Argument 1.
There are two well-known versions of the argument from nonbelief or divine hiddenness: J. L. Schellenberg’s argument from reasonable nonbelief, and Theodore Drange’s argument from nonbelief.
Schellenberg more recent formulation of his main argument is as follows:
1. If no perfectly loving God exists, then God does not exist.
2. If a perfectly loving God exists, then there is a God who is always open to personal relationship with each human person.
3. 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.
4. If a perfectly loving God exists, then no human person is ever non-resistantly unaware that God exists (from 2 and 3).
5. Some human persons are non-resistantly unaware that God exists.
6. No perfectly loving God exists (from 4 and 5).
7. God does not exist (from 1 and 6).1
Response 1.
The argument carries a burden of proof; to succeed, it must show that it is more probable than not that God has no sufficient reasons for allowing nonresistant nonbelief. As with the problem of evil, the limits of human knowledge and perspective prevent us from ever being justified in claiming that God lacks such reasons.
Although it is not necessary, we can still speculate about why a perfectly loving God might refrain from doing something that would eliminate nonresistant nonbelief in people who are capable of entering into a personal relationship with Him at that moment.
Blake Giunta suggests the following:
Some resistant non-theists, upon coming to belief, would immediately reject loving relationship. – Ensuring that belief would arise in an individual who would reject God despite being a theist could hinder potential future relationship with God. This is relevant because God presumably would see no value in hindering future relationship, and plausibly would see value in refraining from hindering it –
Some non-theists would just form a perpetually improper relationship with God if, in their current state, they suddenly believed and even entered into a kind of relationship with God…This is relevant because such an improper relationship could be such that it is better for it to have never existed.
Plausibly, greater relationship goods ultimately obtain with God’s existence being unclear to some non-believers…This is relevant because it is not implausible that God might want to bring about these greater relationship goods.
Greater goods around the world ultimately obtain with God’s existence being unclear to some non-believers…This is relevant because it is not implausible that God would want to bring about these goods.
God can have relationship with someone just fine even while the person is a non-theist. This is relevant because the reason God allegedly would prove his existence is in order to allow for relationship—that reason would be gone. Non-theists can still “propositionally assume” God exists…This is relevant because such an assuming of God’s existence is sufficient for relationship.
Non-theists can be in relationship with “the Good”, responding to conscience, etc. (They can even have a fairly explicit and reciprocal relationship).2 This is relevant because, unbeknownst to them, “the Good” is God.2
In summary, we are not justified in claiming that God lacks a good reason for allowing nonresistant nonbelief. Any such conclusion requires a noseeum inference—assuming that because we cannot see a reason, no reason exists—which is not warranted from our limited perspective. Moreover, we have plausible grounds for thinking that God might not guarantee belief even for those capable of forming a relationship with Him, though such reasons are sufficient without being necessary.
Argument 2.
Theodore Drange’s version of an argument from nonbelief was formed in 1996. His reasoning can be presented as follows:
1. 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.
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).3
Response 2.
Latter-day Saints can reject premise 1a on the grounds that this life is not the only time for hearing the gospel.
D&C 138:30 reads:
But behold, from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.
Similarly in 1 Peter 3:18-20
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
Therefore it is not necessarily true that God wants all humans to believe God exists before they die. We therefore have not been given sufficient reason to believe this premise and the argument fails.
For Latter-day Saints, both arguments against the existence of God fail, either through a noseeum inference, or on a simple matter of doctrine.
Notes.
- Schellenberg, J. L. (2011). “Would a Loving God Hide from Anyone?”. In Solomon, Robert; McDermid, Douglas. Introducing Philosophy for Canadians. Oxford University Press. pp. 165–166. ISBN 978-0-19-543096-7 ↩︎
- Giunta, Blake. 2017. Divine Hiddenness: If a loving God existed, would God ensure we know it (to foster relationship)? ↩︎
- Drange, Theodore (1996). “The Arguments From Evil and Nonbelief”. Archived from the original on 10 January 2007. ↩︎