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Objection 08 · Divine hiddenness

Why is God so hidden?

The objection, in full

If a loving God wanted relationship with us, he could appear unmistakably. He doesn't. Sincere seekers fail to find. Whole cultures lived and died without ever hearing his name. A God who hides while demanding faith is either uninterested, nonexistent, or cruel.

Reasonable nonbelief exists; therefore a perfectly loving God does not.
— J.L. Schellenberg, paraphrased

or, in plain terms —If God wants me to believe, why doesn't he just show up?

The Mystic
apophatic, the cloud

He is not hidden. You are not still.

The fish asks where the ocean is. He is not hidden in absence. He is hidden in nearness — too close, too constant, too dissolved in the medium of your seeing for you to notice him as a thing among other things.

Be silent for one hour, alone, without input, without screen. If at the end of the hour you can still say he is hidden, say it again, and try another hour.

Hiddenness is not a property of God. It is a property of your attention.

Citations The Cloud of Unknowing · Brother Lawrence, Practice of the Presence (1692)
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam