Argument from nonbelief
Encyclopedia
The argument from nonbelief (or the argument from divine hiddenness) is a philosophical argument against the existence of God
, specifically, the God of theism
. The premise of the argument is that if God existed (and wanted humanity to know it), he would have brought about a situation in which every reasonable person believed in him; however, there are reasonable unbelievers, and therefore, this weighs against God's existence. This argument is similar to the classic argument from evil
in that it affirms inconsistency between the world that exists and the world that should exist if God had certain desires combined with the power to see them through. In fact, since ignorance of God would seem to be a natural evil, many would categorize the problem of divine hiddenness as an instance of the problem of evil.
The argument was the subject of J.L. Schellenberg's 1993 book Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason and has been addressed by other philosophers, including Theodore Drange
.
, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?....I cry by day, but you do not answer...." and Isaiah's declaration, "Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior."
One of the first philosophers to contemplate the problem of hiddenness was Anselm of Canterbury
, who in his Proslogion
complains:
When it comes to the use of divine hiddenness as an objection or evidence against God, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser in the introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to refutations of Schellenberg's argument, cite Nietzsche's question: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"
In an article revisiting the argument ten years after it was originally proposed, Schellenberg writes that criticism has mainly centered around the second premise. He asserts there are relatively few criticisms questioning the existence of reasonable nonbelief, and almost no theist philosopher objects to the idea that God is perfectly loving.
. Daniel Howard-Snyder writes about the possibility of believing in an unsurpassably great personal god
that is nevertheless dispassionate towards its creatures. Drawing on to the Stoic
concept of Eudaimonia
, one can think of a god more akin to a wise sage than the loving parent that Schellenberg envisions.
Theodore Drange, in his attempt to improve the argument (see below), claims 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." 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
is a central concept in almost all of the world's religions. God is often directly associated with love, cf agape
. Theologians, such as N.T. Wright
, suggest that our experience of love is itself a 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 man is incorrect, and so that God is able to be loving in a sense while actually willing disbelief.
famously replied he would say "Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!" A person may be stubbornly blind to evidence of the divine, but the claim is that some non-believers have tried hard to believe in God. Schellenberg introduced the distinction between culpable and inculpable nonbelief, where the latter is defined as "non-belief that exists through no fault of the non-believer."
Historically, there is a Calvinist tradition, that places the blame on the non-believers. Calvin's religious epistemology is based on the (Sense of Divinity), an assumption 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." In this tradition, there is no inculpable or reasonable non-belief. 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 willingness to be open to the truth about God. Thus, the failure of non-believers to see "divine things" is due to "a dreadful stupidity of mind, occasioning a sottish insensibility of their truth and importance."
In modern times, there are fewer proponents of these views. One reason is that, according to Stephen Maitzen, 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, cf. God in Buddhism
. If God exists then why, Maitzen asks, does the prevalence of belief in God vary so dramatically with cultural and national boundaries?
Another reason why philosophers no longer make this claim has to do with respect. In fact, modern critics, such as Howard-Snyder, who praised Schellenberg's book for being "religiously sensitive," are similarly sensitive towards the nonbeliever. Howard-Snyder wrote:
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:
He then infers, from the proposition that God is inclined to enable creatures to participate in a relationship with him/her/it (God), the further claim that if there is a perfectly loving god, such creatures will always believe in it. This inference, Schellenberg justifies on the grounds that belief in God's existence is necessary for engaging in a meaningful relationship with God. He further argues that since belief is involuntary, these creatures should always have evidence "causally sufficient" for such belief:
, who calls this cognitive idolatry. He defines idolatry
as "our not letting the true God be Lord in our lives" and instead commit 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 explains as follows:
Schellenberg considers this criticism irrelevant to the argument, which in his opinion, does not impose any demands for demonstrations of God's power, but 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 Pascal
or a Kierkegaard." Schellenberg then expresses a certain frustration that theist writers who otherwise extol the value of religious experiences deny non-theists the right to do so.
could not be accommodated into his view of a world where inculpable nonbelief does not occur.
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, who explains why divine hiddeness is an essential to soul-making. While based on the accounts of religious individuals, it isn't hard to imagine a world where God is known, and yet believers act freely with ample opportunities for spiritual development, 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."
One must note here that e.g. in Christianity (and even more in Judaism, where he talks to Job and explains why he is just), God has already exposed himself very distinctly: e.g. to the Apostles who saw his resurrection. One explanation might be that he knows some people wouldn't believe anyway but if he knows everything a priori, there is a problem about God's liability for what he created. This however contradicts the existence of Satan, a fallen angel who is obviously aware of God and yet freely chose to rebel against him because it implies that he acted in ways contrary even with knowledge.
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.
Existence of God
Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...
