My paper, “Two Solutions to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness,” just came out in American Philosophical Quarterly today. I just received my copy of the issue in the mail. Here’s a link to the issue on their website. If you don’t have access to APQ, here’s a link to the penultimate draft.
Hi Prof. Cullinson, I work in a university library and ran across your paper in APQ and then found you here after a brief search. By way of introduction I am an agnostic and interested in the hiddeness of God question. I am also the editor of Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists (featuring 3 doz. personal testimonies, a third of which are by people who remained Christians, albeit more moderate/liberal ones), and this past month I had a chapter on “The Cosmology of the Bible” published in a controversial volume (with some great endorsements, including one by Dale Allison, biblical scholar), titled The Christian Delusion.
In your paper you argue not only for the existence of God but also for the Christian God, and assume for instance, Trinitarianism. I am uncertain whether your efforts are therefore strictly philosophical or an apology for the assumed truth of divine revelation, and the assumed truth of later church councils concerning the interpretation of that divine revelation. Also, when you discuss the cry of Jesus from the cross in Mark, the earliest Gospel, you do not let your readers know that later Gospel writers like Luke and John omit Mark’s final cry of uncertainty and instead have Jesus saying these words: LUKE, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” JOHN, “Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” So how certain are you that Mark’s version is the correct one? Perhaps early Christians found them a bit embarassing, and omitted them from later Gospels? How can you tell either way?
You conclude that “certain kinds of valuable actions are only possible when it is far from certain that God exists – namely real genuine sacrifice.” Have you considered all the places such a conclusion might lead? Might not such a conclusion lead to the view that actions by people who are “certain of God’s existence” are “less valuable” and “less genuine,” than actions by those are are “uncertain?” It might lead to the view that more moderate/agnostic beliefs rather than creeds, dogmas, and doctrines lead to “more value” and “genuine sacrifice?” And what about people who claim to have less uncertainty, or be “certain” of the NONexistence of God, are their actions of the highest value and the most genuinely sacrificial of all in God’s eyes? Yet such people are still damned for their unbelief in the creeds, dogmas and doctrines of Christianity? How strange.
By the way, there are several essays in The Christian Delusion book that you might find interesting.
http://sites.google.com/site/thechristiandelusion/Home/blurbs
Hi Edward,
Many thanks for taking the time to write down these comments. A few points.
First, the paper is merely a defense against classical theism from the argument from divine hiddenness. Arguing that the argument is unsound is actually compatible with denying the existence of God – so strictly speaking it’s not an argument for God’s existence (nor an argument for traditional Christianity). So I make no assumptions about truth of divine revelation etc…
The point at the end was merely to point out that this solution to the problem of divine hiddenness also offers an explanation for Christians who think that there are instances where God is apparently hidden from Jesus. It is alleged that Christians have difficulty explaining why God would be apparently hidden from Jesus. I am merely arguing that (given what I say about hiddenness) the apparent hiddenness would not (if true) be embarrassing or puzzling. An agnostic (or atheist) could agree with what I say at the end of the paper.
Imagine the following dialogue…
Agnostic A: Isn’t this a serious problem for Christianity…God appears to be hidden from Jesus.
Agnostic B: Not really…there are reasons why God (if God existed) might have to be hidden from Jesus…consider what this guy Andy says about the relationship between hiddenness and genuine sacrifice….etc…I think there are other problems for Christianity…this is not one of them.
Which is why I didn’t get into details concerning the accuracy of that passage.
I hope that makes sense. If not, let me know and I’ll try to clarify more.
Regarding your last question. It’s true that my view entails that there is a certain way in which acts of sacrifice without guarantee of reward have more value. Can you elaborate more as to why you think that is problematic?
Thanks again for the comments.
