The empirical literature seems to indicate that prehistoric humans did not believe in God or anything like God. Why is that so, if God exists? The problem is difficult because their nonbelief was natural: their evolved mind and cultural environment restricted them to concepts of highly limited supernatural agents. Why would God design their mind and place them in their environments only to hide from them? The natural nonbelief of prehistoric humans is much more surprising given theism than (...) naturalism. Thus, it constitutes strong evidence that theism is false, or so Jason Marsh (2013) has argued. The "problem of natural nonbelief" is a debunking argument that invokes the genealogy of religious belief to cast doubt upon theism. In this chapter, we put it to the test. First, we argue on empirical grounds that it is not clear that natural nonbelief was prevalent: the empirical jury is still out on what prehistoric humans believed about gods. Second, we argue that even if natural nonbelief was prevalent, it would not be very surprising given theism. We conclude that natural nonbelief presents no problem for theism. We also turn the tables and suggest that the real problem is the problem of widespread belief in a High God (common consent), which is a problem for naturalism. (shrink)

Nonbelievers represent an understudied population in Greece. This investigation reports on the translation, cultural adaptation, and initial validation of the Nonreligious-Nonspiritual Scale, a measure designed to assess nonbelief. Data from 1754 participants were collected to examine the psychometric properties of the Greek version of the instrument and to assess the nationwide interpretability of the measure. Factor analyses suggested that the 16-item scale retained its bifactor model. Convergent validity was supported through associations with additional measures, namely, the Meaning in Life (...) Questionnaire and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, which were used as reference criteria. Potential utility of the measure and future directions for ongoing development are discussed. (shrink)

I show the incompatibility of two theses: (a) to desire the truth of p amounts to believing a certain proposition about the value of p’s truth; (b) one cannot be said to desire the truth of p if one believes that p is true. Thesis (a), the Desire-As-Belief Thesis, has received much attention since the late 1980s. Thesis (b) is an epistemic variant of Socrates’ remark in the Symposium that one cannot desire what one already has. It turns out that (...) (a) and (b) cannot both be true if it is possible for there to exist an agent who has a desire initially, say the desire for the truth of p, and then expands the corpus of propositions she believes to include p. This result provides a new route to the denial of (a). (shrink)

Some Christian philosophers wonder whether a God really would oppose reasonable nonbelief. Others think the answer to the problem of reasonable nonbelief is that there isn’t any. Between them, Douglas V. Henry and Robert T. Lehe cover all of this ground in their recent responses to my work on Divine hiddenness. Here I give my answers to their arguments.

After a presentation of the problem of God's hiddenness, there is discussion of two arguments for God's nonexistence related to that problem. One is the Lack-of-evidence Argument (LEA), according to which there would have been good objective evidence of God's existence if he were to exist. The other is the Argument from Nonbelief (ANB), according to which there would not be as many nonbelievers as there actually are if God were to exist. Reasons are given for assessing ANB as (...) a stronger argument than LEA. (shrink)

Some Christian philosophers wonder whether a God really would oppose reasonable nonbelief. Others think the answer to the problem of reasonable nonbelief is that there isn’t any. Between them, Douglas V. Henry and Robert T. Lehe cover all of this ground in their recent responses to my work on Divine hiddenness. Here I give my answers to their arguments.

This chapter contains sections titled: Scientific Reasons Motivated by Morality? The Science of Religion Notes.

Here are two atheological arguments, called the “Lack-of-evidence Argument” (LEA) and “the Argument from Nonbelief” (ANB). LEA: Probably, if God were to exist then there would be good objective evidence for that. But there is no good objective evidence for God’s existence. Therefore, probably God does not exist. ANB: Probably, if God were to exist then there would not be many nonbelievers in the world. But there are many nonbelievers in the world. Therefore, probably God does not exist. Reasons (...) are given for saving that although LEA is not totally implausible, ANB is a stronger atheological argument than it is. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason claims that the existence of reflective persons who long to solve the problem of God’s existencebut cannot do so constitutes an evil rendering God’s existence improbable. In this essay, I present Schellenberg’s argument and argue that the kind of reasonable nonbelief Schellenberg needs for his argument to succeed is unlikely to exist. Since Schellenberg’s argument is an inductive-style version of the problem of evil, the empirical improbability of the premise I challenge (...) renders the conclusions derived from it empirically improbable as well. (shrink)

In Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason, J. L. Schellenberg argues that the phenomenon of “reasonable nonbelief” constitutes sufficient reason to doubtthe existence of God. In this essay I assert the reasonableness of entertaining doubts about the kind of reasonable nonbelief that Schellenberg needs for a cogent argument. Treating his latest set of arguments in this journal, I dispute his claims about the scope and status of “unreflective nonbelief,” his assertion that God would prevent reasonable nonbelief “of (...) any kind and duration,” and his confidence that we can know that some doubters are not self-deceived. (shrink)

The Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg has recently put forward an argument for atheism based on the idea that God is supposed to be perfectly loving and so would not permit people to be deprived of awareness of his existence. If such a deity were to exist, then, he would do something to reveal his existence clearly to people, thereby causing them to become theists. Thus, the fact that there are so many non-theists in the world becomes good reason to deny (...) the existence of God conceived of in the given way. I first raise objections to Schellenberg’s formulation of the argument and then suggest some improvements. My main improvement is to include among the divine attributes the property of strongly desiring humanity’s love. Since to love God requires at least believing that he exists, if God were to exist, he must want widespread theistic belief. The fact that so many people lack such belief becomes a good argument for atheism with respect to God conceived of in the given way. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered, in particular the claim that God refrains from revealing himself to people in order to avoid interfering with their free will or to avoid eliciting inappropriate responses from them or some other (unknown) purpose. An attempt is made to refute each of these objections. (shrink)

The Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg has recently put forward an argument for atheism based on the idea that God is supposed to be perfectly loving and so would not permit people to be deprived of awareness of his existence. If such a deity were to exist, then, he would do something to reveal his existence clearly to people, thereby causing them to become theists. Thus, the fact that there are so many non-theists in the world becomes good reason to deny (...) the existence of God conceived of in the given way. I first raise objections to Schellenberg’s formulation of the argument and then suggest some improvements. My main improvement is to include among the divine attributes the property of strongly desiring humanity’s love. Since to love God requires at least believing that he exists, if God were to exist, he must want widespread theistic belief. The fact that so many people lack such belief becomes a good argument for atheism with respect to God conceived of in the given way. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered, in particular the claim that God refrains from revealing himself to people in order to avoid interfering with their free will or to avoid eliciting inappropriate responses from them or some other purpose. An attempt is made to refute each of these objections. (shrink)

Provides an overview of the complex history of the secular tradition of science and its interactions with religions and spiritual traditions.

One is the beloved author of The Name of the Rose, a celebrated scholar, philosopher, and self-declared secularist; the other is a preeminent clergyman and a respected expert on the New Testament. In this intellectually stimulating dialogue, often adversarial but always amicable, these two great men, who stand on opposite sides of the church door, discuss some of the most controversial issues of our day, including the apocalypse, abortion, women in the clergy, and ethics. As we voyage onward into the (...) new millennium, they frame a debate about matters that have already begun to rage, always aware of the gulf between belief and nonbelief that separates them, constantly probing and challenging, but also respectful of the other’s viewpoint. For believers and nonbelievers alike, the result is both edifying and illuminating. “Their correspondence,” writes Professor Harvey Cox in his introduction, “lifts the possibility of intelligent conversation on religion to a new level.”. (shrink)

Problem one: why, if God designed the human mind, did it take so long for humans to develop theistic concepts and beliefs? Problem two: why would God use evolution to design the living world when the discovery of evolution would predictably contribute to so much nonbelief in God? Darwin was aware of such questions but failed to see their evidential significance for theism. This paper explores this significance. Problem one introduces something I call natural nonbelief, which is significant (...) because it parallels and corroborates well-known worries about natural evil. Problems one and two, especially when combined, support naturalism over theism, intensify the problem of divine hiddenness, challenge Alvin Plantinga’s views about the naturalness of theism, and advance the discussion about whether the conflict between science and religion is genuine or superficial. (shrink)

According to J. L. Schellenberg’s argument from the reasonableness of nonbelief, the fact that many people inculpably fail to find sufficient evidence for the existence of God constitutes evidence for atheism. Schellenberg argues that since a loving God would not withhold the benefits of belief, the lack of evidence for God’s existence is incompatible with divine love. I argue that Schellenberg has not successfully defended his argument’s two controversial premises, that God’s love is incompatible with his allowing some to (...) remain in doubt that he exists, and that the nonbelief of some agnostics is inculpable. From the standpoint of what Christians believe about God, there are plausible reasons, which Schellenberg has not succeeded in refuting, for thinking that all nonbelief is culpable. I argue also that a loving God could have reasons remaining hidden to some persons, which are consistent with his desire to draw all people to faith. (shrink)

In this article, I outline a strategy for challenging J.L. Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument, and specifically the premise within the argument that asserts the existence of what Schellenberg calls nonresistant nonbelief. Drawing on some of the philosophical resources of skeptical theism, I show how this premise is based on a particular “noseeum assumption”—what I call Schellenberg’s Noseeum Assumption—that underwrites a particular “noseeum argument.” This assumption is that, regarding putative nonresistant nonbelievers, more likely than not we’d detect these nonbelievers’ resistance toward (...) God if there were any. I give reasons for thinking that it is not more reasonable to affirm than to refrain from affirming Schellenberg’s Noseeum Assumption, and so reason to think that the hiddenness argument is not a good argument for atheism. I also defend the strategy I outline against several objections. (shrink)

While we may not be able simply to choose what we believe, there is still scope for culpability for what we come to belief. I explore here the distinction between culpable and non-culpable theistic unbelief, investigating the process of self-deception to which we can voluntarily contribute in cases where we do become culpable for failing to believe something.

In this article, two of Theodore Drange’s atheological arguments against the God of Christianity are refuted by what I call the “Expectations Defense.” By means of this defense, it is shown that, despite what Drange argues, the existence of evil and unbelief cannot be used as evidence against the existence of the God of the Bible. The fact that biblical history describes God as allowing there to be vast amounts of evil and unbelief prevents us from citing the existence of (...) those things as evidence against the existence of the biblical God. Quite simply, we should expect there to be great amounts of suffering and doubt if the God of the Bible exists. As a result of this, it follows that Drange’s arguments are unsound, and should be rejected by rational people. (shrink)

When God is conceived of as an all-powerful and all-loving deity, many arguments for his nonexistence can be raised. Two of the main ones are the Argument from Evil (hereafter abbreviated AE) and the Argument from Nonbelief (hereafter abbreviated ANB). In what follows, I shall provide precise formulations of those two arguments, make some comments about them, and then try to refute the main defenses (of God's existence) that might be put forward against ANB, which I consider the stronger (...) of the two. I take ANB to be a sound argument establishing the proposition that God (conceived of in a certain way) does not exist. (shrink)

J.L. Schellenberg’s Argument from Divine Hiddenness maintains that if a perfectly loving God exists, then there is no non-resistant non-belief. Given that such nonbelief exists, however, it follows that there is no perfectly loving God. To support the conditional claim, Schellenberg presents conceptual and analogical considerations, which we subject to critical scrutiny. We also evaluate Schellenberg’s claim that the belief that God exists is logically necessary for entering into a relationship with the Divine. Finally, we turn to possible variants (...) of Schellenberg’s case, and argue that the modifications necessary to accommodate our criticismas leave those variants with much less of a sting than originally suggested by his provocative formulation. (shrink)

In the past decade, the cognitive science of religion has worked to find an evolutionary explanation for supernatural belief. The explanations are convincing, but have created the stereotype that atheism is unnatural. In a similar way studies linking religious belief and health have vilified atheism as unhealthy. But belief is too complex, health is too nuanced, and the data are too varied to draw such a generalization. Catherine Caldwell-Harris has developed a psychological profile to understand nonbelief as an expected (...) outcome of individual difference and therefore natural. In a similar manner I argue that we should study the relationship between belief and health through the lens of individual differences. This approach is especially promising given recent research which indicates personality fully accounts for the relationship with well-being previously attributed to belief. This approach has the added benefit of neutralizing the conversation by understanding atheism as the healthy expression of a natural personality. (shrink)

In his book Nonbelief & Evil, Theodore Drange argues that theists are likely to deploy the “unknown purpose defense” in the face of the existence of apparently gratuitous evils. That is, they will assert that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting apparently gratuitous evil, but that humans do not know those reasons. Drange argues that by deploying the unknown purpose defense, and by challenging atheologians to prove that God does not have such unknown morally sufficient reasons, theists can (...) achieve a stalemate with atheological challengers. I argue, however, that the epistemic burden of ascertaining whether God probably does or does not possess morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil falls asymmetrically on theists and atheists. Further, I argue that, given the failure of theodicies, the condition of nescience, the admission that we are in no position to assess whether God probably does or does not possess morally sufficient reasons for permitting ostensibly gratuitous evil, entails agnosticism about God’s existence. To escape agnosticism, theists will probably claim to have a warranted and properly basic belief in the existence and goodness of God. While I concede that theists may be doing their “epistemic best” in claiming such assurance, I argue that theists must concede that the existence of apparently gratuitous evil equally legitimizes nonbelief. (shrink)

Uses interviews with persons who have changed from belief to nonbelief or vice versa, and discusses what comfort people receive from religion.

J. L. Schellenberg's argument from hiddenness against the existence of God is simple. The primary argument is as follows.The Main Argument from Hiddenness If God exists, then no one would be epistemically rational for not believing in God. Some people are epistemically rational for not believing in God. Therefore, God does not exist.However, much of the issue concerning this argument surrounds the support for premise. As many have noted, Schellenberg's first premise does not demand an undeniable, incontrovertible proof for God's (...) existence. He merely claims that God would provide evidence sufficient for rational belief, and presumably this would entail that the only people who do not believe are culpable for their nonbelief. Their nonbelief would be their own fault. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is famous, maybe even infamous, for his philosophical nonchalance. His groundbreaking work not only rejects all theories of truth but also dismisses modern epistemology and its preoccupation with knowledge and representation. At the same time, the celebrated pragmatist believed there could be no universally valid answers to moral questions, which led him to a complex view of religion rarely expressed in his writings. In this posthumous publication, Rorty, a strict secularist, finds in the pragmatic thought of John Dewey, (...) John Stuart Mill, William James, and George Santayana, among others, a political imagination shared by religious traditions. His intent is not to promote belief over nonbelief or to blur the distinction between religious and public domains. Rorty seeks only to locate patterns of similarity and difference so an ethics of decency and a politics of solidarity can rise. He particularly responds to Pope Benedict XVI and his campaign against the relativist vision. Whether holding theologians, metaphysicians, or political ideologues to account, Rorty remains steadfast in his opposition to absolute uniformity and its exploitation of political strength. (shrink)

Interest in the nature of religious and mystical experiences (henceforth RMEs) is old. Recently, this interest has shifted toward understanding the relationship between brain function and RMEs. In the first section, I introduce neurocognitive data from three experiments that strongly correlate the report of religious mystical experiences with specific neural activity. Although correlations cannot be considered as “absolute” proof, strong correlations provide us with inductive grounds for justifying the belief or nonbelief of some proposition. These data suggest that the (...) human brain plays a key role in having an RME and will provide support for the claim that our explanations for phenomena should be located in the natural world. In the next section, I explore the meaning of an RME from a Jamesian perspective and discuss the use of RMEs and the apparent design of the world as proof for God’s existence. My point is to show that the whole enterprise of using phenomena “that only God could have brought about” as the proof for God’s existence is inherently question begging and so is no proof that God exists. In the third section, I lay out in detail my assumptions for my main argument in the final section. There, I argue that belief in the supernatural is not justifiable given the data we have from contemporary science and basic rules of reasoning. (shrink)