, specifically, the God of theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
. The premise of the argument is that if God existed (and wanted humanity to know it), he would have brought about a situation in which every reasonable person believed in him; however, there are reasonable unbelievers, and therefore, this weighs against God's existence. This argument is similar to the classic argument from evil
Problem of evil
In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...
in that it affirms inconsistency between the world that exists and the world that should exist if God had certain desires combined with the power to see them through. In fact, since ignorance of God would seem to be a natural evil, many would categorize the problem of divine hiddenness as an instance of the problem of evil.
The argument was the subject of J.L. Schellenberg's 1993 book Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason and has been addressed by other philosophers, including Theodore Drange
Theodore Drange
Theodore "Ted" Michael Drange is a philosopher of religion and Professor Emeritus at West Virginia University, where he taught philosophy from 1966 to 2001. He received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1955 and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1963...
.
Introduction to the problem of divine hiddenness
The theme of divine hiddenness, silence or darkness has a long history in Judeo-Christian theology. The roots of Judeo-Christian contemplation of the ways in which God chooses to remain hidden reach back into the biblical depiction of God, for example the lament of the PsalmsPsalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?....I cry by day, but you do not answer...." and Isaiah's declaration, "Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior."
One of the first philosophers to contemplate the problem of hiddenness was Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury , also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109...
, who in his Proslogion
Proslogion
The Proslogion, , written in 1077-1078, was written as a prayer, or meditation, by the medieval cleric Anselm which serves to reflect on the attributes of God and endeavours to explain how God can have qualities which often seem contradictory...
complains:
When it comes to the use of divine hiddenness as an objection or evidence against God, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser in the introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to refutations of Schellenberg's argument, cite Nietzsche's question: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"
Schellenberg's argument from reasonable nonbelief
A formal presentation of the argument is as follows:In an article revisiting the argument ten years after it was originally proposed, Schellenberg writes that criticism has mainly centered around the second premise. He asserts there are relatively few criticisms questioning the existence of reasonable nonbelief, and almost no theist philosopher objects to the idea that God is perfectly loving.
God is perfectly loving
While Schellenberg claims he hasn't seen any serious objections to this premise by theist philosophers, there certainly are other conceptions of GodConceptions of God
The God of monotheism, pantheism or panentheism, or the supreme deity of henotheistic religions, may be conceived of in various degrees of abstraction:...
. Daniel Howard-Snyder writes about the possibility of believing in an unsurpassably great personal god
Personal God
A personal god is a deity who can be related to as a person instead of as an "impersonal force", such as the Absolute, "the All", or the "Ground of Being"....
that is nevertheless dispassionate towards its creatures. Drawing on to the Stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...
concept of Eudaimonia
Eudaimonia
Eudaimonia or eudaemonia , sometimes Anglicized as eudemonia , is a Greek word commonly translated as happiness or welfare; however, "human flourishing" has been proposed as a more accurate translation...
, one can think of a god more akin to a wise sage than the loving parent that Schellenberg envisions.
Theodore Drange, in his attempt to improve the argument (see below), claims 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." 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
Love (religious views)
Religious views on love vary widely between different religions.-Bahá'í:Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, taught that God created humans due to his love for them, and thus humans should in turn love God. `Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's son, wrote that love is the greatest power in the world of...
is a central concept in almost all of the world's religions. God is often directly associated with love, cf agape
Agape
Agape is one of the Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for mankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term...
. Theologians, such as N.T. Wright
Tom Wright (theologian)
Nicholas Thomas Wright is a leading New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. His academic work has usually been published under the name N. T...
, suggest that our experience of love is itself a proof of God's existence
Argument from love
The Argument from love is an argument for the existence of God, as against materialism and reductionist forms of physicalism.-Outline of argument:...
. 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 man is incorrect, and so that God is able to be loving in a sense while actually willing disbelief.
Reasonable nonbelief: lack of evidence
Since the second premise is the most controversial, we will first discuss the third: that there are instances of reasonable non-belief. When asked what he would say when facing God on judgment day, Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
famously replied he would say "Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!" A person may be stubbornly blind to evidence of the divine, but the claim is that some non-believers have tried hard to believe in God. Schellenberg introduced the distinction between culpable and inculpable nonbelief, where the latter is defined as "non-belief that exists through no fault of the non-believer."
Historically, there is a Calvinist tradition, that places the blame on the non-believers. Calvin's religious epistemology is based on the (Sense of Divinity), an assumption 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." In this tradition, there is no inculpable or reasonable non-belief. 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 willingness to be open to the truth about God. Thus, the failure of non-believers to see "divine things" is due to "a dreadful stupidity of mind, occasioning a sottish insensibility of their truth and importance."
In modern times, there are fewer proponents of these views. One reason is that, according to Stephen Maitzen, anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
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, cf. God in Buddhism
God in Buddhism
The refutation of the notion of a supreme God or a prime mover is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. In Buddhism the sole aim of spiritual practice is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara, called nirvana...
. If God exists then why, Maitzen asks, does the prevalence of belief in God vary so dramatically with cultural and national boundaries?