Hi Andrew, I’m unsure where you are coming from theologically. Trinitarian Christianity? You seemed to be assuming the divinity of Christ and the accuracy of interpretations of the NT writings by church councils, as well as assuming that you know what Jesus’ final words were from the cross. If I am incorrect in making such an assumption then forgive me. But if I am correct, then do you also assume that after death everyone is physically resurrected, judged, and either punished or rewarded eternally? Do you also assume that you know the basis by which the sheep and goats are separated? The NT does not agree on that basis (compared the synoptic Gospel sayings of Jesus on how to obtain eternal life with the rest of the NT), just as it does not agree on what the last words of Jesus were from the cross. But I’ll leave those questions alone for now.
What I am interested in is just how much “uncertainty concerning God’s existence” you believe to be compatible with certain kinds of genuinely sacrificial and valuable actions. You concluded that “certain kinds of valuable actions are only possible when it is far from certain that God exists – namely real genuine sacrifice.”
Conversely if a person is certain God exists, then would it follow that those same actions are no longer as “genuinely sacrificial and valuable” as they would be if say, an atheist performed them?
And if it takes an atheist to raise the value of such actions, then can atheism be such a bad thing worthy of eternal damnation?
You might also get a kick out of this quotation:
There is a wonderful Hasidic story about a rabbi who was asked whether it is ever proper to act as if God did not exist. He responded, “Yes, when you are asked to give to charity, you should give as if there were no God to help the object of the charity.”
Alan Dershowitz, Letters to a Young Lawyer
or this one . . .
I am not of the opinion that we should make use of the concept of God in striving for a better world. This, it seems to me, is incompatible with the integrity of a modern cultured person.
Albert Einstein
Or a host of other quotations like these
ATHEISM DEFENDED BY A CHRISTIAN
I retain a profound respect for [atheism’s] aspirations for humanity and legitimate criticisms of dysfunctional religion… There is something about human nature which makes it capable of being inspired by what it believes to be right to do both wonderful and appalling things. Neither atheism nor religion may be at fault.
Alister McGrath (Oxford Prof.), The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall
of Disbelief in the Modern World
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ATHEISM DEFENDED BY ANOTHER CHRISTIAN
Atheism tends to be a term of disrepute in the Western world, but we ought to do all we can to change this situation. The honest atheist is simply a person who has looked out upon the world and has come to believe that there is no adequate evidence that God is, or that there is good evidence that God is not. Very seldom does this make a man happy or popular… A man who has no practical belief in God may nevertheless be a good man. Sometimes it is the very goodness of a man which makes him an unbeliever; he is so superlatively honest, so eager not to accept anything without adequate evidence, so sensitive to the danger of believing what is comforting, merely because it is comforting… Such a man we can only honor.”
Elton Trueblood (Quaker theologian), Philosophy of Religion
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YET ANOTHER CHRISTIAN DEFENDS ATHEISTS
Not one man in a thousand has the goodness of heart or the strength of mind to be an atheist.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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A CATHOLIC DEFENSE OF ATHEISM
Atheism is clearly always a permissible view of man in a world in which God is not immediately evident.
20th Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
To you I’m an atheist. To God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.
Woody Allen
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A DEIST ASKS, “WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ATHEISTS?”
If there are atheists, who is responsible but the mercenary tyrants of souls who say: “Believe a hundred things in the Bible either manifestly abominable or mathematically impossible; otherwise the God of mercy will burn you in the fires of hell, not only for millions of billions of centuries, but for all eternity.”
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, entry under “Atheist, Atheism,” Second Section
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A DEIST DEFENDS HERETICS
All the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as that would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not, like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them.
Ben Franklin as quoted in Benjamin Franklin: His Wit, Wisdom, and Women by Seymour Stanton Block
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A BELIEVER IN GOD WHO LIVED HAPPILY WITH ATHEISTS
I believe in God, although I live very happily with atheists…It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God.
One day a man was asked if there were any true atheists. Do you think, he replied, that there are any true Christians?
Denis Diderot (1713-1784), cited in Against the Faith by Jim Herrick
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I give blood. I volunteer my organs. I donate to charities. I return my shopping cart. I never needed religion to puppeteer me through life and tell me how to feel about gays, abortion, and capital punishment or how to raise my kid. When people ask me what I am, I say Earthling.