Gives two pared-down versions of the argument from design, which may prove more persuasive as to a Creator, discusses briefly the mathematics underpinning disbelief and nonbelief and its misuse and some proper uses, moves to why the full argument is needed anyway, viz., to demonstrate Providence, offers a theory as to how miracles (open and hidden) occur, viz. the replacement of any particular mathematics underlying a natural law (save logic) by its most appropriate nonstandard variant. -/- Note: This is (...) an extended abstract; there are no present plans to complete it. (shrink)

Abstract: Knowledge requires more than mere true belief, and we also tend to think it is more valuable. I explain the added value that knowledge contributes if its extra ingredient beyond true belief is tracking . I show that the tracking conditions are the unique conditions on knowledge that achieve for those who fulfill them a strict Nash Equilibrium and an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy in what I call the True Belief Game. The added value of these properties, intuitively, includes preparedness (...) and an expectation of survival advantage. On this view knowledge is valuable not because knowledge persists but because it makes the bearer more likely to maintain an appropriate belief state—possibly nonbelief—through time and changing circumstances. When Socrates concluded that knowledge of the road to Larissa was no more valuable than true belief for the purpose of getting to Larissa, he did not take into account that one might want to be prepared for a possible meeting with a misleading sophist along the way, or for the possibility of road work. (shrink)

“The Problem of Divine Hiddenness” is an infelicitous phrase for two reasons. First, while it suggests that God both exists and hides, this phrase actually refers to a strategy of arguing that various forms of nonbelief in God constitute evidence for God’s nonexistence. Second, it suggests that there is only one problem for theistic belief here, while in fact this phrase refers to a family of arguments for atheism. This entry focuses on contemporary arguments from nonbelief to atheism. (...) The most important of these is defended by J. L. Schellenberg. Schellenberg claims that a loving God would ensure that there is no reasonable or inculpable nonbelief in his existence, since this belief is required for human beings to enter into a relationship with God, and since (according to theism) having such a relationship with creatures is a great good, and indeed is one of God’s most important goals. But, Schellenberg argues, since such nonbelief occurs among those capable of belief in God, theism should be rejected. The citations collected under General Overviews all concern Schellenberg’s argument. Other authors have independently constructed different arguments from nonbelief to atheism, and these are surveyed under Other Arguments from Nonbelief. The final five sections of this bibliography survey responses to arguments from hiddenness to atheism. Most of this literature explicitly concerns Schellenberg’s argument, but many of these replies could also be directed against the other arguments surveyed here. There are important connections between the problem of divine hiddenness and the problem of evil, and the relevant literature is discussed in a preliminary section entitled Divine Hiddenness in the Context of the Problem of Evil. (shrink)

John Schellenberg argues that God would never withhold the possibility of conscious personal relationship with Him from anyone for the sake of greater goods, since there simply would not be greater goods than a conscious personal relationship with God. Given that nonresistant nonbelief withholds the possibility of such relationship, this entails that God would not allow nonresistant nonbelief for the sake of greater goods. Thus, if Schellenberg is right, all greater goods responses to the hiddenness argument must fail (...) in principle. I argue that there are good reasons for thinking that greater goods responses do not, for the above reason, fail in principle. (shrink)

“Divine hiddenness”, as the phrase suggests, refers, most fundamentally, to the hiddenness of God, i.e., the alleged fact that God is hidden, absent, silent. In religious literature, there is a long history of expressions of annoyance, anxiety, and despair over divine hiddenness, so understood. For example, ancient Hebrew texts lament God’s failure to show up in experience or to show proper regard for God’s people or some particular person, and two Christian Gospels portray Jesus, in his cry of dereliction on (...) the cross, as experiencing abandonment by God, whom he regarded as “Abba, Father”, an experience shared by many mystics, saints, and ordinary folk of all theistic traditions, described at its worst as “the dark night of the soul”. Understood in this way, divine hiddenness poses an existential problem for those who have such experiences. -/- However, “divine hiddenness” refers to something else in recent philosophical literature, especially since the publication of J.L. Schellenberg’s landmark book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (1993). In this context, it refers to alleged facts about the absence of belief of God, on the basis of which one might think there is no God. For example, Schellenberg argues that, since there are nonbelievers who are capable of a personal relationship with God and who do not resist it, there is no perfectly loving God, while Stephen Maitzen argues that naturalism better explains the “demographics” of nonbelief than theism and Jason Marsh argues that naturalism better explains “natural nonbelief” than theism. Understood in this way, divine hiddenness constitutes putative evidence for atheism. -/- Although some of the recent philosophical literature addresses the problem understood in the first way (e.g., DeWeese-Boyd 2016; Garcia 2002), this entry focuses on divine hiddenness understood in the second way. The first section discusses the relationships between nonbelief and another source of alleged evidence for atheism: evil. The second section states and defends the argument from nonresistant nonbelief. The third section sketches attempts to explain nonresistant nonbelief from a theistic perspective. The fourth section states other responses to the argument from nonresistant nonbelief. The fifth section discusses the argument from the demographics of nonbelief and the sixth section discusses the argument from natural nonbelief. (shrink)

