The Absence of God

A few weeks ago I was swimming at our local community pool when a fascinating conversation broke out in the hot tub. Two women were discussing their religious beliefs. One woman was excited about joining the local Baptist church, having grown up in another denomination. The other woman said she was an Atheist. She said “I believe in the absence of God”.

I have reflected for several weeks on the absence of God. Many people have experienced God missing at times, whether or not they have a religious faith.

I was struck several years ago by reading a conversation with Mother Teresa. She said that she had gone on for many decades after her first potent experiences of God’s presence, where he spoke powerfully to her. However, her transcendent ecstasies were not repeated again during the next fifty years, despite her exemplary life of service to the dying poor in Calcutta.

I have been reading the French philosopher and mystic, Simone Weil. She wrote about the necessity of God withdrawing intentionally from the human sphere. Otherwise, she says, we would not have the freedom to become the mature spiritual beings that God wants; we might be more like animals or puppets, responding to what God desires in a slavish fashion, rather than in a willing manner. She said God’s love for us requires some distance between us and him.

God’s absence seems apparent in many places. I have seen the empty cathedrals of Europe, lovingly built by people of great faith, but now days admired primarily for their architectural elegance. Has God gone missing in Europe?

What of those who suffer unimaginable evil from crime, war, torture, and exploitation. Where is the presence of God for them? Or is he perhaps found more often during times of misery than in times of pleasure?

Finally, there are references in scripture to God’s absence, whether in the Psalms or in Jesus crying out “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

For many years I have reflected on the presence of God, but now I realize that we experience his absence as well. This dearth is a profound dilemma both for spiritual seekers and for atheists: how do we deal with feeling such an immense absence?

Twenty five years ago my wife and I lost a baby girl who was only 3 ½ months old to crib death. That event left us in profound grief, feeling totally deserted by God. How could God take away a bright child whom we loved so dearly? Kathy had put baby Hannah down for a nap while we celebrated our oldest son’s fifth birthday. But when Kathy went back to check on her, the baby was cold and dead. We grieved for most of a year, wondering what we might have done wrong. Such events shake us profoundly, even if we have a strong faith.

There is a phenomena of “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. When my wife, children or friends reappear after being gone a while, I am overjoyed to see them; I seem more excited than if they had been with me all along. Absence and separation from those we love most is a necessary facet of our existence. Perhaps this is part of why God doesn’t always seem present to us.

Even for those who strongly believe in God, our experience varies between feeling his uplifting presence and at other times experiencing his absences. I believe that God never truly leaves us, but our perceptions change. Should we focus intensely on recapturing his presence in our mind’s eye? Or are we better to wait patiently for this luminous light to reappear like the dawn?

Some people think that powerful worship can bring them quickly into God’s presence. Others wonder if emotional experience may not be more the result of suggestion than his real presence. They believe God is more likely to be heard in a “still, small voice” than in loud celebrations. Perhaps this depends on our temperament.

Our feelings of God are coloured by the religion we practised as children, or by the lack of any religion. We judge everything through that lens. So if we are bitter about our childhood religious experience, God may get tossed out, or at least his image may become disfigured in our mind.

I believe that those who seek God with all their hearts will find him eventually. We may seek God in music, books, scriptures, nature, meditation, prayer, or in other ways. The different ways we each experience God remain a magnificent mystery. So too are his absences.