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God's Silence By Rea Analysis

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Rea

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I was fascinated by Rea’s general thesis that God’s silence is not proof of His absence, but rather, an indication of his personality. This is interesting to me for a number of reasons.
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People look for signs of the divine, for proof that it is real, and for validation of their beliefs in God; and sometimes incurring great torment upon themselves in these religious (and also existential) conflicts. They expect (as Rea points out), a more familiar, human relationship with God, much like what they have with friends or family. The encounter with divine silence (i.e. the seeming absence of God or anything divine) is, for many believers, …show more content…

In other words, one can be told what good and evil are. One can be coerced into accepting one view of good/evil over another. But without freedom, one cannot verify for themselves whether another’s claims of good and evil are valid, or come to their own conclusions, through their own efforts. At best, they can only follow others and pretend to agree with them without having any personal reasons why, or personal involvement in their moral development. …show more content…

the seeming absence of God in our mortal lives), provides sufficient ground for the refutation of God’s existence. One point in specific which Schellenberg argues, against the proponents of God’s existence, is that if God was truly a loving God present in all our lives—He would have made himself known by now. There would be no room for ambiguity or doubt about His love, or by default, His existence. As Schellenberg writes, “...reflection on the concept of divine love shows that a perfectly loving God would necessarily seek personal realtionship with all individuals...as because such seeking [of God] entails the provision of evidence sufficient for belief in the existence of God (Schellenberg, 296).” Furthermore, “if God exists, evidence sufficient for belief in God is much more widely available than is in fact the case (Schellenberg, 297).” The lack of evidence, even slight evidence, of course, implies to Schellenberg that God does not exist.

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