability to make it happen (I dress it up a bit).
RESPONSE: It may be logically impossible for God to actualize his morally sufficient reasons He has for permitting the evil in the world if they were completely transparent to us either because He told us, or because we could apprehend them ourselves. It would be like asking God what number I was thinking of in my head and when he told me, I changed the number in my head to make his prediction wrong. Likewise, if God were to permit some evil, and we knew the reason, then we might act in ways that would make it the case that God's morally sufficient reasons wouldn't come about.
Second, in a world where God was intervening to stop pointless evil from occuring, we might well imagine atheists (of a soft sort), arguing that an omni-God could create a world in which He didn't have to tinker with the events through supernatural intervention, and that since we observe a tinkering God, such a God must be less than all powerful, and/or all-knowing. If God wisely chose not create such a world of Newtonian providence, and instead went with our actual world which exhibits Leibnizian providence, then such a world would seem to entail "deep" goods that are inscrutable to us as well. Of course, this assumes that there aren't any worlds feasible for God that are both Leibnizian, and morally transparent with respect to evil in the world. Nonetheless, for all we know, such worlds are not feasible, and we would still have a successful undercutting defeater.
Third, it may not only be the case that it is logically impossbile for God's morally sufficient reasons to transpire if we knew what they were, but if we knew what they were, we may resent God for them so that it is better for us to have a coarse-grained grasp rather than a fine-grained grasp of His morally sufficient reasons. For example, in Karate Kid, Mr. Miagi had to teach Daniel Son martial arts through an indirect means for reasons that He had to keep hidden from Daniel Son until the time was right, but had Mr. Miagi told Daniel Son why He was having him paint the fence, and wax the car, Daniel Son would have been upset, demanded that Mr. Miagi teach him martial arts instead of have him do household chores for him, and left Mr. Miagi never to return.
Fourth, this objection assumes that when we think about what we would actually do if we were trying to put ourselves in the 'beforehand' position and say what kind of world we think would be created that we are able to accurately judge what kind of world would be best just as well as God. But, it seems to me that we would simply come up with the best sort of world we could think of. However, it ought to be obvious that the best sort of world that could be created by a perfect being would be radically different from the best sort of world I can think of! Here are just a few reasons, which are commonly cited in the skeptical theism literature:
- I'm not logically omniscient. There are a priori necessities that I can't see, so I don't know what is necessarily involved in the things I'm putting into the world I'm imagining. The world I'm imagining might not actually be possible, or my explicit description might imply some really bad things that I haven't thought of.
- A posteriori necessities. In addition to a priori necessities, it is now widely held that there are a posteriori necessities, such as the proposition that water is H2O. If there are any of these at all, then there are lots of them that I don't know, so, again, my world may not really be possible, or might implicitly include evils I don't know about.
- I don't know all the actual kinds of goods and evils. There are lots of things in the universe that I don't know about, which probably includes various goods and evils. Since I don't know about them, I don't know how good or evil they are, in comparison to the goods and evils I do know about, so I can't rank them. As a result, there may be evils of great magnitude implicitly included in my world, or goods of great magnitude left out of it.
- I don't know all the merely possible kinds of goods and evils. If I were really going to make an informed judgment about what kind of world would be created, I would need to know not just all the actual kinds of goods and evils, but all the possible kinds. I don't.
So sure, I could sit down and think about what I would expect, a priori, that God would do, but I shouldn't have much confidence in the result, and so shouldn't be too bothered by the world's failure to conform.
The reason this argument falls to these skeptical considerations is that it asks us to consider the world as a whole, something that we are not well equipped to do (taken from prosblogion).
Fifth, suppose that the suggesstions put forth so far are correct, then it would still be the case that even though God cannot tell us specifically the reason for evil in the world, He could and should tell us generally in order to assure us, comfort us, and rationally believe in Him. I agree with this, strongly! Indeed, if God did this, it would be strong evidence that we live in a world where God's morally sufficient reasons are deep. It is for this reason that I think the problem of evil is 99% divine hiddeness/silence. This is why theodicies and skeptical theism are helpful, but not decisive defeaters to the problem of evil because God is absent and silent as far they go. However, I have written two other posts that deal with divine silence, and I have a whole separate blog section dedicated to divine hiddeness. Please see: Our Cognitive Faculties are Wired with an Overriding defeater to Apparent Pointless Suffering in the World under the Problem of Evil Section, and A Mutation of the Problem of Evil in Light of Skeptical Theism under the Problem of Evil Section as well.
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