Narges Movahedi; Gholamreza Ebrahimi Moghaddam
Abstract
John Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness Argument is one of the contemporary proofs against belief in God. The Quran contains verses regarding the Children of Israel and their request ...
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John Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness Argument is one of the contemporary proofs against belief in God. The Quran contains verses regarding the Children of Israel and their request for God’s clear manifestation, as well as verses in Surah Ad-Dhuha and God’s oath declaring that God is never absent from the Prophet (pbuh). These verses explain the issue of divine hiddenness and God's response to human demands for divine manifestation. God absolutely denies any form of visual or sensory manifestation, but does not deny the sensory and visual perception of His divine manifestation (tajalli). Therefore, from the Quranic viewpoint, there is no logical necessity linking belief in a personal God with God’s overt visibility to believers; neither is God’s visibility logically connected to the belief in a “complete personal God,” nor is divine hiddenness contradictory to it. Divine hiddenness, according to the Quran, is among God’s established divine laws (sunnat), resulting in spiritual growth and a deeper search for truth. Whenever an individual or a people sincerely seek God’s manifestation, God, according to His laws, creates an event for them to perceive His existence sense-perceptually in occurrences. Due to the universality of divine laws, it is impossible that anyone sincerely seeking God’s manifestation is met with divine silence.
