I’m currently reading a book where the author said that God remains hidden from us today so that we may freely choose to love him or not. You can’t generate love through compulsion, he argued. And he’s right about that. As an illustration, he gave Kierkegaard’s story about a king in disguise:
Once upon a time, there was a king who longed to marry. One day, as he was riding through his kingdom, he happened to see a very beautiful young lady in a poorer section of the kingdom. He was struck by her beauty, so he found reasons to travel through there more often, even getting the chance to speak to her on occasion. As time went by, he realized he wanted to pursue a relationship with the woman, but how should he go about it?
As king, he could have her brought to the palace so that he could court her, or even propose marriage immediately. It would be very hard for her to refuse the king, but he wanted to marry for love. So he also considered dressing as a peasant in order to get to know her, and only revealing his true identity if she genuinely fell in love with him. But the dishonesty inherent in that approach was unappealing.
He finally thought of a real solution. He would give up his station as king and move into her neighborhood as a regular citizen, perhaps taking up a profession like carpentry [wink, wink]. Then, if she came to love him, they could marry, and he would know that her love was truly for him and not his position.
It’s a nice story, and its application is clear. God loves us and wants us to love him. Because of his position, he could command our love, but then it would not be genuine. His solution was to come in the flesh as Jesus, giving up his position in Heaven so that we could come to know him and love him legitimately.
But when you think about it, this isn’t an accurate illustration at all. In the story, the young woman only stands to gain. If she never meets the king, or if she never falls in love with him, then her life is no worse than it was before. But this is not what Christianity teaches. It claims that all humans are sinful, and we need saving. A better illustration would be a story where people on a cruise have fallen overboard. Someone still on the ship offers to throw the people a life preserver. Will those people first try to get to know him before they accept his offer? Of course not! They’ll happily take any help they can get. All that they really needed was to understand how serious their situation was.
To show the effectiveness of this, consider so many of the conversion accounts in the Book of Acts, especially chapter 2. Peter preaches to the crowd on the Day of Pentecost, and (supposedly) about 3000 of them were converted to Christ that day because of Peter’s message. Did they really know who Jesus was? Did they really have a deep relationship with him at that point? No. The implication is that they simply became convinced that they needed what only he could offer. They were drowning, and they needed rescue. According to that passage, that’s all that was required.
But since God is so well hidden that we can question his very existence, many of us don’t even know we need saving. Oh sure, there are people from a thousand different faiths telling us we need salvation, but the evidence they give to support this claim is woefully inadequate. Why doesn’t God give us a bigger sign, if we’re really in trouble? Why doesn’t he just tell us directly? Why aren’t all these people who are so ready to believe in God united by a single religion? It’s hard to believe there’s a fire when there’s no trace of smoke.
The most glaring problem with this story is Hell. Not all Christians believe in a literal, torturous Hell, but many do, including the author of this book I’ve been reading. How is Hell not compulsion? To fit it into the illustration, we’d need to change a few details. Instead of the king passively waiting to see if the maiden will accept him, he promises his love, but also promises to roast her alive if she refuses his advances. It’s not quite so nice a story when we add in that detail.
When you get right down to it, Christianity is all about compulsion. God loves you, and he doesn’t want to force you to love him or serve him. Of course if you don’t, you’ll be tortured forever.
This only shows that the problem of God’s hiddenness hasn’t been solved at all. The author of this book, as well as many other Christians, say that God is hidden so we can have the “freedom” to either believe in him or not. But their reasoning is faulty, since Christianity gives us no such freedom. It’s like saying you’re free to commit murder in the US, even though it could earn you the death penalty in most states. The fact that there are laws prohibiting it means you aren’t free to do it. When you consider that the Christian God has every reason to let us all know he exists and that he expects certain things from us, the fact that he doesn’t do this is really all the evidence you need to see that he’s either not real, or he’s not all-loving and all-good.
Finding Truth 
Hi Josh,
Just a couple of thoughts. I think you’re right, in some ways. It might explain why God allows suffering in this world.
However, when you pull back a bit, there are still some problems, I think. Why is there evil in the world at all? Most Christians would say it’s due to free will. Because we have free will, then “all sin and fall short of the glory of God,” as Paul said. So if we can’t help but sin, how do we explain a place like Heaven? Supposedly, God will allow the saved to live with him in Heaven for eternity. But he can’t abide sin in his presence, which is why Jesus had to come as a sacrifice, and why he cast out the angels who rebelled. But if our free will causes us to sin, what’s to keep us from sinning in Heaven? Do we lose free will? Or if there’s some way we can retain free will, yet be “perfected” in such a way that we don’t sin, why didn’t God create us that way to begin with?
