Secularism, Unbelief, and Rationality

Here's a rather amusing statement I found as I was considering how to start writing this evening: "God’s truth will not come to your front doorstep like an unordered Domino’s pizza" (http://www.scottmsullivan.com/courses/Pascal.pdf).

What Mr. Sullivan brings to our attention is the concept of the "hidden God," that God's truth is not immediately evident to the believer or unbeliever. For some reason, conceiving of God is not an immediate idea. I was drawn to discuss this problem because of a recent chapter from Charles Taylor's A Secular Age sent to me by my good friend, one Mr. Alfredo Garcia. At one point, Taylor notes, "In the seventeenth century, you had to be a Pascal" to appreciate the concept of a hidden God (532). Yet, I would note that at another point in Western society, it was almost impossible to be an atheist; it was held to be rationally inconceivable or at least rarely conceivable. I was drawn by Taylor's statement to an earlier example of the discussion on the possibility or rationality of unbelief, that famous discussion of Anselm and Gaunilo which highlighted what was later labelled the ontological argument for God's existence.

Perhaps my gentle readers are familiar with the argument? There are various ways to phrase it succinctly, but it goes something like this:

1. Everyone can conceive of God.
2. Therefore, God exists in the understanding.
3. When God is conceived/exists in the understanding, he is conceived of as that than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived.
4. If that than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived exists in the understanding, but does not exist in reality, then a greater being can be conceived.
5. Hence, that than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conveived exists (i.e. God exists).

What is often not mentioned in connection with this argument is that the discussion in Anselm's Proslogion and Gaunilo's Response in Defense of the Fool is, shall we say, purely academic or "in-house!" We have an abbot (later bishop) and a monk from another monastery, both believing in God, who are discussing whether it might be rational not to believe in God. Anselm says no. Gaunilo emphatically responds with a yes. Yet it remains an in-house argument, a consideration to be puzzled over in a society largely Christian.

Whatever we think of the ontological argument, the discussion between Anselm and Gaunilo gives a starting point for a rather interesting development. In the eleventh century, we have two persons discussing whether it might be rational not to believe in God. We might posit alongside this in-house example a more common occurrence in the twentieth century, i.e., a coffee-house discussion of whether it might be rational to believe in God. Somewhere in between we have Pascal and the intellectual elites of the seventeenth century, who were displaying the beginnings of trend towards viewing belief as difficult to attain. At some point, though, it become possible, even more easily defensible, to be take up a position of unbelief. How is this possible, and is it acceptable for the Christian?

Now, Taylor gives a variety of possible explanations as to why this might have developed and why the "secular" option is so prevalent today. He believes it took some time for a position of atheism to be intellectually viable in the most basic sense. Also, Christianity was so intertwined with society, it took a little while to develop a relatively coherent account of society and the world which did not require the explanation of God. However, it is fairly easy to see that, once it settled in our society, secularism became not only the dominant model for atheists, but also the model for Christians.

I'm sure you can imagine why I might have wanted to discuss this question. But I also find myself wanting to address this theme because a blog I follow recently noted "the utterly dominant success of the secular model," and how "the believer and non-believer experience the world in much the same manner" (see http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/the-crisis-of-religion/). Fr. Stephen goes on to say several things in response to these ideas, some of which I will repeat here. For the Christian, the whole of creation must be considered an Epiphany of the glory of God. No neutral ground, no inert matter exists which can be considered apart from this role. The secular model, which takes the non-existence of God (or His irrelevance to most questions) as a starting principle, does not work for a Christian looking out upon the world.

To use an analogous concept and to move from an Orthodox voice to a Protestant systematic voice, we might say that there is no man who can be considered in himself ; there is only man for whom Christ died and rose again (see Barth, Church Dogmatics I. 2; and, yes, I realize I "masculinized" the human race in that paraphrase, my HDS comrades).

Yet, I imagine it seems problematic to make this statement. After all, did we not just concede that, for many people, the existence of God can barely be admitted as a rational possibility? How then can we make a mere possibility into the determining factor for the rest of our conceptions? I know that this move appears problematic to me, and I am the one making it! I will begin by noting some popular answers we might give.

For Fr. Stephen and for Pascal, the hiddenness or apparent absence of God from the world actually creates the space wherein we might trust and love God. God is not so immediately present to us that we are forced to love and trust in Him. Yet, in some way, God draws us to Himself through the hiddenness; God brings to birth within us the faith and love with which we trust and obey Him.

This is a fine "in-house" answer, a simple one, a theological one which I might give in a discussion with other Christians. Some would say that this statement is as far as we can go and that we have no burden to demonstrate to those outside the rationality or coherence of our faith in God and the perpspective which follows from faith.

For others, they might point to something like spiritual blindness. Actually, God is visible through the created order, and the only reason that unbelievers cannot see this point is because they engage in a variety of self-delusional strategies, some simple and some complex, some conscious and others unconscious, all because they actually don't want to believe in God. Various reasons might be given: perhaps some unbelievers dislike the ethical demands of the Christian life, perhaps they dislike the ethical slovenliness of Christians in meeting those demands, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. This also, is fairly "in-house," though it can be better shown to cohere with certain contemporary philosophical and psychological discussions (see Kevin Kinghorn's The Decision of Faith). But how might I actually explain in common terms to one outside the Christian faith, why it is that God is hidden or appears absent?

I know that I have a couple ways I might try to answer the question myself, which I will post in a few days. But I'm curious what my readers might think. How do they conceive of the problem? Is it possible for a believer and an unbeliever to explain this problem in terms the other would accept?