William P.O’Neil, “Playing the God Card,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 10, 2000
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I just returned from the Blood Connection in my home town where I spent an hour giving red blood cells and having the plasma pumped back into my arm. I was told that my blood might help save someone’s life. And, if it was someone injured by doing something stupid (such as driving while intoxicated and getting in an accident), I have (in effect) given my blood so they might have life, which is what Christians proclaim Jesus did. He shed his blood for our “sins” in which we “damaged our souls” irrevocably by breaking God’s law. The theological term here is “vicarious atonement” where one sheds one’s blood for the “sins” of others so that they may “live” and not “die eternally.” (I used the plural word, “others,” because I was told that products produced from my blood or plasma might be used to save the lives of more than one individual). And I have mentioned the parallels between my real-life blood donation and blood-letting metaphors in the Bible because I used to be a Baptist preacher, and spent six years in colleges and seminaries. In 1997 I was elected “Man of the Year” were I worked, however the supervisor told his secretary that he would not hand over the “Man of theYear” award to a “damned atheist.” So he gave the award to a Christian on the staff (so much for the separation of Church and State). Now nearly a decade later things are looking up for Harry the “damned atheist.” The Christian whom my supervisor gave the “Man of the Year” award, was fired; the supervisor died; yet here I am still alive and giving blood to save the lives of others.
Harry McCall, contributor to Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists [In all modesty, Harry, above, who is a friend of mine, neglected to add that he also gave one of his kidneys to save the life of one of his daughters.–E.T.B.]
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THE FREETHINKER/ATHEIST AS SEEN BY CHRISTIANS
I have often remarked that the Christian in his treatment of the freethinker passes through three distinct stages. In the first instance he depicts the heretic as someone almost incredibly vile. There is a good reason for this, since in order to justify his suppression, he must be loaded with moral opprobrium and the social censure used to enforce the religious condemnation. So to the orthodox imagination unbelief becomes a mere cloak to cover incredible scoundrelism. A catalogue of vices is drawn up of which the Freethinker ought to be guilty, and the heretic of religious fiction is made to live up to the program. The next stage is when the freethinker is better known, and the Christian assumes a pitying attitude. The heretic may be a decent sort of a fellow, although he is terribly mistaken in his view, but–and the “but” is altogether fatal. Then, as freethinkers become better known, he is promoted to almost the level of the Christian himself. Sometimes we are told that he may be as good as a Christian, a degree of excellence which to a visitor from another planet would hardly appear to mark an incredible degree of moral development.
Professor Drummond used to address his class, “I knew a student, an avowed atheist. He roomed with a man who contracted typhus. What do you think the atheist did? He neglected his classes to nurse his chum, who after a severe struggle, recovered. What of the nurse? He contracted the disease and died. The atheist died and went to heaven and received the ‘well done, thou good and faithful servant.’” Drummond thought it worthwhile to point out that an atheist did what hundreds, probably thousands of people are doing every week in some form or another. Of course, in the majority of cases it is not advertised. Men and women help each other, nurse each other, take risks for each other, and sometimes pay the cost of the risks they run. It is only advertised when it happens to be done in the name of Christ, while the larger number of cases are known only to an immediate circle of friends. Clearly, if Christians had lied less about their opponents, if they had slandered them less, if they had been brought up with a healthier appreciation of the qualities and capabilities of normal human nature, Professor Drummond would not have needed to inform his class that an atheist might be a decent human being.
The author from whom I have taken the Drummond anecdote tells the story as illustrating the latter’s liberality of mind. It is quite clear that had his hearers really understood the nature of morality, had they been taught that morality springs from, and has sole regard to the social relationships, there would have been no point in the story and no need for its telling. The atheist does not need an anecdote to inform him that a Christian may act in a human manner. He knows that human nature, like murder, will out, and the moral promptings which are expressions of so many thousands of generations of associated life cannot be prevented expressing themselves by the most anti-social religious teachings.
Chapman Cohen, Essays in Freethinking
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WHY DON’T HE LEND A HAND?
You say there is a God
Above the boundless sky,
A wise and wondrous deity
Whose strength none can defy.
