Baal's advocate - plausible deniability for failed theophany

Question

There's a mystical component to my world that I have been unable to resolve: Why might a divine being not reveal himself when it would otherwise be in his/his followers' best interests. My world has a Henotheistic setting, where a new upstart religion is challenging the incumbent primary divine being. A challenge is put before the two, and the victor deity will likely stand to gain a large number of followers whereas the defeated deity will perhaps have its followers punished or slain. Though my world is in no way related to the Bible , I will include the account of Elijah's challenge to the prophets of Baal as a reference given it is a widely known text and is a close analog to my dilemma, which is a failed theophany:

And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.

Whereas in my world, we will need something like this (something I made with Dalle2):

Literature review

Intrigued by the similarities, I tracked down a copy of the Ugaritic text that recounts stories/myths of Baal, so that I might find clues unto his nature and why he might not reveal himself. I've learned his power and ascendancy was to a large extent due to El (presumably the former primary deity of Ugarit before Baal) and his sister Anat. His palace was also of considerable importance, not unlike the relationship between Solomon and his temple. However in my world, the deity in question is already at the zenith of his power (in contrast to the dips seen in the Baal Cycle where Baal was still cultivating his cult).

Question

Limiting answers to what is known about near eastern mystery cults of antiquity, what material evidence is there in the archaeological record or literature that could explain a failed theophany of a divine being (when it would clearly be in its best interest). Assume if the god loses the challenge, its followers will be slain.

Notes:

• The exact challenge that faces this fictional deity is more story-oriented, so I'm leaving that out.

Answer 1

The question only asks about failure to appear, but this is only one particular instance of failure to respond to prayer or rituals; it makes no sense to address only the specific instance instead of the general problem.

First of all, about the request for "material evidence". There is no such thing, and there cannot be. Gods are metaphysical entities; if there were any material evidence about what they did or did not do, then they would be demoted to sublunar physical entities, and they would be gods no longer. We can only have material evidence of what people said about what they thought were the motivations of the gods.

But in literature, yes, there have been numerous failures to respond to prayer and rituals.

In real life, God or the gods almost always fail to respond to prayer, and almost all rituals are not effective in the material world; so that just about all religions have had to grapple with this problem.

Why do the gods fail to respond to prayer or to rituals? Generally speaking, there are only a few broad categories of explanations:

• The atheistic position: there are no gods. They do not respond to prayer or to rituals because they are only figments of the imagination of people.

• The agnostic position: may there are one or more gods, maybe there aren't, but in any case we cannot know. Of course they fail to respond to prayer or to rituals, because if they did we would know that they exist.

• The deistic position: yes there do exist one or more gods, but they are not interested in the sublunar world and never interfere with it.

• The theistic position: there do exist one or more gods, and they are interested in the sublunar world and do interfere with it.

  When they fail to respond to prayer or to rituals, that's because...

  • The gnostic position: the god or gods who created the world are actually malevolent.

  • The dualistic position: one or more gods are good, one or more gods are evil, and sometimes the evil god or gods successfully interfere with the good god or gods.

  • The classical pagan polytheistic position: there are multiple gods, and they are not intrinsically good or intrinsically evil. Sometimes their interests and intentions align with those of mortals, sometimes they don't, and quite often various gods have interests and intentions opposite to those of other gods.

  • The standard Abrahamic (Hebrew, Christian and Islamic) position: there is only one God, and He loves people, but:

    • Sometimes He is angry with people.

    • Sometimes He needs to teach people a lesson.

    • Sometimes He forgets that He is the only One God, and falls back into a dualistic position.

    • Sometimes a tragic event is preordained, and not even God can work around it.

    • Sometimes something bad must happen so that the magnificent universal plan of God can progress.

    • Sometimes the person who prays or performs the ritual is an unworthy sinner and God does not respond to the prayers or rituals of unworthy sinners.

    • Sometimes the prayer or ritual is performed incorrectly, and even God has limits in what He accepts.

The absolute champion of all times at failures to respond to prayer and rituals is of course the One True Living God of Abraham, worshipped by the rightfully called Abrahamic religions. It helps that He is the God of the Bible, the world's greatest and best known (semi)coherent collection of mythological texts. (All quotations are from the King James¹ version of the Bible.)

^{¹) English is not my native language. The King James version is the only English version of the Bible of which I am sure that at least some native English-speaking people consider standard.}

• God is angry -- Judges 2:20-23:

  The Israelites are fighting a war against the original inhabitants of Canaan, and they rely on their God who has promised them the Promised Land. But woe is them, because their God is angry with them:

  And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died: tThat through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not.
  Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.

