Hiddenness of God?
According to many people, especially those who claim to be atheist, God hides Himself. Alex O’Connor, a very popular young agnostic-atheist (his designation) and podcaster, who graduated from Oxford with a Bachelor in Philosophy and Theology, claims to have really looked for God and not found Him. One of his arguments then is that the “hiddenness of God” (or divine hiddenness) makes the existence of a perfectly loving God improbable. O’Connor, drawing on philosopher J.L. Schellenberg, argues that the existence of non-resistant, honest seekers who fail to find God suggests that such a God does not exist.
When I was a child, I often played hide and seek. Important to finding someone in that game meant knowing where or how to look. It certainly did not mean just wandering around and saying, “I wonder where everyone is, I can’t find them.” Since becoming an adult and playing the game with children, it occurred to me how easy it was to hide from them (O’Connor-like seekers). Someone must adapt his expectations of finding someone in hide and seek to the parameters of the game. God sets the parameters for finding Him and gives the capability for doing that.
Based on a certain kind of evaluation, God does hide Himself from men. Scripture talks about it and I’ve written about it too. Despite the claim that God does hide Himself, it is the truth or perhaps we could say, it is a fact, that God reveals Himself to people. It is of the nature of God to reveal Himself, what has become known as “the revelation of God.” God wants us to know Him and He reveals Himself in a manner fitting with how He wants us to know Him and what He wants us to know of and about Him.
Hiding and Revealing
I’m very interested in the subject of God either hiding Himself or revealing Himself. In a major way, I’m in that business of either the hiddenness or the revelation of God. They are something I want to know and be able to explain, be right about and then tell the truth about them. What should people expect for a relationship with God and be true about what that is. Sometimes I hear people characterize their relationship with God, and maybe it’s their experience, but I don’t believe what they’re saying. The truth is limited to what God Himself says about it, and He does speak about it in His Word.
In my assessment, which scripture also explains, people do not want to be left out of others’ estimation that they have some special relationship with God by the means by which they know Him. They apparently have unique channels to God. Many say in an ongoing way He talks to them. Some declare that He communicates through touch even, a hug or a feeling of some sort that He gives them. Through the years, I haven’t found much proof of this. Some whole new religions are based upon this kind of experience.
Conversations With God
In 1995, Neal Donald Walsch wrote a book, Conversations with God, which became a bestseller for 137 weeks on the New York Times list. He reported that he was struggling in life and wrote an angry letter to God, to which he felt God replied. Then he began writing down these conversations, which lasted for years. The book is presented as a direct dialogue with God, addressing topics like life, love, money, and purpose. If Walsch was true, that is getting some direct contact with God in a way very much not hidden, and the way he got it is how many people think they should have it or even more than what he did.
I never read Walsch’s book, but I became an acquaintance with an Iranian man in California around the time he wrote his book. Our church helped this man by testifying on his behalf to the county supervisors about private property rights. He was trying to develop a property with several houses just up the hill from our church building. He became very friendly to me and wanted me to hear what he was listening to. When I heard Walsch in the reading of his book, I could understand how that people thought that he had heard from God.
What Walsch testified that God had told him fit very well with what people commonly would like God to say to them. The conversations with God he claimed were much different than the Bible. Still, a lot of people read them and wanted to know what Walsch declared to have heard from God. In many ways, Walsch just reinforced what people thought God might say to someone if he talked to them. This corresponds to Proverbs 14:12, that there is a way that seems right unto man. Many men on their own can think through what they’d like their life to be and then just superimpose God onto their own thoughts.
Psalm 19:1-6 and Revelation 1:19-21
What someone like O’Connor calls hiddenness is just what God does. He describes it in a passage like Psalm 19:1-6:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
So, someone says, God is hidden. And you say, let me read Psalm 19:1-6 — He really isn’t. God in fact does reveal Himself through His creation. No one should underestimate. Instead, exalt it. Elevate it. The Apostle Paul talks about this later in Romans 1:19-21:
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
I know that Alex O’Connor and many people like him know these verses. However, they still think they are entitled more from God than what He says or offers. What God shows or how He reveals Himself is not suitable enough. This is the concept in verse 21, “Neither were they thankful.” They are unthankful for what God does give. What God gives in the way of revealing Himself to man is sufficient or suitable.
Normal Means of God Expressing Himself
In many ways, passages like Psalm 19:1-5 and Romans 1:19-21 zero in on this particular criticism of the revelation of God. What people call “hiddenness” is just the normal means of God expressing Himself. God guarantees that in the next life the knowledge will far surpass what it is in this one. If someone wants more knowledge of God, he must accept what he has now with the happy hope for much more in his future life. Even for those who believe in sufficient knowledge of God through present revelation of Himself, Paul describes as “seeing through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
One should not assume that general revelation of God is God hiding. If He is hiding through His revelation, then at worst He’s hiding in plain sight, which is not hiding. He’s showing up in a huge way. Some of the same critics of God’s hiddenness might point to the fine tuning of the universe. That fine tuning provides a language in God’s revelation of Himself. He blows away humanity in hundreds of different ways that He speaks through creation. Not speaking like I want Him to speak isn’t hiding.
Wicked and Adulterous People
The Lord Jesus Christ characterizes the demand for more knowledge of God from God without appropriate or fitting acceptance of what God already gives and offers of Himself, as “wicked and adulterous” (Matthew 16:4). God could provide more and would, but He wanted to see the audience of His revelation receive thankfully what they already had. The Apostle Paul says that God’s greatest creation, mankind, clearly sees and understands His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Hiddenness is just an excuse.
The wickedness and adulterousness of discontent with God’s revelation doesn’t just spread to the Alex O’Connors of this world, but also to professing believers, who themselves report of more God says to them above and beyond creation, natural laws, conscience, or scripture. They are getting in a sense a kind of crown performance. They’re actually not, but they report that they do, and this does elevate estimation of them among some. Then it becomes a one-upmanship in the reception of more revelation from God in ways He does not say He will give it. It’s a form of divine name-dropping.
Thank You for Revelation, God
The right perspective on God’s revelation is “thank you.” “Thank you God for what you have given. It’s good enough for me. I’m content.” I know I’ll get more, but I’m content with what He’s given me, general and special revelation. He gave mankind a completed scripture in the all the words and every word in the sixty-six books He inspired. I will work on understanding those words and study to show myself approved unto God, rightly dividing them.
I could say a lot more on this subject, but I want you to let this sink in. Stop being such a big shot with all your experiences and special revelations. Most of you are just using those to give further validation of yourself, to legitimize yourself. Maybe you perceive to have received them. I’m not saying those are not in your experience. They probably are. However, they are not God. God gives what He gives. It’s enough for this lifetime. Everyone should wait for something else in the next life.
God in scripture gives definitive evidence — authentication, confirmation, verification — for His revelation. Everything short of that hasn’t been it and it will not be it. When you are claiming in whatever what they you do that, which are many ways today, that you got something from Him somehow in whatever language you use to sound like that’s true, it is just not happening. Just because you didn’t get that from Him doesn’t mean that He’s hiding. He never stops showing Himself in so many different ways that you could never keep up with all those ways. Just enjoy the ones you have.