J.L. Schellenberg argues that one reason to think that God does not exist is that there are people who fail to believe in Him through no fault of their own. If God were all loving, then He would ensure that these people had evidence to believe in Him so that they could enter into a personal relationship with Him. God would not remain ‘hidden’. But in the world, we actually do find people who fail to believe that God exists, and (...) their nonbelief does not seem to be due to their resisting God. I argue that if there are valuable goods brought about by God’s hiddenness, then even if each of those goods might obtain without hiddenness, God would have a sufficient reason for remaining hidden so long as enough of those goods would be made sufficiently more valuable because of God’s hiddenness. If this is the case, then the existence of ‘nonresistant nonbelievers’ in the actual world does not entail that God does not exist. (shrink)

Can a perceptual experience justify (epistemically) a belief? More generally, can a nonbelief justify a belief? Coherentists answer in the negative: Only a belief can justify a belief. A perceptual experience can cause a belief but cannot justify a belief. Coherentists eschew all noninferential justification—justification independent of evidential support from beliefs—and, with it, the idea that justification has a foundation. Instead, justification is holistic in structure. Beliefs are justified together, not in isolation, as members of a coherent belief system. (...) The main question of the paper is whether coherentism is consistent. I set out an apparent inconsistency in coherentism and then give a resolution to that apparent inconsistency. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg’s “problem of divine hiddenness” has generated much discussion. Swinburne has replied with his “responsibility argument,” according to which God allows some nonresistant nonbelief in order to foster the good of human responsibility, with some people tasked with leading others to belief in God. Schellenberg has supplied detailed replies to Swinburne. My goal is to provide a new formulation of the responsibility argument that defuses Schellenberg’s objections.

Abstract On Schellenberg’s formulation of the problem of divine hiddenness, a loving God would ensure that anyone capable of having a relationship with Him, and not resisting it, would be granted sufficient evidence to make belief in God rationally indubitable. And He would do this by granting a powerful religious experience to every person at the moment he or she reaches the age of reason. Here I lay out a new reason why God might delay revelation of himself, justifiably allowing (...) for some nonresistant nonbelief. Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9338-5 Authors Travis Dumsday, Department of Religious Studies, Livingstone College, 701 West Monroe St., Salisbury, NC 28144, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason offers an argument for the non-existence of God. He argues that God’s existence isn’t evident and, thus, there exist cases of “reasonable nonbelief”. But, such nonbelief is inconsistent—Schellenberg argues—with the existence of a loving God desiring a personal relationship with others. In short, if (a perfectly loving) God exists, then reasonable nonbelief must be impossible. But, since there is such belief, we have good reason to think God doesn’t exist. (...) In this chapter, I argue that there is a way to resist Schellenberg’s conclusion because there is a reason that God might not make God’s existence evident. I begin by showing that the problem of hiddenness is a version of the problem of evil. Here, the obscurity of God’s existence is a kind of intellectual bad state akin to traditional moral or natural evils. This opens the door to a modified response to hiddenness based on approaches to the standard problem of evil. I take Hick’s soul making theodicy as the guiding theory altered to fit hiddenness. Hick appeals to the moral development in overcoming evil, whereas I focus on the development of faith in God as the kind of soul making feature hiddenness can spur. If God’s existence isn’t evident, the uncertainty here can promote robust trust in God and, through that faith, can provide a good reason that God might remain hidden. (shrink)

