Editing Argument from nonbelief (section)

==Objections and counterarguments==

=== Skeptical theism ===
[[Skeptical theism]] is the view that we should remain skeptical of claims that our perceptions about God's purposes can reasonably be considered good evidence of what they are.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/sceptical-theism/v-1|title=Sceptical theism|last=McBrayer|first=Justin|date=2015|website=The Rutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=10 October 2016|quote=Sceptical theists are ... sceptical of our abilities to discern whether the evils in our world constitute good evidence against the existence of God.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/sceptical-theism/v-1|title=Sceptical theism|last=McBrayer|first=Justin|date=2015|website=Rutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=10 October 2016|quote=The sceptical element of sceptical theism can be used to undermine various arguments for atheism including both the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness.}}</ref> The central thesis of skeptical theism is that it would not be surprising for an infinitely intelligent and knowledgeable being's reasons for permitting a perception of evil or alleged hiddenness to be beyond human comprehension.<sup>[[Skeptical theism#cite note-2|[2]]]</sup> That is, what is perceived as hiddenness may be necessary for a greater good or to prevent equal or even greater evils.

Schellenberg has responded to skeptical theism (i.e. noseeum/unknown-purpose defense).<ref>Schellenberg, J.L., 2007a, The Wisdom to Doubt, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.</ref> First, Schellenberg says that he has given known reasons to think that a perfectly loving being would always be open to a personal relationship; ipso facto, God would not sacrifice some time in the relationship for the sake of unknown greater goods,<ref>Schellenberg, J. L. ‘Divine Hiddenness: Part 1 (Recent Work on the Hiddenness Argument).' Philosophy Compass, 2017.</ref> and if the greatest good for finite creatures is to be in a relationship with God, then God would not sacrifice that for the sake of unknown greater goods.<ref>Schellenberg, J.L., 2015, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy’s New Challenge to Belief in God, New York: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref name="Schellenberg, J. L. 2014">Schellenberg, J. L., 2014, Skeptical Theism and Skeptical Atheism. In Justin McBrayer Trent Dougherty (ed.), _Skeptical Theism: New Essays_. Oxford University Press.</ref> Finally, Schellenberg's position is that all known and unknown goods are ultimately in God; hence, God can bring about unknown greater goods without hiddenness.<ref>Schellenberg, J.L., 2016, “Divine Hiddenness and Human Philosophy”, in Green and Stump 2016: 13–32.</ref><ref name="Schellenberg, J. L. 2014"/>

==== Noseeum defense ====
The philosophers Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea described the philosopher William Rowe's justification for the second premise of the argument from evil, which is equally applicable to a perception of hiddenness:<blockquote>Some evidential arguments ... rely on a “noseeum” inference of the following sort: NI: If, after thinking hard, we can’t think of any God-justifying reason for permitting some horrific evil then it is likely that there is no such reason. (The reason NI is called a ‘noseeum’ inference is that it says, more or less, that because we don’t see ‘um, they probably ain’t there.)<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Rowe|first=William|year=1979|title=The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism, American|journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |volume=16 |pages=335–41}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |year=2005 |title=Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea |url=https://www3.nd.edu/~mrea/papers/In%20Defense%20of%20Skeptical%20Theism.pdf |journal=The Australasian Journal of Philosophy |volume=83 |pages=241–51 |access-date=2016-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109033308/http://www3.nd.edu/~mrea/papers/In%20Defense%20of%20Skeptical%20Theism.pdf |archive-date=2016-11-09 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rowe|first=William|year=1988|title=Evil and Theodicy|journal=Philosophical Topics|volume=16|issue=2|pages=119–32|doi=10.5840/philtopics198816216}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rowe|first=William|title=Ruminations about Evil|journal=Philosophical Topics|volume=5|pages=69–88}}</ref></blockquote>Various analogies are offered to show that the noseeum inference is logically unsound. For example, a novice chess player's inability to discern a chess master's choice of moves cannot be used to infer that there is no good reason for the move.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book|url=http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bergmann/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OHPT-bergmann-preprint.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407231539/http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bergmann/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OHPT-bergmann-preprint.pdf |archive-date=2014-04-07 |url-status=live|title=Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology (Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Evil) |last=Bergmann |first=Michael|publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009|editor-last=Flint|editor-first=Thomas|location=Oxford|pages=374–99}}</ref> The skeptical theist and noseeum defense place the burden of proof on the atheist to prove that their intuitions about God are trustworthy.

=== Unreasonable demands on God ===
This argument is sometimes seen as demanding God to prove his existence, for example by performing miracles. Critics have argued that even in Schellenberg's more refined version, the nonbeliever is imposing their own [[epistemological]] expectations on the will of God. A detailed discussion of these kinds of demands, and their moral and spiritual implications, is provided by [[Paul Moser]],<ref name="pm_ne">{{Cite book |last=Moser |first=Paul |year=2001 |chapter=Cognitive Idolatry and Divine Hiding |chapter-url=http://www.luc.edu/faculty/pmoser/idolanon/CognitiveIdolatry.html |title=Divine Hiddenness: New Essays |isbn=0-521-00610-4 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York}}</ref> who says that such demands amount to cognitive idolatry. He defines [[idolatry]] as "our not letting the true God be Lord in our lives" and instead committing to something other than God by pursuing a quest for self-realization in our own terms. If this is idolatry in our actions, then idolatry in our knowing, he says, is as follows:
{{blockquote|Cognitive idolatry relies on a standard for knowledge that excludes the primacy of the morally self-transforming knowledge of God central to knowing God as Lord. It rests on an epistemological standard, whether empiricist, rationalist, or some hybrid, that does not let God be Lord. Such idolatry aims to protect one's lifestyle from serious challenge by the God who calls, convicts, and reconciles. It disallows knowledge of God as personal subject and Lord to whom we are morally and cognitively responsible. It allows at most for knowledge of God as an undemanding object of human knowledge.<ref name="pm_ne" />}}

Schellenberg considers this criticism irrelevant to the argument, which in his opinion, does not impose any demands for demonstrations of God's power, but rather looks for evidence that "need only be such as will be causally sufficient for belief in the absence of resistance... This result might be effected through the much more spiritually appropriate means of religious experience, interpreted in the sensitive manner of a [[Blaise Pascal|Pascal]] or a [[Kierkegaard]]."<ref name="jl2005a" /> Schellenberg then expresses a certain frustration that theistic writers who otherwise extol the value of religious experiences deny non-theists the right to do so.

=== Soul-making theodicy ===
{{see also|Irenaean theodicy}}
[[John Hick]] used the term "soul-making" in his theodicy ''Evil and the God of Love'' to describe the kind of spiritual development that he believes justifies the existence of evil. This defense is employed by Michael Murray,<ref name="mm-ne">{{Cite book |last=Murray |first=Michael J. |year=2001 |chapter=Deus Absconditus |chapter-url=http://server1.fandm.edu/Departments/Philosophy/staticpages/Murray/Hiddenness_Murray.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041231201314/http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/Philosophy/staticpages/Murray/Hiddenness_Murray.pdf |archive-date=2004-12-31 |url-status=live |title=Divine Hiddenness: New Essays |isbn=0-521-00610-4 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York}}</ref> who explains how, in his view, divine hiddenness is essential to soul-making. It may seem that it is not hard to imagine a world where God is known and yet believers act freely with ample opportunities for spiritual development. But Murray gives a deep and careful analysis of the argument, concluding that if God's existence were revealed in such a way as to remove reasonable non-belief, then "any desire that we might have to believe or act in ways contrary to that which has been revealed would be overwhelmed."

Critics note here that, for example, in Christianity (and even more in Judaism, where God is represented as talking to Job and explaining why he is just), God is already believed to have exposed himself very distinctly: for example to the Apostles who saw his resurrection. One theistic explanation of this might be that God knows some people would not believe anyway but if God knows this before creating, there is a problem about God's liability for what is created. More fundamentally in relation to Murray's argument, there is the problem for orthodox believers of explaining the existence of Satan, a fallen angel who is obviously aware of God and yet, according to theistic scriptures, freely chose to rebel against God.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.godonthe.net/evidence/satan.htm|title=Satan - the Devil and Demons - the Fallen Angels}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=November 2020}}

=== Turning the tables ===
Like with the [[argument from evil]], one can "flip" the argument from divine hiddenness.<ref>Moser, Paul K. (2008). The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology. Cambridge University Press</ref><ref name="Kelly, T. 2011">Kelly, T.(2011).Consensus gentium: Reflections on the ‘common consent’ argument for the existence of God. In K.J. Clark & R.J. Vanarragon (Eds.), Evidence and Religious belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref> In other words, one can argue that the fact that many or most people believe that God exists (and/or have experiences of God) is evidence that God ''does'' exist.<ref>Moser, Paul K. (2008). The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology. Cambridge University Press.</ref><ref name="Kelly, T. 2011"/>

=== Unknown purpose defense ===
[[Alvin Plantinga]] writes that the statement "We can see no good reason for God to do X" only implies "There is no good reason for God to do X" on the assumption that "If there were a good reason for God to do X, we would be able to see it," which he suggests is absurd.<ref>[[Alvin Plantinga]] ''Warranted Christian Belief'' {{ISBN|0-19-513192-4}}</ref> This point might be applied to versions of the argument from nonbelief that suggest without support that there is no good reason for God to permit nonbelief. Critics of Plantinga might suggest that if nobody is able to present an apparently good reason for God to allow nonbelief, then it is less ad hoc to merely posit God's non-existence, or indifference to people's belief, to explain this inability, than to posit both the existence of a God who cares about people's beliefs as well as some unthinkable reason obvious only to God to remain hidden.

=== There really are no atheists defense ===
This argument posits that all true atheists are, at their core, lying in order to live in a way that contradicts God's commands, as seen in certain interpretations of Romans 1:18-25. Critics point out that there are atheists who are genuinely not lying and are not using their atheism as an excuse to sin. However, proponents argue that atheists could still be deceiving themselves, even if they are not lying to others (for example, the argument about loving the wrong woman, which may need further clarification{{clarify|date=October 2015}}). Some have suggested that this argument overlooks Stephen Maitzen's point regarding the demographics of theism: if all atheists are liars, why are people in some societies more likely to lie than in others?<ref>{{cite web| url = http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_Hiddenness.pdf| title = philosophy.acadiau.ca}}</ref> Additionally, others contend that the argument fails to address Jason Marsh's point about natural nonbelief in early humans. Since it is plausible that natural nonbelief existed in early humans, it doesn't make sense to claim that such nonbelief is self-deceptive. Natural nonbelief, they argue, entails nonresistant nonbelief.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://philpapers.org/rec/MARDAT-7| title = philpapers.org}}</ref>