Lawrence Krauss on Divine hiddenness
Krauss argues that God's hiddenness is indistinguishable from nonexistence and that a universe without God looks exactly like ours.
Lawrence Krauss has framed the problem of divine hiddenness in characteristically scientific terms. He asks: what would a universe without God look like? It would look, he argues, exactly like the universe we observe — governed by impersonal physical laws, with no evidence of intervention, no clear communication from a creator, and suffering distributed randomly rather than justly. The fact that our universe matches this description perfectly is, for Krauss, strong evidence that no God exists.
Krauss is dismissive of the theological response that God hides to preserve free will. He points out that providing clear evidence of one's existence does not coerce anyone into a relationship — it simply provides information. If Krauss exists and tells you so, he is not coercing you into friendship; he is being honest. A God who withholds evidence of his existence is not being respectful — he is being deceptive, or absent.
His broader point connects to his work in cosmology: the universe shows no evidence of purpose, design, or care. Stars explode, galaxies collide, species go extinct, and the universe will eventually die a heat death. None of this bears the fingerprints of a loving creator. The simplest explanation for God's hiddenness, Krauss insists, is that there is no God to be hidden.
“A universe without God looks exactly like the universe we live in. At some point, the simplest explanation is the correct one.”