It is sometimes asserted that God, if he exists, is not obvious. Some will say that they would happily believe in God if (and really only if) God made himself directly evident to them. The bold thought seems to be that it should be no problem for God, being all powerful, to make himself known in a way that would make belief in him more compelling. These thoughts can be formalized into the so-called problem of divine hiddenness.

1. If God existed, then God would make his existence more obvious.
2. God is not obvious.
3. Thus, God does not exist.

In addressing this challenge, I think we should agree with the unbeliever that, at least in a certain respect, God could be more obvious in revealing himself. I’m not sure about you but God has never gotten my attention via a burning bush, as he did with Moses, and Jesus never blinded my eyes to make his point that he is who he claimed to be, as he did Saul of Tarsus. God clearly has the ability to rend such events actual in all of our lives and if he did, he would be more obvious. Most people in the history of the world have not had their lives interrupted with an extraordinary and manifest appearance of God and thus God is, in this sense, veiled.

Now this is a limited concession since I also think that there is a real and obvious sense in which God makes his existence abundantly clear to all people. In fact, on my view, God has created the world replete with revelation of himself that can, as Paul says, be “clearly seen” in creation. It seems to me that there are a wide variety of phenomena that cannot be explained well (if at all) without positing the existence of God, a God that’s at least consistent with the Bible. These phenomena include the existence of the universe itself (rather than there being nothing at all), the pervasive design and fine tuning of the universe, the objectivity of morality, consciousness (rocks are not conscious, why should grey matter be?), the richness and the radical authenticity of Scripture, to name just a few.

But the complaint seems to be that God, since he could do more (which I am conceding), he should do more (which I will be taking to task presently). In wrestling with this challenge, it is important to ask whether God is obligated to make himself more obvious than he has. The only way that this is a formal problem here is if God’s being able to make himself more obvious morally obligates him to do so. In other words, just because God could do more, why think that he should do more? This is something that proponents of this problem rarely argue for. We might wish or prefer that God would be more obvious but nothing interesting follows logically from unmet wishes or desires.

Do we have reason to think that God lacks this obligation? So long as one thinks that humans are imperfect, I see no reason to think that God is obligated to make himself more obvious than he has. I find that most people readily admit that they are imperfect and sometimes downright immoral in their actions or at least have been at one time or another in their life. This is a characterization that fits all too well my own life. Despite your and my best effort, we all fall short in a variety of ways. Sometimes this is unintentional but, at other times, we have freely planned out our moral infelicities in painstaking detail. We’ve turned away, we’ve rebelled and we do so all the time. I don’t have space here to fully develop this point but if this is our moral condition and God is a holy judge, then it seems to me that God has no obligation to make himself known at all, much less obvious in any kind of extraordinary way.

Furthermore, I think it is a mistake to believe that some display from God would really make all the difference in the world for most people. I once heard a prominent atheist say on national television that he wouldn’t believe in God even if God himself spoke to him. He would instead check himself into a mental hospital. What this atheist got right is that experiences can be very powerful but the utility of an experience largely has to do with how we interpret the experience. Without the proper lens of interpretation, miraculous events are only marginally helpful for bringing about the sort of response for which God seeks.

Let’s be honest, we all want some special effects to accompany our dealings with God. The problem is that these elements often distract us from seeing our sin and even distract us from seeing God himself. The nation of Israel had witnessed many supernatural events throughout its history. Many times the miraculous events did not bring about the sort of life change one would expect (see, for example, the generation of Israelites who were a part of the exodus from Egypt but in the end failed to trust God, in Numbers 13-14). Jesus also provided many miracles but was often selective as to when he would perform them. There were many contexts where these supernatural events were not going to produce the sort of faith and humbleness of heart that Jesus sought. People had a tendency to seek the miracles themselves as if they were some sort of parlor trick, rather seeing these as pointing to a further reality, the reality of our need for God.

God could, to be sure, cow all of us into frightful submission. If this is what God wanted, then I think it is safe to say an all-powerful being could bring this result about and we should shudder at the possibility. But God is good. He is not interested in your frightful submission. He’s also not interested in your devotion only for what you get out of it (parlor tricks, eternal paradise, or whatever else). God is interested in a humble heart that responds in worship to his greatness and goodness (see Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55 for a good example of this). If God is after this specific heart response, then it may be that God’s degree of obviousness is perfectly calibrated with the accomplishment of this sort of response.

One last thing, God is also interested in using us, as his instruments, in bringing about this heart response in others. God could announce the gospel through other means but he chooses, according to his plans and purposes, to use us in missionary and evangelistic efforts across the world. This is our commission. As we are brought to a place of worshipful response, we are to share the good news of this abundant life with the world. Again, God could communicate the gospel in more plainly supernatural ways but there is something about using us that best fits God’s purpose.

This of course does not solve all issues in connection with God’s so-called hiddenness. We should continue to wrestle. The hope here is that this would provide some direction to help guide our thinking on this matter.