• God is angry -- Ezekiel 16:26 sqq.

  The God of Israel is angry with his people, and expresses His anger in the most graphical way. Remember those are the direct words of God:

  Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
  Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.

  [...] And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.

• God wants to teach His people a lesson a lesson in submission; Ezekiel 16:22 sqq.

  Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant. And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD.

• God refuses to respond to the prayers and rituals of unworthy sinners, in this specific quotation, King Saul; 1 Samuel 28:4-6:

  And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem: and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa. And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled.
  And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.

• In a moment of levity, God makes a wager with Satan; Job 1:6 sqq.

  Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
  And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
  Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? 10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.
  So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

• Tragedy is preordained and unavoidable, as a step in God's plan for the salvation of mankind; Luke 23:28 sqq.

  But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.

• Jesus Christ cannot reveal His divine power because his suffering and death is an essential point in the plan for the salvation of mankind; Matthew 27:41 sqq.

  Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; Himself he cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him: for He said, I am the Son of God.
  The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.
  Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

Answer 2

There are various stories around the life of Kūkai, a Buddhist monk who founded Shingon Buddhism and brought Chinese writing to Japan.

One of these stories goes that, as a 7-year-old child, he climbed to the edge of a cliff and jumped down from it, shouting to Buddha "If I am destined to save the world, save me, else let me die". Some commentaries to the story end with a

and Buddha gave in to the temptation and saved him.

And this can explain the failed theophany: a god that has to give in to a human request/challenge to prove itself can be somewhat seen as a lesser god than one who can be believed based solely on faith. Challenging a higher authority is already lessening it.

Answer 3

This has come up in plenty of literature I've seen. The usual explanations come down to either it's too expensive to do so, some other force prevents them, or they just can't be bothered to. Here's a quick list of the main options, in no particular order.

God's just don't work that way.

I doubt this is the option you will want to go with, but it's possible divinity just doesn't work in such a way. Maybe your god doesn't have a physical body, and works mostly by inspiring his disciples to do something. He just doesn't have the ability to show up or do overt miracles because deities are more limited then that.

Your god wants faith, confirmation of his existence removes the need for faith

Your god could prove himself, but he wants his priest to work out of faith without proof. If your god proves himself to the unbelievers he also proves himself to his believers, and in so doing removes the ability of them to have faith in him without proof. There are a few variants of this option.

• Gods are powered by (or otherwise benefit from) faith, the kind of faith that only is possible if one believes in something without absolute proof.

• This is a test of his followers, so they can prove they are wiling to support him even in hardship or without faith (which is kind of a jerk move, but hey the majority of gods in religions kind of are jerk).

It's a temporary test, he will get around to helping eventually

A slightly less jerk version of the last option. He is temporarily refusing to prove himself to test his faithful. He want's to see if they will past his test by continuing to have faith, stand up to hardship, etc. Only after they prove themselves will he show himself. So maybe he doesn't do a miracle on demand and his faithful are captured, but then he does a different miracle to help them all escape once they refuse to refute him even in that situation.

For a biblical comparison look at when god asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, then told Abraham he passed and didn't actually need to do it when Abraham showed he was willing to do so.

Your god doesn't want his faithful to be dependent on, or make demands of, him

If he shows up now and does a miracle for you why wouldn't he the next time you're in trouble? What happens when a priest offers to have his god preform a miracle to earn a room for the night? A believer gets in a drunken bar fight and offers up all his money if his god doesn't prove his existence right now?

In short this is the slippery slope argument. If his faithful can demand his appearance because it would be convenient for them they may become dependent on that. He wants them to be able to function without his constant intervention and daily proof of his existence, and so they need to learn to function without on-demand miracles; even if the lack of them is going to be a significant hardship.

God helps those who help themselves

A very close variant of the last idea here. Your god only intercedes to help people after they have put in will effort and done what they can by themselves, so they don't get lazy and dependent on him. Thus he won't do his miracle yet because he needs his people to first 'help themselves.' In this case that might mean they have to fight in this competition on their own, at least at first, and prove themselves before he will come in and help out at the end.

You have angered me and the LORD is vengeful and strong in wrath

Maybe your god doesn't help because you have angered him and no longer deserve his aid. Perhaps he didn't want this competition, or he is angered they make demands on him to prove himself. Maybe they have done something entirely unrelated to fail him but their punishment is his lack of help here. The point is his lack of aid is because of their short comings.

