Wednesday, November 28, 2012

[PHI 3000] Stewart on God's Hiddenness

The problem of the hiddenness of God is the following:
  1. If a personal God exists, then such a God is perfectly loving.
  2. If a perfectly loving God exists, then such a God would make his existence apparent, so that humans could have a personal relationship with him.
  3. But the existence of a perfectly loving God is not apparent to humans, as evidenced by the fact that there are reasonable people who are not believers.
  4. (Therefore) A perfectly loving God does not exist.
  5. (Therefore) A personal God does not exist.
Now, Jon Stewart has an interesting take on the hiddenness problem.


Stewart's take on the hiddenness problem can be formulated as an argument as follows:
  1. If a personal God exists, then such a God is perfectly loving.
  2. If a perfectly loving God exists, then such a God would not allow humans to fight religious wars in his name.
  3. But humans do fight religious wars in God's name.
  4. (Therefore) A perfectly loving God does not exist.
  5. (Therefore) A personal God does not exist.
What do you think about this argument?

2 comments:

  1. Both of these arguments are strong sound inductive arguments. Both are however debatable based on the premises. In the first argument premises 2 and 3 are debatable. Premise 2 assumes that God has not made his presence apparent. Now, if by apparent the author meant seen than this premise would be fully accepted, but there are many ways to make oneself apparent. Drawing from recent spiritual experiences of people as well as "blessings" one would be inclined to argue what apparent means. Premise 3 is also debatable only mentioning one side. It states there are reasonable people that do not believe in God so that must mean there is not one. On the other hand however, there are reasonable people who do believe in God; does that mean there must be one? In Stewart's argument premise 2 assumes a perfectly loving God would not allow people to fight religious wars in his name. People however have free will. The definition of allow is to give permission to do something; to permit something. The only thing that separates humans from animals,plants,and other organisms is free will. If free will was taken away from us, assuming God exists and he stopped these religious wars, would we really be able to call ourselves humans? Could it not be this perfectly loving God "allows" us to choose for ourselves? Even a perfectly loving mother will allow her children to fight among themselves sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose you mean that the two arguments are valid (i.e., if true, the premises guarantee the truth of the conclusion) but not sound (i.e., the premises are not true).

      Delete

This is an academic blog about critical thinking, logic, and philosophy. So please refrain from making insulting, disparaging, and otherwise inappropriate comments. Also, if I publish your comment, that does not mean I agree with it. Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog.