Response to Steve McRae's formulation of the problem of divine hiddeness

Steve McRae released a video on the problem of divine hiddenness, here's his video, and this is my response to it: 

That God can be known

It's the Catholic view that God can be known with certainty from reason; though not without difficulty. 

Hence the many arguments for God's existence, and many defenses of those arguments given by professional philosophers. The texts defending these arguments can be quite dense, but it is clear that there are certain classical pathways of resaoning for God's existence; objections have arisen, but these often seem only to be the occasion of newer and greater clarifications of old arguments, and so seem only to show ever more clearly how reason can bring us to God. 

Likewise, we Catholics hold that God can be known through miracles and fulfilled prophecies. 

Thus I'd argue that God does continue to perform such things even up to this day, and this in very big and grandiose ways. Reports of miracles have not declined; we still have issues like; the origin of the shroud of Turin, the Miracle of the Son at Fatima, the Miracle of Calanda, the Miraculous healings at Lourdes, Eucharistic miracles, etc. 

While some reported miracles are iffy in their origin (say, the liquefaction of St. Janarius blood) and others are almost certainly non-divine (e.g. Jesus or Mary on toast or something), the one's I listed as good examples are much harder to dismiss, and seem to me to have real probative force. 

This is not to say that skeptics don't try to dismiss or at least resist them, but whenever I find a new skeptical argument against those in the list and I look deeper into the details of those in the list, I find the skeptical dismals themselves always to be either outdated (i.e. further study into the case resolved issues, this particularly so in the case of the shroud of Turin) and so essentially misinformed, or else rooted in just plain bad reasoning. In my opinion, skeptics tend to be 'way too quick' to dismiss miracle claims. 

Neither is this to say that God does not hide himself per se, for while one can be objective in evaluating such arguments and evidence, I do not claim that either task is 'easy', but I would still hold that Goddoesn't hide himself nearly as much as the one putting forth the problem of divine hiddenwould seem to need in order for their conclusion to be certain. 

On Alternative natural explanations

Steve anticipates the above appeal to miracles, and argues that present day miracle claims (presumably such as those I've pointed out) can be explained in natural ways, and so can on those grounds be dismissed. I find two issues with this:

The Natural and The Supernatural

First, it's not clear that the 'supernatural' is not just a subset of the natural; namely, to refer to beings which have power and knowledge greater than that of humans. 

On this view, all is natural which is either equal or lesser to humanity in potential, so that the supernatural would really just be another term for 'superhuman'. So it's not that the supernatural is non-natural, but that it is of a nature that fully (and not just partially) surpasses human limits. 

(so birds can fly without the aid of technology while humans can't, but birds are not supernatural because they don't 'also' have access to abstract knowledge or abstract sorts of knowledge that human reason can't access, but such things as angels, demons, and God, along with being supposed to have having abilities surpassing man, are also supposed to have access to such knowledge; so that no amount of reasoning from self-evident principles nor from evident truths in the empirical world would be sufficient for man to reach these conclusions; perhaps because they are self-evident in themselves, but involve concepts far too abstract for our minds to ever grasp, or perhaps because they involve a way or mode of knowing utterly foreign to the human mind.) 

When I read older documents that use the term 'supernatural' it seems to me that this reading fits much better than the idea of the 'non-natural' supernatural. 

The Problems of Reductionism

Second (and this is somewhat related to another post of mine), arguably any sort of naturalistic reductionism has to have certain inherent theoretical limits; otherwise it will end up reducing itself into non-existence, so that the very position of reductionism will be nothing more than the non-reductionisms which are the fundamental entities and the laws which govern them; and of course, if reductionism doesn't exist, then it can't be true; so that on this limitless form of reductionism; if reductionism is true, it isn't. So that an absolute reductionism is self-refuting.

Reductionism and Realism about Abstracta

Thus likewise we can't really reduce anything involved in the very process of reduction and in thinking about that process, since that too will be bound up in the very definition and concept of reductionism; and as the process is itself a matter of abstract theorizing and reasoning and conceptualizing, then we can argue that abstract objects likewise can't be reduced to empirical ones, since it is precisely those objects which are inherent in the process of reduction; thus among the fundamental entities of the world must be included certain non-empirical entities, namely, the abstract objects, which would include the big conjunction of propositions that define reductionism as a view. 

(Though we can perhaps argue that there is reduction 'within' the abstract domain; say, theorems reduce to axioms and inference rules; which may in turn reduce to the terms composing them and the grammatical rules constructing them; and there may be some constructed terms which are reducible to other primitive terms + some lexical rule for constructing definitions out of them, etc.)

In any case; since abstract objects as a whole cannot reduce to empirical/material objects; so clearly naturalistic reductionism has some limits; the list of fundamental natural entities to which all other entities reduce cannot itself be reduced to those spoken of by the empirical sciences (as physicalist naturalists might be inclined to claim) but there must be some that are outside of them. We might still classify these entities as 'natural' but then we have to grant that the notion of 'the natural' is not limited to the empirical, but also includes the various entities of the formal sciences. Thing is, this has a few further implications:

Reductionism and Personalism

Being irreducible to sensible/empirical/material objects, it must be noted that abstract objects don't really interact with such objects either. i.e. Abstracta are causally effete with respect to empirical/material things. However, since we clearly act and are acted upon by these objects (namely in passively coming to know them (being acted upon by them), and so in actively bringing them into our knowledge (and so acting upon them) and through us they can indirectly act upon the world (namely, in how we can act upon our knowledge of them by forming goals, plans, and our schedule in light of such abstract knowledge)) then there must be something in 'us' that is not reducible to empirical/material things.

Reductionism and Theism

More to this, we clearly do not invent abstract objects, but discover them; for we cannot just 'will' knowledge of this or that formal science into our mind, but rather have to prove our conclusions from premises as theorems from axioms and inference rules; thus one cannot will to know the answer to one of the millenium prize problems, one has to work it out; and likewise even as regards the axioms and inference rules, these are typically learned from teachers, having been passed down through the centuries; but even for those who first worked these out, it was not an invention but a discovery, for man's capacity to make what actions and patterns of action he does in thought, speech, and deed, is not something itself invented by man; for we do not invent our being, neither our minds nor our brains nor our bodies, but rather these are given to us as we come into being, and are things we grow with and into, and these have inbuilt extents with inbuilt limits which we have not ourselves willed, but rather something we have received as from the outside; and so the extent and limit of the abilities we have are something we discover, rather than invent; for we cannot will to think faster and so to perceive time slower, we cannot will to have a third arm and have it, or clearer vision and receive it; but our extents and limits are again, something we receive from outside of our will; so that anything we learn about them is not invented by our will, but discovered in us by our intellect; otherwise we could just will ourselves to be all powerful, and we cannot; so that our abilities (including our abilities to work out and share the axioms and inference rules of formal science) are thus something discovered rather than invented; and so something objective rather than reducibly subjective.

However if they are discovered and so exist in some sense outside of ourselves, as a kind of potential we have, and which we discover through some conditions (for again, we cannot will their discovery, but rather those who discover the most basic truths of things tend to do so in a moment of insight; a 'Eureka!' moment, as it were, where the various parts of a formal system suddenly come together into a coherent whole, or else also in a 'Doh!' moment, when one sees that what was learned ought to have been immediately obvious; though other times it can be more slow and meticulous, as one is trying through a variety of combinations of parts to see if they fit together into a coherent system or not, but in either case there is always a kind of 'looking into' reality, to find the system; seeing through and beyond how things appear, and so seeing into this world of abstracts to see how these appearances can come together to signify these abstract realities) then in light of these realities being irreducible to the empirical, and not subjective creations of our own, and yet worked out through and from the sensible empircal material world we find ourselves in; then since we know that minds are the sorts of things that can act upon abstract objects, then we need some mind to have placed all these abstract realities beyond or into the empirical world, so as to explain how we come to know of them; akin to how, when we communicate our formal systems to one another (as in a math class) we use language to do so, and the student has to work the abstract system out from the empirical signifiers of the teacher, has to work out the abstract reality their teacher is signifying by those signifiers. So likewise all of the sensible, empirical, material is intelligible to us in a way akin to how language is intelligible, we can work out the meaning of the things in the world, and translate that meaning into our own language so as to talk about them; and so we can call a tree a tree, or a dog a dog, a cloud a cloud, etc. so that the whole of the world is like a great act of speech signifying these abstract ideas by sensble, material, empirical things; and as neither the abstract nor the empirical can directly interact with one another by nature, and since it does not come from our minds, then this great act of speech must come from some other mind; and occams razor suggests we say it is one mind; and this all people call God. 

Thus we see in this way that God is indeed required (or at least, it may be argued that he is required, so that one cannot simply assume reductionism without also answering such arguments, on pains of begging the question against theism) if this line of reasoning is sound, then God is required both in the natural and the supernatural, he is behind it all, as the one continually speaking the world into existence, and so communicating his inner mind to us through it.

The Hiddenness of God

In response to the above, (and particularly in contradistinction to the last paragraph in the 'that God can be known' section) one might argue that these arguments are complex and could be terribly difficult to sift through, and so God should make it 'easier' to know he exists i.e. that he should have given us better evidence and/or better reasoning abilities and instincts so as to be able to see the good arguments and evidence for his existence and his miracles, and to see through the bad arguments against these, and bad evidence for him. 