You say that he is seated
Upon a throne most grand,
Millions of angels at his beck…
Why don’t he lend a hand?
See how the earth is groaning,
What countless tears are shed,
See how the plague stalks forward
And brave and sweet lie dead.
Homes burn and hearts are breaking,
Grim murder stains the land;
You say he is omnipotent…
Why don’t he lend a hand?
Behold, injustice conquers;
Pain curses every hour;
The good and true and beautiful
Are trampled like the flower.
You say he is our father,
That what he wills doth stand;
If he is thus almighty
Why don’t he lend a hand?
What is this monarch doing
Upon his golden throne,
To right the wrong stupendous,
Give joy instead of moan?
With his resistless majesty,
Each force at his command,
Each law his own creation…
Why don’t he lend a hand?
Alas! I fear he’s sleeping,
Or is himself a dream,
A bubble on thought’s ocean,
Our fancy’s fading gleam.
We look in vain to find him
Upon his throne so grand,
Then turn your vision earthward…
‘Tis we must lend a hand.
‘Tis we must grasp the lightning,
And plow the rugged soil;
‘Tis we must beat back suffering,
And plague and murder foil;
‘Tis we must build the paradise
And bravely right the wrong;
The god above us faileth,
The god within is strong.
Samuel P.Putnam (1838-1896)
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WHAT HAVE ATHEISTS (AND OTHERS WHO ARE NOT “ORTHODOX EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS”) DONE FOR MANKIND?
If it were not for a host of scientists who happened to be either lapsed churchgoers, unorthodox Christians, heretics, apostates, infidels, freethinkers, agnostics, or atheists, and their successes in the fields of agricultural and medical science, hundreds of millions would have starved to death or suffered innumerable diseases this past century. Those agricultural and medical scientists “multiplied more loaves of bread” and “prevented/healed more diseases” in the past hundred years than Christianity has in the past two thousand.
Also, it has not always been the most orthodox of Christians who have changed the face of charity worldwide for the better. Florence Nightingale (the lady who helped make nursing a legitimate profession, and taught that no one should be refused admittance to a hospital based on their religious affiliation, and no patient should be proselytized in a hospital, but instead they should be allowed to see whichever clergyperson they preferred) was not an orthodox Christian, but instead a freethinking universalist Christian. (Ms. Nightingale also wrote a few steamy letters that suggest she may have been bi-sexual or a lesbian.) The founder of the International Red Cross (now called the International Red Cross and Red Crescent), Andre Dunant, was gay. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was another freethinking universalist Christian. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who spend years in Africa as a doctor and helped to publicize the plight of suffering Africans, was a liberal Christian and author of The Search of the Historical Jesus in which he concluded that Jesus was a man who preached that the world was going to end soon. And, Helen Keller (the woman who lost her sight and hearing to a bout with Scarlet Fever when she was very young, but who learned how to communicate via touch, and who proved an inspiration to several generations of folks suffering from severe disabilities) was both a Swedenborgian, and a member of the American Humanist Society.
E.T.B.
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AGNOSTICS
Believing hath a core of unbelieving.
Robert Williams Buchanan: Songs of Seeking
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One does not have to believe everything one hears.
Cicero, De Divinatione, Book 2, Chapter 13, Section 31
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A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.
Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life
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If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise.
Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 3
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All great religions in order to escape absurdity have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage (whether of the African bush or the American Gospel broadcast) who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
H. L. Mencken
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We have infinite trouble in solving man-made mysteries; it is only when we set out to discover “the secret of God” that our difficulties disappear.
Mark Twain
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson, Writings, Vol. II, p. 43
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Let God alone if need be. Methinks, if I loved him more, I should keep him–I should keep myself, rather–at a more respectful distance. It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover that God is. I say, God. I am not sure that is the name. You will know whom I mean…
Doubt may have “some divinity” about it…
Atheism may be comparatively popular with God himself…
When a pious visitor inquired sweetly, “Henry, have you made your peace with God?” he replied, “We have never quarreled.”
Henry David Thoreau as quoted in Henry David Thoreau: What Manner of Man? By Edward Wagenknecht