That’s why this has remained an unanswered problem for the notion of an all-loving, all-powerful, all-good god. At least one of those qualities has to slide a bit to accommodate evil…
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Indeed. And, I’m not trying to resolve the issue for the now. I think the question of why God allows suffering now is largely unanswerable, even for someone who is a studied Christian. What I think Christians can say to the issue is, if Jesus was who he said he was and who the NT claims he was, then there is real evidence God is doing something to bring about the promised end. So, it does not tell us why things aren’t fixed now, or why they weren’t fixed several thousand years ago. However, if Jesus was God (and, if you’re looking at it from a Christian explanation, you have to begin there – whether Jesus was God or even existed is a separate conversation), then there is real, historical downpayment on the promise God has made. So, if we, for the sake of only addressing this discussion, take the claims about Jesus in the NT as true, then there is evidence that God “is dealing” with the issue of evil. Though it may not be resolved in the way or time that I would like, I see Jesus as indication that the promise and the resolution will come to fruition. I was simply addressing your statement that Christianity is internally inconsistent on the issue. That was probably unfair to pull out of the comment you made to unkleE, but I felt the comment itself was worthy of addressing, as I don’t think it’s true for the reasons I outlined above.
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Nate-
You ask a lot of really good questions in your last comment. I’m not sure I’ve got satisfying answers to any of them.
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That’s cool Josh, and it’s totally ok with me if you want to correct a part of what I said – “internal difficulty” might have been a better choice of words for me to have used. I’m not sure if that resolves things.
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I’m not sure it does, either. In difficult or painful moments I’m definitely as skeptical and demanding as anyone. These are just the things I’ve come to as I think through the ramifications of what I believe in moments that are more dedicated to analytical thought 🙂
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This bothered me when I was a Christian. If there is no sin allowed in heaven then we must become somewhat of a robot with no choice but to praise God for all eternity. Even questioning God for an instant might not be allowed. Then I realized that even “thoughts” would be considered sin and even remembering things from our earthly lives might be considered sin. I wondered if our memories would be tampered with or even erased. Without our memories we really would have no personal identity, just like someone with full blown amnesia.
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Dave & Nate-
You’re both asking excellent questions. I wonder about many of the same things. However, differently than either of you, I am very much okay with not knowing how these things will play out. I am fine with admitting that God may have ways of doing things I cannot understand. I am also fine with recognizing that, for his own reasons, he has chosen not to reveal his reasoning for doing things that way. The ambiguity and the mystery, hidden within the promise and the hope, are not things that very often bother me. Does that simply mean I haven’t thought them through well enough? That certainly may be the case. However, I’ve read a lot of folks who have thought through them much more than I may ever be able to do, and many of them seem okay with much of the ambiguity and mystery as I am. I know that answers nothing. Just an acknowledgement, really, of your tough questions.
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Josh, I appreciate your perspective, but here’s why I don’t share it:
Regardless of what people believe about Heaven or Hell, it’s obvious that the Bible does teach about a distinction between those on the “left” and those on the “right.” Because one of these groups will get good things and the other won’t, it sets up a scenario in which people need to be able to get into the good group. If God is loving and just, then he will make sure everyone has such an avenue. But when his communication to us is filled with logical contradictions, such as the problem of evil, free will, and Heaven that we just laid out, he’s now making it so that some people won’t be able to believe his message. In order to get past this hurdle, all we need is a little bit more information — just an explanation of how those things don’t result in a contradiction. Since God hasn’t provided that answer, it becomes very difficult to believe the communication is truly from him. Unless he doesn’t actually want all people to be saved. But that runs counter to the claim that he’s all-good and all-loving.
So it’s not just that I’m not “okay” with not understanding mysteries about God. It’s that the Bible communicates enough to create contradictions within its teachings, but then it doesn’t communicate anything else to resolve those contradictions. I just don’t see an all-knowing, all-loving, all-good god behaving in such a way.