Thus one might make instead of a 'logical' problem of divine hiddeness a kind of 'evidential' problem of divine hiddenness i.e. one might say something like this:

Premise 1: if a God who wanted to be in relationship to us existed, he would probably make it much 'easier' to evaluate the truth of his existence than it presently is, rather than requiring us to go through the present work of philosophizing and gathering and evaluating evidence from foreign places, 

Premise 2: God evidently does not do so. (else things wouldn't be as they are) 

Conclusion: therefore God probably does not exist.

i.e. one might argue that God should give each and every individual person a constant evidence of his own existence in an undeniable and supernatural manner; so that because he doesn't, then even if it's not certain that he does not exist, it is at least 'probable' that he does not exist.

Naturally, I find this conclusion questionable, specifically, I object to the second premise: 

Personal Relationships

I'd argue it on the grounds that it doesn't consider the possibility that salvation consists precisely in entering into a personal relationship with God, and what is implied by this; for if God wants us to know him enter into a personal relationship with him, (and personal relationships are something of great value), then it seems right that he should expect something from us on our side, after all it takes 'two' to have such a relationship, so that personal relationships imply commitment on both sides, and it seems only right that God should expect commitment from us; and so the requirement of effort on our side would seem to be a fair thing of God to ask. 

One might think that God should show commitment first before demanding commitment from others; but the thing is, if God exists, he is presently the source and sustainer of all that we have and are; our very being is itself a service that God has committed to providing for us pro bono, so that if he exists, he is 'already' showing his commitment to us simply in virtue of our mere existence; let alone all the other good things we have in life; and so in light of this, it seems God has already met the demand, God is not asking anything of us that he is not already giving to us. 

Indeed, if he exists, and requires us to put in the effort to search him out, then he still is asking infinitely less of us than he is providing for us; and as such it seems to me that it is fair to expect a real commitment of diligenteffort on our side to seek him out. As such, it seems to me rather that we should 'expect' God to demand some degree of commitment from us to show our mutual commitment in entering into and remaining in friendship with him; so that it would be improbable if there 'weren't' some effort expected of us, at least to some degree; which stands contrary to the second premise. 

Side note: The Garden of Eden

To note, this also explains the need for the tree in the garden; God did not wish for Adam and Eve to be his pets, he wanted them to be his friends, and so he had to give them some source of difficulty to retain that friendship, so that through the difficulty they would be able to express their own will of friendship, for otherwise that will would be forever in question; not to God mind, but to 'them'; the placing of the tree in the garden was thus a sign of respect to the innate human dignity and freedom of Adam and Eve, and also therefore something that made possible a real friendship between God and Man, provided that man remained in his friendship. 

So likewise we now too have to commit ourselves to seeking out truth in general, and the truth of God in particular, even when the work seems annoying and difficult, as a show of our own willingness to be friends with God, and this in return and gratitude for all the good will God is right now constantly showing us through his sustaining of our being, and so the opportunity God is presently giving us to return that good will in kind.

Non-resistant non-Belief

Another point of note, both in response to the logical and evidential formulations of the problems of divine hiddenness, is that the probability of the conclusion of the arguments are proportionate with the probability of the premise that there are, in fact, non-resistant non-believers. The issue is that it's not clear exactly how we could accurately evaluate that probability. 

After all, we can't read the hearts of other people, and even as regards one's own heart, a clear conscience is not the same as guiltlessness (as one's conscience can perhaps be dulled through repeated evil actions, and even reversed, wherein one feels morally justified in doing objectively evil and reprehensible acts due to mistakenly thinking and feeling they are good, and genuine moral outrage at others actions or genuine guilt in one's self in one's own acts, when the actions are objectively good acts, due to mistakenly thinking and feeling they are evil).

To wit, this is not to insist that there are no non-resistant non-believers; merely that we cannot be infallibly certain that there are none, even regarding ourselves. 

We can have perhaps a certain fallible certainty (we can have a clear conscience regarding our non-resistance, and/or have friends and acquaintances who at least seem sincere in their non-resistance, and show no sign of insincerity) so that for most practical purposes we can ignore the possibility; but as a theoretical truth (and so, for the practice of 'theorizing' and so of philosophizing and such like, as we are doing here), it's not something we can ever be justified in ever fully ignoring nor dismissing i.e. it's not something we can have the certainty of of an mathematical axiom or theorem or some truth found via reductio or retorsion or such like.

 Since however, some of the philosophical arguments for God's existence due claim to have the probative force of certainty, and the evidential arguments claim to have probability, and the cumulative case claim to have plausibility, then one cannot be justified in believing that God belief falls to divine hiddenness, without risking begging the question against all these arguments; one is bound by reason to continually put in the effort to work through them.