Bertrand Russell on Divine hiddenness
Russell famously said that if confronted by God, he would ask: 'Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!'
Russell's position on divine hiddenness is captured in one of the most famous anecdotes in the philosophy of religion. Asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, Russell reportedly replied: 'Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!' Whether or not the anecdote is precisely accurate, it perfectly encapsulates his view: if God exists and wants to be known, the evidence for his existence is scandalously inadequate.
Russell argued that an omnipotent being who desired a relationship with humanity could make his existence as obvious as the existence of the sun. The fact that intelligent, sincere people can examine the evidence and reasonably conclude that God does not exist is, on Russell's view, incompatible with the existence of a God who wants to be known. Either God does not exist, or he does not want to be found — and a God who does not want to be found is not the God of Christianity.
This position anticipates by decades the formal argument from divine hiddenness developed by J.L. Schellenberg. Russell did not develop the argument with Schellenberg's rigour, but the intuition is the same: reasonable nonbelief is a fact, and that fact is difficult to reconcile with a loving, omnipotent God.
“Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!”