Another reason why philosophers no longer make this claim has to do with respect. In fact, modern critics, such as Howard-Snyder, who praised Schellenberg's book for being "religiously sensitive," are similarly sensitive towards the nonbeliever. Howard-Snyder wrote:
A perfectly loving god would prevent reasonable nonbelief
The most serious criticism of the argument has been leveled against the claim that if a perfectly loving god exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur. 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, he infers that a loving god would not permit nonbelief. He states: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:
He then infers, from the proposition that God is inclined to enable creatures to participate in a relationship with him/her/it (God), the further claim that if there is a perfectly loving god, such creatures will always believe in it. This inference, Schellenberg justifies on the grounds that belief in God's existence is necessary for engaging in a meaningful relationship with God. He further argues that since belief is involuntary, these creatures should always have evidence "causally sufficient" for such belief:
Unreasonable demands on God
This argument is sometimes seen as demanding God to prove his existence, e.g. by performing miracles. Even in Schellenberg's more refined version, one can argue that the nonbeliever is imposing her own epistemological expectations on the will of God. A detailed treatment of these kinds of demands, and their moral implication, is provided by Paul MoserPaul Moser
Paul K. Moser is an American analytic philosopher who writes on epistemology and the philosophy of religion. He is professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and editor of American Philosophical Quarterly...
, who calls this cognitive idolatry. He defines idolatry
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
as "our not letting the true God be Lord in our lives" and instead commit 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 explains as follows:
Schellenberg considers this criticism irrelevant to the argument, which in his opinion, does not impose any demands for demonstrations of God's power, but 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 Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
or a Kierkegaard." Schellenberg then expresses a certain frustration that theist writers who otherwise extol the value of religious experiences deny non-theists the right to do so.
The free will defense
Since the argument raised is of a similar concern to the problem of evil, and in some sense nonbelief can be seen as a particular form of evil, the same objections to the problem of evil are used against this argument. However, Schellenberg's argument requires the theist to show that it is possible that the greater goods proposed in such theodiciesTheodicy
Theodicy is a theological and philosophical study which attempts to prove God's intrinsic or foundational nature of omnibenevolence , omniscience , and omnipotence . Theodicy is usually concerned with the God of the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, due to the relevant...
could not be accommodated into his view of a world where inculpable nonbelief does not occur.
The soul-making theodicy
John HickJohn Hick
Professor John Harwood Hick is a philosopher of religion and theologian. In philosophical theology, he has made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he has contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious...
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, who explains why divine hiddeness is an essential to soul-making. While based on the accounts of religious individuals, it isn't hard to imagine a world where God is known, and yet believers act freely with ample opportunities for spiritual development, 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."
One must note here that e.g. in Christianity (and even more in Judaism, where he talks to Job and explains why he is just), God has already exposed himself very distinctly: e.g. to the Apostles who saw his resurrection. One explanation might be that he knows some people wouldn't believe anyway but if he knows everything a priori, there is a problem about God's liability for what he created. This however contradicts the existence of Satan, a fallen angel who is obviously aware of God and yet freely chose to rebel against him because it implies that he acted in ways contrary even with knowledge.
The unknown purpose defense
Alvin PlantingaAlvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...
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.
Drange's argument from nonbelief
Theodore Drange proposed a version of the nonbelief argument in 1996. He considers the distinction between culpable and inculpable nonbelief to be completely irrelevant, and tries to argue that the mere existence of nonbelief is evidence against the existence of God. A semi-formal presentation of the argument is as follows:- If God exists, God:
- wants all humans to believe God exists before they die;
- can bring about a situation in which all humans believe God exists before they die;
- does not want anything that would conflict with and be at least as important as its desire for all humans to believe God exists before they die; and
- always acts in accordance with what it most wants.
- If God exists, all humans would believe so before they die (from 1).
- But not all humans believe God exists before they die.
- Therefore, God does not exist (from 2 and 3).
External links
- "The Argument from (Reasonable) Nonbelief" at Infidels.org: contains a large number of papers mainly focusing on Theodore Drange's formulation.
- "The Argument from Unbelief" at Philosophy of Religion .Info: Offers a simple overview and rebuttal.
- Responses to the problem of Divine Hiddenness from the website of the Christian Colligation of Apologetics Debate Research & Evangelism.
- Daniel Howard-Snyder. Academic papers and books by one the most respected critics of Schellenberg's argument. Many papers are relevant to the current article and all are available for download. Highly recommended as a starting point, since Schellenberg seems to have no web presence.
- Paul Moser's "Idolaters anonymous". Moser expressed the idea that arguing from nonbelief is engaging in cognitive idolatry.
- Jonathan Kvanvig. One paper critical of the argument, but all papers are available for download and may be of interest.
- Stephen Maitzen. Has two papers in support of the argument, but many more on the philosophy of religion available for download here.