Editing Argument from nonbelief (section)

==Schellenberg's hiddenness argument==

Discussion of Schellenberg's argument has made explicit a non-theological use of the term 'hiddenness', which is now commonly used simply as a way of talking about the subjective condition of nonbelief in God.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schellenberg |first=J. L. |editor1-first=Charles |editor1-last=Taliaferro |editor2-first=Paul |editor2-last=Draper |editor3-first=Philip |editor3-last=Quinn |title=A Companion to Philosophy of Religion 2d ed. |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2010 |pages=509–510 |chapter=Chapter 60: Divine Hiddenness |isbn=978-1-4051-6357-6}}</ref> In his first presentation of the argument Schellenberg emphasized inculpable or reasonable nonbelief, but he has since shifted to speaking more specifically about nonresistant nonbelief.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schellenberg |first=J. L. |year=2007 |title=The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism |url=https://archive.org/details/wisdomtodoubtjus0000sche |url-access=registration |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-7851-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/wisdomtodoubtjus0000sche/page/205 205]}}</ref> The first presentation is often given by commentators as follows, based on Schellenberg's own summing up:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schellenberg |first=J. L. |year=1993 |title=Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=0-8014-2792-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/divinehiddenness00sche/page/83 83] |url=https://archive.org/details/divinehiddenness00sche/page/83 }}</ref>
{{blockquote|
# If there is a God, he is perfectly loving.
# If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur.
# Reasonable nonbelief occurs.
# No perfectly loving God exists (from 2 and 3).
# Hence, there is no God (from 1 and 4).
}}

Schellenberg has stated that this formulation is misleading, when taken on its own, because it does not make explicit the reason why a perfectly loving God would want to prevent nonbelief. His deepest claim, he says, is "about the connection between love and openness to relationship—a personal and positively meaningful and explicit sort of relationship of the sort that logically presupposes each party's belief in the other's existence."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schellenberg |first=J. L. |year=2006 |title=Preface to the Paperback Edition of Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=0-8014-7346-2 |pages=viii}}</ref> A later presentation of the argument by Schellenberg, which aims at accessibility for students, includes this element:<ref>{{cite book |last=Schellenberg |first=J. L. |editor1-first=Robert |editor1-last=Solomon |editor2-first=Douglas |editor2-last=McDermid |title=Introducing Philosophy for Canadians |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |pages=165–166 |chapter=Would a Loving God Hide from Anyone? |isbn=978-0-19-543096-7}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
# If no perfectly loving God exists, then God does not exist.
# If a perfectly loving God exists, then there is a God who is always open to personal relationship with each human person.
# If there is a God who is always open to personal relationship with each human person, then no human person is ever non-resistantly unaware that God exists.
# If a perfectly loving God exists, then no human person is ever non-resistantly unaware that God exists (from 2 and 3).
# Some human persons are non-resistantly unaware that God exists.
# No perfectly loving God exists (from 4 and 5).
# God does not exist (from 1 and 6).
}}

In an article revisiting the argument ten years after it was originally proposed,<ref name="jl2005a">{{Cite journal |last=Schellenberg |first=J. L. |s2cid=17818502 |year=2005 |title=The hiddenness argument revisited (I) |journal=[[Religious Studies (journal)|Religious Studies]] |volume=41 |pages=201–215 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/S0034412505007614 |issue=2}}</ref> Schellenberg observes that criticism has mainly centered around the idea that God would prevent inculpable nonbelief. He asserts that there are relatively few criticisms questioning the existence of inculpable nonbelief, and almost no theistic philosopher objects to the idea that God is perfectly loving.

=== God is perfectly loving ===
Schellenberg says he has not seen any serious objections to this premise by theistic philosophers, but there certainly are other [[conceptions of God]]. Daniel Howard-Snyder writes about the possibility of believing in an unsurpassably great [[personal god]] that is nevertheless dispassionate towards its creatures. Drawing on the [[Stoicism|Stoic]] concept of [[Eudaimonia]], he says one can think of a god more akin to a wise sage than the loving parent that Schellenberg envisions.<ref name="hs2006">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Howard-Snyder |first=Daniel |year=2006 |title=Hiddenness of God |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Philosophy |edition=2nd |editor=Donald M. Borchert |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofph0000unse |access-date=2007-01-15 |isbn=0-02-865780-2 }}</ref>

Theodore Drange, in his attempt to improve the argument ([[#Drange's argument from nonbelief|see below]]), states that there are many theists who do not view God as perfectly loving, and "some Christians think of him as an angry deity bent on punishing people for their sins."<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Drange |first=Theodore |author-link=Theodore Drange |year=1998 |title=Nonbelief as Support for Atheism |book-title=Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy |url=http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Reli/ReliDran.htm |access-date=2007-01-13| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070204050102/http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Reli/ReliDran.htm |archive-date= 4 February 2007  |url-status= live}}</ref> Drange concludes that the argument should be put forward only in relation to theists who already accept the first premise and believe in a god who is perfectly loving.

Most theists, in fact, do admit that [[love (religious views)|love]] is a central concept in almost all of the world's religions. God is often directly associated with love, especially with [[agape]]. Theologians such as [[Tom Wright (theologian)|N.T. Wright]] suggest that our experience of love is itself a [[argument from love|proof of God's existence]].  However, there are a few others (e.g. Brian Davies in the Thomist tradition) who suggest that the modern interpretation of what it means to say God loves human beings is incorrect, and so that God is able to be loving in a sense while actually willing disbelief.

=== Nonresistant nonbelief, lack of evidence, and sin ===

When asked what he would say when facing God on judgment day, [[Bertrand Russell]] famously replied that he would say "Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!" Some nonbelievers may have hidden from themselves what seems to them to be possible evidence of the divine, but the view of the hiddenness argument is that others have tried hard to believe in God. Schellenberg addresses this difference with his distinction between culpable and ''inculpable'' nonbelief, with the latter defined as "non-belief that exists through no fault of the non-believer."<ref name="jl2005a" />

Historically, the [[Calvinist]] tradition has placed the blame on nonbelievers, who are [[predestination|predestined]] by God towards nonbelief. Calvin's religious [[epistemology]] is based on the ''[[sensus divinitatis]]'' (Sense of Divinity), the view that the presence of God is universally perceived by all humans. [[Paul Helm]] explains, "Calvin’s use of the term 'sense' signals that the knowledge of God is a common human endowment; mankind is created not only as capable of knowing God, but as actually knowing him."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Helm |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Helm|year=1998 |title=John Calvin, the ''Sensus Divinitatis'', and the noetic effects of sin |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=87–107 |doi=10.1023/A:1003174629151|s2cid=169082078 }}</ref> According to this tradition, there is no inculpable or nonresistant nonbelief. [[Jonathan Edwards (theologian)|Jonathan Edwards]], the 18th century American theologian, claimed that while every human being has been granted the capacity to know God, successful use of these capacities requires an attitude of "true benevolence", a divinely gifted willingness to be open to the truth about God. Thus, the failure of non-believers to see "divine things" is in his view due to "a dreadful stupidity of mind, occasioning a sottish insensibility of their truth and importance."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Edwards |first=Jonathan |year=1970 |title=Original Sin |author-link=Jonathan Edwards (theologian) |editor=Clyde A. Holbrook |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-01198-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/originalsin0003edwa }} As quoted and represented in Howard-Snyder (2006).</ref>

=== Demographics of theism and the problem of natural nonbelief ===
In modern times, there are fewer proponents of these views. One reason is that, as Stephen Maitzen argues,<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Stephen |last=Maitzen |year=2006 |title=Divine Hiddenness and the Demographics of Theism |journal=[[Religious Studies (journal)|Religious Studies]] |volume=42 |pages=177–191 |url=http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_Hiddenness.pdf |doi=10.1017/S0034412506008274 |issue=2|s2cid=38829300 }}</ref> [[anthropology]] has long established that while religious belief in general is essentially universal, belief in what Calvin would recognize as God is very unevenly distributed among cultures (consider for example [[God in Buddhism]], [[Jain cosmology]], or non-theistic [[animism]]). If God exists, then why, Maitzen asks, does the prevalence of belief in God vary so dramatically with cultural and national boundaries? Jason Marsh has extended this kind of demographic challenge by focusing on human evolution and cognitive science of religion. Why is theistic belief apparently non-existent among early humans but common at later times, at least in some regions?  According to Marsh, the hiddenness problem is harder to answer once we appreciate that much nonbelief is 'natural', owing to the kinds of minds people naturally possess and to their place in evolutionary and cultural history.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Jason |last=Marsh |year=2013 |title=Darwin and the Problem of Natural Nonbelief |journal=[[The Monist]] |volume=42 |pages=177–191 |url=http://philpapers.org/archive/MARDAT-7.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150119044351/http://philpapers.org/archive/MARDAT-7.pdf |archive-date=2015-01-19 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Another reason why many philosophers no longer attribute nonbelief to human sinfulness has to do with respect. In fact, modern critics, such as Howard-Snyder, who praised Schellenberg's book for being "religiously sensitive,"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Howard-Snyder |first=Daniel |year=1995 |title=Book review: John Schellenberg, ''Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason'' (Cornell 1993) |journal=Mind |volume=104 |issue=414 |pages=430–435 |url=http://www.wwu.edu/~howardd/bookreviews/schellenberg.pdf |access-date=2007-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060928070142/http://www.wwu.edu/~howardd/bookreviews/schellenberg.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-28 |url-status=dead |doi=10.1093/mind/104.414.430 }}</ref> are similarly sensitive towards the nonbeliever. Howard-Snyder wrote:
{{blockquote|Even though some nonbelievers lack true benevolence, the empirical evidence strongly suggests that others possess it since they really do earnestly seek the truth about God, love the Good, assess evidence judiciously, and, if anything, display a prejudice for God, not against Him.<ref name="hs2006" />}}

=== Would a perfectly loving God prevent nonresistant nonbelief? ===
The most serious criticisms of the hiddenness argument have been leveled against the idea that a perfectly loving God would prevent nonresistant nonbelief. Schellenberg argues in two steps, by first claiming that a loving God would enable humans to partake in a relationship with it, and then, assuming that belief in that god is a necessary condition for such relationships to occur, inferring that a loving God would not permit nonbelief. He states:

{{blockquote|There is, first of all, the claim that if there is a personal God who is perfectly loving, creatures capable of explicit and positively meaningful relationship with God, who have not freely shut themselves off from God, are always in a position to participate in such relationship—able to do so just by trying to.<ref name="jl2005a" />}}

He justifies this claim by arguing that a conception of divine love can best be formed by extrapolating the best aspects of love in human relations, and draws an analogy with perfect parental love:
{{blockquote|The perfectly loving parent, for example, from the time the child can first respond to her at all until death separates them, will, insofar as she can help it, see to it that nothing ''she'' does ever puts relationship with herself out of reach for her child.<ref name="jl2005a" />}}
But, says Schellenberg, belief in God's existence is necessary for engaging in such a meaningful relationship with God. He therefore concludes that if there is a perfectly loving God, such creatures will always believe in it. He further argues that since belief is involuntary, these creatures should always have evidence "causally sufficient" for such belief:

{{blockquote|The presence of God will be for them like a light that—however much the degree of its brightness may fluctuate—remains on unless they close their eyes.<ref name="jl2005a" />}}