How is God Silent | Michael Rea

Lecture Title - Divine Hiddenness, Divine Silence
Divine silence-or, as many think of it, divine hiddenness-is the source of one of the two most important and widely discussed objections to belief in God. It is also one of the most important sources of doubt and spiritual distress for religious believers. Many people seem to be utterly broken by divine silence in the midst of their own suffering or the suffering of others, or simply by the ongoing and unsatisfied longing for the presence of God. In this talk, Michael Rea explains why divine silence poses a serious intellectual obstacle to belief in God, and then goes on to consider ways of overcoming that obstacle. After considering several ways in which divine silence might actually be beneficial to human beings, he argues that perhaps silence is nothing more or less than God's preferred mode of interaction with creatures like us. Perhaps God simply desires communion rather than overt communication with human beings, and perhaps God has provided ways for us to experience God's presence richly even amidst the silence. Rea concludes that it is plausible to think that Biblical narratives and the liturgies of the church are the vehicles by which God's presence is mediated to us.
Michael C. Rea (PhD University of Notre Dame) is Rev. John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy, Concurrent Faculty in the Gender Studies Program, and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism (Oxford University Press, 2004) and The Hiddenness of God (Oxford University Press, 2018).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues-for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word-lay persons and scholars alike-for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
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