You might recognize the second half of this section title is actually a biblical quote, and for good reason. There are a multitude of examples in the bible where God's chosen people suffer defeats, hardships, and humiliations. From being enslaved in Egypt to having to wander a desert for 40 years to countless military failures. In practically ever case the reason the bible gives for God not intervening to aid his people is that they had done something to anger him and prevent him from coming to their aid; in fact some of the hardships were actually intentionally inflicted by God as punishment. There are plenty of examples to draw on for why your god might end up unwilling to help his faithful.

The nature of divinity prevents an overt show of power

Even god's aren't omnipotent and are limited in what they can do. I've actually seen many variants of this idea, but they tend to be similar enough I won't list them all.

The most common version though is that there is another even higher being, entity, or simple nature of the world and divinity that sets limits on what gods can do. This limit prevents the god from doing the sort of overt demonstration.

For instance maybe miracles have to have a plausible explanation. If a god does something so overtly impossible as to have no other explanation he will incur the wrath of a greater entity or trigger some other terrible consequence. Perhaps anyone that sees an overt miracle without a plausible explanation will somehow be driven made with the revelation. Maybe witnesses to such miracles will simply be immediately killed by the greater power that doesn't want humans to see undeniably proof that deity can work outside the realm of nature.

That's not how the god of X works

Many gods in fiction are gods of certain ideas or concepts, and those concepts don't only define them but also may constrain them. The god of fire is not going to, and might not able to, do a miracle involving creating a giant ice sculpture, because he isn't the god of ice. Their godhood, and the concept they are tied to, thus set rules and limits on how they manifest their powers which may in turn prevent them from manifesting here.

Here we can piggyback a bit off of past ideas for inspiration on what your god's nature and thus limits might be preventing his manifesting here. If your god is the god of faith he may be dependent on his people acting on faith instead of demonstrations for instance. If he is the god of humanity and connections he may work through inspiring his people, suggesting they help each other, moving them in the right place to do the most good etc; but in turn since he works through people he doesn't do great miracles. Alternatively perhaps he is the god of luck/timing/coincidences who inspires his people to keep an eye for the right time to move and his miracles work by slightly nudging odds to make coincidences work in his folks favor. In this case he may be helping his people all the time, but because he is only nudging odds to make things work out better for his people even when he works a miracle it will look like a coincidence, and as such won't be very convincing as a miracle.

I could go on and on, but since I suspect this isn't he path you will take so I won't waste my effort. The point is it's easy to make the nature of his particular power and providence one that doesn't lend itself to fancy overt miracles, even as other gods with different powers can do them.

It's part of the goods deal/bet

The two gods in this dispute have an agreement that they will allow their faithful to solve this situation without their direct involvement; thus neither side can actively get involved. There are many reasons for this.

1. There might be some convention or pact between all gods which sets rules for how they interact in the world, and some of those rules include allowing disputes between two set of faithful to happen without direct intervention.

2. Close variant of the last option: Direct intervention in faithful disputes is the nuclear option. That is to say anyone could do it, and if they did it would be highly effective. Unfortunately as soon as they do they open up the door for everyone else to do the same. A world where gods are constantly actively participating in fights between faithful is considered undesirable by the gods, either because it's too costly for the gods or because it would lead to so much devastation to humans. Thus there is a sort of unwritten agreement no one will intervene in such disputes because they don't want to force the other gods to do the same in the future.

3. The more established and powerful deity has been convinced to not get involved via plea from the new god, deal with other gods, general good sportsmanship, or some other contrivance to not act directly so long as the other god doesn't. The new god considers not proving himself to be an acceptable sacrifice to get the other deity to agree to not get involved since he knows he would lose in a competition in which the two were directly involved. Thus he stays hands off so the other one will as well.

4. It's a trial by champion, using their believers to solve their dispute so they don't have to. God vs God battles are bloody and everyone looses. Thus the gods usually allow their faithful to handle disputes in their place. They have set laws and rules for how such disputes can be handled, which allow certain types of aid to their followers, but forbids others. The rules of such trial/disputes prevent the sort of overt intervention you suggested.

5. It's all part of the bet. Remember when I said many gods are jerks? well that's going to be a reoccurring theme in these answers. Perhaps your gods aren't treating this as a life and death competition, but instead as a fun parlor bet. They want to see what's happening and have made a good natured bet on the results. Now their let those petty human things, which they consider barely more then ants and don't really care if their hurt, play out their dispute to see what happens and which god needs to buy the other an ambrosia beer.