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Nate-
I appreciate your perspective as well. The validity of scripture is an issue that I think has been covered many times over on this blog and others, and I think unkleE and others have made cases regarding it that I can’t even touch. But, suffice to say that I don’t share your difficulty with scripture at the level you describe. Are there problems and inconsistencies? Yes. But, as I and others have mentioned, there are many examinations and explanations that we find compelling with regard to scripture’s validity. I know I’m not going to argue you out of your position, as I see and understand the problems you describe in scripture. So, it’s also not JUST that I’m okay with not understanding the mysteries. That’s just a piece of it. If it were just that, or just anything else, I probably would be much closer to where you are.
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Josh – “if Jesus was who he said he was and who the NT claims he was, then there is real evidence God is doing something to bring about the promised end.”
I think the key word here is “if.” IF monsters were real you should make sure your closet is securely fastened before you go to bed. IF Dracula were real, you’d do well to stock up on holy water and carry a cross. Perhaps you need to take an extra step back from your starting point – or maybe ask yourself, “what if jesus wasn’t the son of god?”
For me, I wonder a lot about the problem of evil and suffering on earth. Perhaps it is that god doesn’t save the lives of children or prevent cruel suffering because this life doesn’t matter or isn’t “real” – but the next eternal life is… But even this train of thought soon runs into problems if you really think about it. But skipping all of that because I think it’s moot, I’ll say that for me the real issue is that people who believe in their particular religion mostly do so because they believe what others have told them – not what god has told them or shown them, but what other people have. It was this concept that concluded my religious life, and I cannot get beyond it – my faith was never in god as it turned out; how could it have ever been?
Their faith isn’t in god, it’s in the claims made by men about god. Let’s say that someone told you that President George Washington decreed a law that all blonde headed women should be slapped in the face because they are devious (lack of a better analogy, sorry). Now let’s say that you didn’t believe that claim about Washington, and when you questioned that claim, the guy just says, “oh, and who are you to question President George Washington!?”
They may even go on to point out different traits amongst blonde headed women that may lend credence to the claim that they are devious, as if that somehow equates to proving the claim about what Washington said in regard to them. I guess we could say that “IF” President Washington did in fact make such a lawful decree, then perhaps we should slap blonde women… this doesn’t prove the claim either, it just side steps that issue makes an assumption.
And a point about assumptions; in cases like the above with Washington or with god or with anything truly questionable, all assumptions are not equal. We don’t herald BigFooters and their faith, because they chose to believe because they couldn’t prove that that the big foot isn’t real. No, we mock them. Prove doesn’t work that way – one must prove there is something (insert hard to believe line item here) in order for it to be convincing.
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Nate-
If I may say so, I wonder if a chief difference between you and I may be that I am okay with some people, for whatever reason, not inheriting eternal life. Like I’ve outlined in a few places, I’m certainly not capable, nor would I want to be, of determining who will and will not inherit eternal life. But, I am aware of the teaching that some will, for whatever reason, not choose God. I am trusting, based on many of Jesus’ parables and other teaching in scripture, that all of us will be given enough “information”, “light”, whatever you want to call it in order to make a response one way or another. The thing I wonder coming out of this conversation is if you, even if you were logically and rationally convinced of God’s existence and that Jesus was God, would choose to put faith in him anyway simply because of the fact that there would be some that ultimately will not inherit the life to come. Just a thought.
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Wiliam-
I was addressing the internal consistency of scripture’s, specifically Christianity’s, depiction of the world as it is and the problem of evil. I think it’s fair to discuss that without first having to establish that Christianity is true. We can do this because, in order to decide whether or not there’s internal consistency, we only need to look at the problem and what Christianity offers. Whether it is actually true, as I said, is a different conversation.
We could also talk about the internal consistency of believing in Dracula and the problem of whatever without having to establish that Dracula existed.
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Apologies for misspelling your name, William.
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I think the vast majority of us believe what we do based on what others have told us, don’t we? For example, have you studied first hand all of the experiments and observations that are the foundation on which you base your beliefs about the world as it is? I doubt it. You read what others have done, and you trust their authority to be authentic and qualified enough to give you an accurate report. So, you’re not trusting in what you’ve observed. You’re trusting what someone else has told you, and you’re trusting that what they’ve observed is accurate, and you’re trusting that they’re not misleading you for some reason. I think we all have to make judgments about what to believe based on information that is not first hand.