Unfortunately Christians sometimes distance themselves from reason. At the same time, it is very common for atheists to consider reason to be the exclusive domain of atheism. This is especially true in a somewhat recent phenomenon known as the New Atheist movement, led by the likes of Richard Dawkins, (the late) Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. There is literally nothing that is actually “new” about their atheistic beliefs. The only thing that is somewhat novel is their tone and activism.[1] To the New Atheist, faith is, by definition, a suspension of critical thinking and that’s what religious folk trade in—the atheist, however, has no place for faith. They only rely upon reason, or so they allege.

This emphasis on reason has, for them, become a defining theme. In 2012, the “Reason Rally” was held in Washington D.C. The event featured everyone from Richard Dawkins to Bill Maher to Michael Shermer. It was a who’s who of popular level atheism united around the common theme of reason. This theme shows up routinely with atheist groups. Richard Dawkins has the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. At one point, if you contributed a significant amount of money to his foundation, you actually got to join the “Reason Circle.” There is the United Coalition of Reason and many other atheist groups that lay claim to this theme of reason. There is the National Day of Reason that just so happens (wink, wink) to be observed on the same day as the National Day of Prayer and even a move to have “In Reason We Trust” replace “In God We Trust.” Not long ago, there was a law suit against the city of Warren, MI due to the fact that the city had denied a petition to put up what was to be called the “Reason Station” by an atheist group. The Reason Station was to be a contrast to a long standing tradition of having a “Prayer Station” in the atrium of City Hall operated by religious folks. The suit was successful and the city was forced to allow the atheists to put up the Reason Station alongside the Prayer Station. My point with bringing this is up is that all of these suggest that this group values reason.

The incredible irony here is that many of these groups and their sites trade primarily in invectives and vitriolic slams rather than any kind of reasoned defense. The dialogue surrounding the installment of the Reason Station, for example, was anything but thoughtful. You can go to their sites and see for yourself. If one dares to make a positive claim about God or Christianity (or any religion for that matter), one will find oneself mocked and ridiculed in real time, often with no critical reasoning in sight. Even with formal debates involving the so-called experts, it can be difficult to disentangle mocking complaints about religion from actual arguments on the atheist side.

I’m not saying this to match the ridicule. Rather I mention this to point out a radical inconsistency in the current scene. This brand of atheism extols reason but tends to not engage thoughtfully and reasonably. Many have noted this inconsistency, even fellow atheists. Some professional philosophers, who are avowed atheists, have distanced themselves from the New Atheist movement. In fact, atheist philosopher Michael Ruse has said that Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion has made him ashamed to be an atheist. This is due to the fact that the philosophical arguments are just so weak and there is no effort to deeply engage the views of the many very serious thinkers on the theistic side.

What’s more is that the atheist will often act as if he or she never depends upon faith, only reason. But this is ridiculous. The object of the atheist’s faith may not be God or Scripture, but he or she will often have an undying faith in the ability of science to discover truths about (and beyond) the world. Theists will often point to features of the world that are inexplicable on an atheistic worldview, and the response is often faith of the fundamentalist sort that science will one day explain these facts. Moreover, the atheist will have faith in his or her senses, memory, the report of (select) books, and the powers of reason itself. The point is that the atheist exercises a very active trust in these things and, thus, is equally a person of faith.

But there’s a further irony here in the atheist’s faith in reason. Does the atheist have good reason for reason? I realize it is a funny question but it seems difficult for the atheist to give a reason, or a ground, for reason. To see this, we should note that reason is ultimately governed by principles of logic. What makes a claim reasonably supported is that the claim accords with the standards of logic. But the following also seems to be a legitimate question. What explains the system of logic itself? Put a bit more technically, what is the metaphysical ground of logic itself? This is a difficult question to answer. Perhaps the atheist could say that logic exists as a kind of brute unexplained fact, but then this is going to look especially like an article of faith.

By contrast, the theist has an explanation for the values of logic. The system of logic is explained by God himself, as the ultimate ground of all things. He created matter and the physical laws of nature but he is also the ground of all values, including logic, morality, and beauty. Logical principles are, on this view, the expression of the very mind of God.

It is always important to point out this is not to say that atheists cannot know the principles of logic and the standards of reasoning. But that’s as far as it goes for the atheist. Their worldview does not seem to provide a ground for the principles of reason itself.

The atheist cannot argue in a noncircular way for the existence of reason but the theist can. The theist can mount a variety of non-question begging arguments for the existence of God and this provides a ground for reason itself.

Now there is a lot more to be said on this issue. I haven’t said, for example, how logical principles are grounded in the mind of God and do not have the space to do so here. But the point, for our purposes, is that everyone has faith and everyone uses reason. For the Christian, faith and reason are friendly concepts. God is the very ground of logic. So it seems that Christians should value the principles of logic and canons of reason precisely because, as Christians, we worship the God of logic.

[1] See for example a recent book called A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing, 2013).