The other god is preventing him

Nice simple one, the more powerful god is powerful enough to get in the way of the weaker one. The weaker one can't use his power as long as the stronger one is blocking it.

He hasn't yet risen to his proper power as a god

Your god is weaker and lesser known, there is a reason for that. He had been locked away in some prison in the past, or injured, or is new and still developing into his godly strength. Whatever the cause he is currently handicapped and limited, and his people know that. They hope to help him grow to his full power, and in so doing gain his blessing and future support for their aid. However, in the meantime it's known he is quite limited and may not yet be able to pull of an impressive miracle.

He deems it too expensive

Gods may not be all powerful. They can do miracles, but doing them isn't easy. It requires some expense of effort, maybe they gain power from faith but then expend it when doing wonderous things for instance. The point is there is a cost to do a miracle and it's non trivial.

The god would like to do something here, but he is still weak and has only so much strength. With limited power to work with your god has decided that his resources are better spent in some other way and he just can't afford the expense of doing a miracle here. He doesn't like doing that, but deems it the wisest use of his resources either for himself or for his followers if he is more altruistic.

Here I'd point you to an old game Black & White where you play as a god. You often had exactly this tactical decision. Miracles cost faith, you can gain faith by doing a miracle in front of people, but not enough faith to cover the cost of the miracle. You need to pick and choose where to perform your miracles to get the most bang for your buck if you want to beat your rival god. Sometimes that means choosing not to do a miracle to conserve power.

This option also can be combined with other options, such as the rival god blocking him, to help explain why it's so costly to do a miracle right now.

It's all going according to plan

As an all knowing deity he can make plans beyond that of mortal man. With this brilliant knowledge he has made some great plan that involves his faithful loosing this competition. Given the neigh-omnipotence of gods you can get away with any level of convoluted reasons for why the god was convinced not helping his followers would better further his long term plans.

It has been prophcied A prophecy from another god or power suggests that this fight will be lost anyways, or that some greater evil will happen if the god gets involved, so the god chooses to stay away.

On a particularly jerky god pessimistic version the god made a prophecy to his people in the past and realized it won't come true if he helps here. So he lets his people fail here just so he can brag that his prophecies came true. Basically this is the godly version of a politician being more concerned about looking good politically then making good laws that will benefit their constituents.

We're sorry but your god is busy on the other line. Please keep prostrating yourself and he will get back to you as soon as he can. Please know your prayer is important to us.

Plenty of works I've seemed have non omnipotent gods, who for all their power can only do so many things at once. In this case they may be distracted or too busy to help their faithful at this moment because another situation has come up.

• Your god may be helping faithful in some other part of the world right now, in a more complicated situation that simply needs their intervention more.

• Your god may have been intentionally distracted by another god to keep him from being available to help you, or a god may be using some divine power to help hide you from your gods sight so he doesn't notice you need him.

• Your god is lazy and was too busy playing in the Divine Games, getting drunk on ambrosia, or sleeping in to bother helping you right now. Have I mentioned yet that many gods were kind of jerks?

Answer 4

The material world is too flawed

Followers of Manichaeism believed in

an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Its beliefs are based on local Mesopotamian religious movements and Gnosticism. It reveres Mani as the final prophet after Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus.

As far as I understand it, the Manichaeists believed that material world is inherently flawed and evil, an unintentional byproduct of conflict between a good God and its evil counterpart, the devil (not intentionally created by the benevolent God like in many other religions). The very existence of the material world is thus a bad thing. I'm not sure what they believed about the afterlife, perhaps that souls of the believers would go to the spiritual world of pure light.

So for the supreme deity to manifest itself in the corrupt physical world would be just wrong, similar to the Christian God paying a visit to Hell. Even worse actually, since Hell served a purpose, whereas the material world, as far as the Manichaeans believed, had no business of existing at all.

Answer 5

Two possibilities come to mind

The deity is empowered/considers the struggle to be desirable. I think a great example of this is the Mr Wednesday incarnation of Odin in american gods. He's empowered by slaughter, so is fairly happy to let his followers die in combat. Alternately consider Crom from conan the barbarian, who... didn't like being worshipped, respecting struggle and courage instead.

Alternatively $deity is disappointed in his/her/their followers. In the 'Last Battle' in the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan talks about how evil acts in his name were accepted by Tash and vice versa. While the 'mechanics' of worship happen, the 'intent' not being there might annoy the deity. Basically their actual faith is lacking.