Argument from nonbelief

'The argument from nonbelief' is the generic label for a sort of philosophical argument against the existence of God. The so-called argument from divine hiddenness is an instance of this type of reasoning. According to such reasoning, if God existed he would intend certain persons to believe in God who in fact do not. This way of reasoning 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.

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.

Introduction to the problem of divine hiddenness

The theme of divine hiddenness, silence or darkness has a long history in Judeo-Christian theology. Judeo-Christian contemplation of the ways in which God chooses to remain hidden reach back to the biblical depiction of God, for example the lament of the Psalms, "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 divine hiddenness was Anselm of Canterbury, who in his Proslogion complains:

I have never seen thee, O Lord my God; I do not know thy form. What, O most high Lord, shall this man do, an exile far from thee? What shall thy servant do, anxious in his love of thee, and cast out afar from thy face? He pants to see thee, and thy face is too far from him. He longs to come to thee, and thy dwelling place is inaccessible. He is eager to find thee, and knows not thy place. He desires to seek thee, and does not know thy face. Lord, thou art my God, and thou art my Lord, yet never have I seen thee. It is thou that hast made me, and hast made me anew, and hast bestowed upon me all the blessings I enjoy; and not yet do I know thee. Finally, I was created to see thee and not yet have I done that for which I was made.

But only quite recently has the idea of nonbelief or hiddenness been developed as an argument against the existence of God. 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:

1. If there is a God, he is perfectly loving.
2. If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur.
3. Reasonable nonbelief occurs.
4. No perfectly loving God exists (from 2 and 3).
5. Hence, there is no God (from 1 and 4).

But as Schellenberg implies on the page of his book from which this formulation is drawn, one has to understand two chapters of reasoning about personal relationship with God (of the sort a loving God would desire) and how such relationship presupposes belief in God to understand the support for his second premise here.

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 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 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 human beings is incorrect, and so that God is able to be loving in a sense while actually willing disbelief.

Reasonable nonbelief: lack of evidence

The second premise is the most controversial, but there is also some discussion of issues related to the third: that there are instances of reasonable non-belief. When asked what he would say when facing God on judgment day, Bertrand Russell 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 sensus divinitatis (Sense of Divinity), an assumption that the presence of God is 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, according to Stephen Maitzen, is that 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:

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.

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 nonresistant 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 nonresistant nonbelief. He states:

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.

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:

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.

He then infers, from the proposition that God is inclined to enable nonresistant persons to participate in a relationship with him/her/it (God), the further claim that if there is a perfectly loving god, such persons will always believe in it. This inference Schellenberg justifies on the grounds that belief in God's existence is necessary for engaging in an explicit and meaningful relationship with God. He further argues that since belief is involuntary, these creatures should always have evidence "causally sufficient" for such belief:

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.

Objections and counterarguments

Unreasonable demands on God

This argument is sometimes seen as demanding God to prove his existence, e.g. by performing miracles. Even about 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 implications, is provided by Paul Moser, who calls this 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 explains, is as follows:

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.

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.

The soul-making 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, who explains why divine hiddenness is 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 for instance 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: think of the Apostles who saw Christ's resurrection. One explanation might be that he knows some people wouldn't believe anyway but if he knows everything ahead of time, there is a problem about God's liability for what he created. This moreover contradicts the existence of Satan, a fallen angel who is obviously aware of God and yet freely chose to rebel against him  ; Satan acted in ways contrary even with knowledge.

The 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. This approach, which Plantinga applies to the problem of evil, can be used against nonbelief problems too.

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:

1. If God exists, God:
   1. wants all humans to believe God exists before they die;
   2. can bring about a situation in which all humans believe God exists before they die;
   3. 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
   4. always acts in accordance with what it most wants.
2. If God exists, all humans would believe so before they die (from 1).
3. But not all humans believe God exists before they die.
4. Therefore, God does not exist (from 2 and 3).

External links

• "JL Schellenberg": Offers more information and updates on Schellenberg's hiddeness argument.
• "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.
• 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.