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Josh, we could have that discussion, as you say, but when you hinge your argument on, “if Jesus was who he said he was and who the NT claims he was, then there is real evidence God is doing something to bring about the promised end,” then it’s the same discussion.
sure, “IF” jesus was the son of god and “IF” the bible is the inspired word of god, then i guess that would settle it. but what if he’s not? that’s the point. that’s why these details of contradictions and errors mean so much – they point to your starting assumption being wrong.
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Exactly Josh, and if I’ve interpreted what you have said here properly, this is exactly what I was trying to say to Unklee (who may be waking up right now 😉 ).
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William-
I don’t think you’ve quite followed. Howie made the comment that the problem of evil is “internally inconsistent” in Christianity. To determine whether it is internally inconsistent, we need to look at whether there is accounting for it WITHIN Christian teaching. To do that, we don’t need to establish whether Christianity is true. We only need to look at whether there is an accounting for it within Christianity. As I tried to explain, I think there is. However, even if I thought there was not internal consistency, the conversation would still need to take place within the Christian worldview, by assuming the things you point out. You can’t determine internal consistency by stepping outside of something and looking at it from there. You have to look at it from within the framework itself. Which means you have to assume the framework before starting.
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Josh – “You read what others have done, and you trust their authority to be authentic and qualified enough to give you an accurate report.”
solid points, yes, but here’s the differences:
1. whether I believe those reports and studies have no bearing on my eternal life/death or acceptance by god(s).
2. Some of these reports I am more skeptical in than others, but typically there is more than one study supporting a finding plus peer review. The bible contradicts itself, that’s not good – plus, no other religious book agrees with its findings, so these are quite different.
3. and many of these reports, studies, findings, etc are derived from or lead to tangible things – medication, rocket technology, cell phones and cable tv being a few. We witness these things in real life and actually feel and sense their presence. We walk by reason and not by faith, sort of thing.
there are a few others differences I’m sure, but i think these deliver the gist.
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Josh, you’re confusing me. I have not followed the entire thread and just don’t have to today – I do apologize.
But your post in which you kept saying we must start with “if jesus was the son of god, then….” is what i’m commenting on. I took what you were saying as a way to explain that “if jesus was god’s son and all of that stuff, then we can be confident that those parts of the bible that appear to be contradictions, are not really contradictions.”
have I misread what your position is?
If I have it right, then I think my comments stand as valid.
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William-
Fair enough on those points.
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ah sorry, “dont have time today, not “dont have to”
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William-
Howie and I were talking about the internal consistency of Christian belief and the problem of evil. I think you may have read my comment out of context. I started with those assumptions because that is where Howie made his comment. But, don’t worry about taking it out of context – I took Howie’s out of context to start the conversation in the first place!!!
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hey, sorry for taking them out of context. I guess I dont know what your statements meant in their original context if not:
“if jesus was god’s son and all of that stuff, then we can be confident that those parts of the bible that appear to be contradictions, are not really contradictions.”
But, I admit, that may only be my dimwittedness. I’ll back away from the table now – I see the seats are taken.
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I was a Christian for very many years even though I believed a whole bunch of people were going to Hell. I didn’t like that thought, but I still believed.
But aside from that, I can tell you a main reason that some people won’t get eternal life (if Christianity were true), and it’s simply because they’re unconvinced of it. This doesn’t make them “bad,” it just means they weren’t given enough evidence. Is it really righteous to punish such people? This is the real immorality inherent in Christianity. And the saddest thing of all is that it’s supported by scriptures that even the believers think are imperfect.
Yes, the Bible says that not everyone will be saved. But if some parts of the Bible aren’t true, how do you know that part is? The Bible also says that all people will be given enough information to make a response one way or the other, but how do you know that part is true? And through these blogs, you now know a bunch of people who tell you that that latter point isn’t so. To illustrate, they tell you the problems they have with the religion, and at times, your only response is to say that you have no answer for those problems. Your honesty is extremely admirable, but shouldn’t it give you pause that you have no answers? You’re choosing to believe the word of ancient people whom you’ve never met (you don’t even know their names except for Paul and maybe Luke) over the word of those you’ve come to know fairly well through in-depth interaction.
We’re telling you that we don’t have enough evidence to believe. Yet you’re saying we’re wrong without even being able to give us evidence of how we’re wrong. I know you don’t mean it as such a slap in the face, but that’s kind of what it is when you think about it.
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I actually am not sure that quote was mine, William. But, I can’t find it in the thread anymore! Sorry!
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