Prognosticating about the future is risky business. One can really only be right, wrong or perhaps close enough that it still counts. Ever since the enlightenment, certain irreligious prognosticators have predicted that the faithful will finally “see the light”; that there is no God. The thought was that with the rise of modern science and modern thought, Christian claims will be seen as antiquated and therefore abandoned. Old theories are almost all false. Christianity is an old theory, therefore, it should be dropped as well, right?

Well, no, Christianity has not only survived throughout the rise of modern thought and science. It has also largely been responsible for many parts of its advance.

We still hear, from time to time, this sort of prognostication and indeed it often gets a bit shrill. Consider for example the famous 1966 Time magazine cover that read “Is God Dead?” and describing the so-called Death of God movement that was, get this, a trend in theology. Let’s just say the movement didn’t last long.

The expiration date on religious thought is also a common talking point of the New Atheists. Lawrence Krauss has said, “What we need to do is present comparative religion as a bunch of interesting historical anecdotes. And then show the silly reasons why they did what they did.” He goes on to say “Change is always one generation away. So if we can plant the seeds of doubt in our children, religion will go away in a generation, or at least largely go away — and that’s what I think we have an obligation to do.” All we have to do, according to Krauss, is to present religion as interesting but false and it goes away. Let me just say how adorable Krauss is in a New-Atheist-kind-of-way. Not only does Krauss seem to lack the first clue about why people believe in God and stand in particular religious traditions, he seems to be suggesting a form of indoctrination on a scale that would make any religious fundamentalist blush. Let’s hear it for Krauss the freethinker!

But here we all are. I think that it is safe to say that, despite Krauss’s head-in-the-sand prognostication, religious thought will continue to be alive and well. Christianity in particular continues to grow steadily. In fact, there has been an important return to orthodoxy and conservative theological values in certain sectors. In fact some attempt to return to a version of Christianity consistent with the values and outlook of the 1^st century church! That’s amazing, if you think about it. Rather than thinking we need to progress from antiquated thought, many Christians (myself included) think we can take all of our scientific data and moral progress and fit it squarely (and much more naturally) within a 1^st century theological framework.

Now there are a lot of reasons why religious thought is more popular than ever. Perhaps one of the biggest is that the naturalist view of Krauss and the rest of the New Atheists is one of the most philosophically impoverished views there is. It fails to explain the big bang, the fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe, the regularity of the world upon which science is predicated, moral facts, the intrinsic value and dignity of human life, human and animal consciousness, etc. You know, just like the most important features of our existence.

There is also the fact that Christianity itself is rooted in evidence. This is a risky place to be because evidential claims provide for the opportunity of either being verified or shown false. So given the fact that there has been an explosion of scholarship on these matters, Christianity should be on its way out, right? Well that would be the case if it were clearly false as Krauss seems to assume. But this is not what we see. In fact, the case for Christianity is getting better and better all the time. It’s better than it was even a decade ago and it is much better than it was a century ago.

Let me just point to a few areas (note: none of these by themselves prove that Christianity and some do not lead straight away to Christianity but they all figure into a cumulative case for Christian theism).

The case has gotten better in Science. We continue to discover how unbelievably fine-tuned the universe really is for human existence and this has obvious theistic implications. Moreover, many standard cosmological views point to an absolute beginning, which is consonant with Christian theism.

The case has gotten better in Philosophy. We have had a generation of thoughtful responses to the Problem of Evil in many ways inspired by Alvin Plantinga’s work (and C.S Lewis before him). There is more work to be done but the Christian Theist has a very reasonable response to the existence of pervasive pain and suffering. Also the argument from Consciousness is an exciting new area of exploration. The so-called hard problem of consciousness is a problem for those who are attempting to explain consciousness naturalistically. However, consciousness itself defies a naturalistic explanation and points us supernaturally.

The historical case has gotten better involving both Archeology and Textual studies. In archeology, there has been an incredible amount of evidence unearthed (such pun!). There have been a variety of biblical facts long doubted by critical scholars that have turned up to be accurate (such as facts surrounding the Jericho event and the life of Daniel). Now I should mention that very specific conclusions in Archeology are difficult to reach and so there are a variety of issues that lack archeological support. But, these are arguments from silence rather than having any substantial archeological find that disconfirms claims made in the Old and New Testament.

The case has gotten considerably better textually. The Dead Sea Scrolls discovery has been a treasure trove of evidence for the reliability of the Old Testament Scriptures as well as 1^st century cultural claims made in the New Testament. Before the Dead Sea Scroll discovery, our earliest complete Old Testament manuscripts dated to AD 1080. With this discovery, it pushed things back over a thousand years to BC 250 for a variety of the Old Testament books! The most striking part of the discovery is that there were not substantial differences in our late dating manuscripts and these new early dating manuscripts. The claim that there has been substantial Christian development has largely been put to rest. On the more recent front, there are reports about fragments of biblical texts being found in Egyptian mummy masks. These reports have yet to be published but if they are accurate, then they would be the earliest fragment manuscripts to date.

If Christianity were false, it seems that the case should be getting far more difficult to make. However, as I’ve indicated above, these are exciting times for the Christian Theist!