This article points to the influence of medieval debates about the possible non-existence of a God on the formation of modern atheist discourse. On the basis of sources composed by Muslims, Christians and Jews, alleged appearances of disbelief like apostasy, blasphemy, and immoral behaviour are reconsidered. Medieval Latin conceptions of atheism are described as acedia, temptation, and murmur. It is made clear, that doubts or nonbelief in God’s existence were neither rare nor forbidden nor persecuted. Nonbelievers were regarded as (...) fools, rather than as a threat. At the same time, heretics as representatives of opposing teachings were construed as threatening, and indeed persecuted violently in the Latin Christian world and in some Muslim realms. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness has become one of the most prominent arguments for atheism in the current philosophy of religion literature. Schellenberg (Divine hiddenness and human reason 1993), one of the problem’s prominent advocates, holds that the only way to prevent completely the occurrence of nonresistant nonbelief would be for God to have granted all of us a constant awareness of Him (or at least a constant availability of such awareness) from the moment we achieved the age of (...) reason. Now, if that were the case, we might be faced with a difficult obstacle to the development of a proper, meaningful relationship with God: namely, since the experience of God would be so unutterably wonderful (at least for some), we could be at risk of coming to commune with God not from love of Him but for the amazing experience that that communion involves. In other words, given that mystical union with infinite perfection is, qua experience, inconceivably better than that of any drug, we might come to treat God as something analogous to a powerful narcotic, seeking the experience for the pleasure of the experience more than from any devotion. Since God wants to foster genuinely meaningful relationship with Him, He rightly delays granting us such awareness of Himself, even though that leaves open the risk that nonresistant nonbelief could arise. (shrink)

This article explores atheist meaning-making by employing a multidimensional model of meaning operationalized by the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire. When compared to a representative sample of “religionists” and “nones”, atheists show lower degrees of meaningfulness, but they do not suffer from crises of meaning more frequently. However, subsequent cluster analysis reveals that heterogeneity within atheism has to be taken into account. Three types of atheists are identified. ‘Low-commitment’ atheists are characterised by generally low commitment; they report (...) very low meaningfulness and a high frequency of crises of meaning. ‘Broad-commitment’ atheists exhibit considerably higher levels of meaningfulness and rare crises of meaning. They evidence, in particular, high scores on the dimension of well-being and relatedness. The third type, primarily committed to “selfactualization,” exhibits moderate levels of meaningfulness, with crises of meaning being literally absent. Common to most atheists is a particular commitment to self-knowledge, freedom, knowledge, individualism, and comfort. In comparing male and female atheists, gendered patterns of commitment are discovered. (shrink)

Argument z ukrytości Johna L. Schellenberga jest współcześnie jednym z najżywiej dyskutowanych argumentów za ateizmem. Rozumowanie kanadyjskiego filozofa wskazuje na problematyczność zjawiska niezawinionej niewiary w istnienie Boga przy założeniu, że doskonale kochający Bóg istnieje. W książce Ukrytość i wcielenie. Teistyczna odpowiedź na argument Johna L. Schellenberga za nieistnieniem Boga, Marek Dobrzeniecki zaproponował nowatorską obronę przed tym argumentem, wykorzystującą chrześcijańską doktrynę o wcieleniu Syna Bożego. W artykule wykazuję, że obrona z Wcielenia nie odnosi sukcesu. Błędna jest bowiem jej kluczowa teza, iż (...) Bóg wcielony musi być ukryty dla człowieka. W świetle tego rezultatu problematyczne staje się istnienie niezawinionej niewiary we Wcielenie. Ten problem ukrytości wcielonego Boga zawiera w sobie jako część składową problem ukrytości Boga w sformułowaniu Schellenberga. -/- The argument from hiddenness developed by John L. Schellenberg is one of the most discussed philosophical arguments for atheism. It assumes that there is a conflict between the existence of a perfectly loving God and the existence of nonresistant nonbelief. In his recent book titled Hiddenness and the Incarnation. A Theistic Response to John L. Schellenberg’s Argument for Divine Nonexistence (2020), Marek Dobrzeniecki presents a novel defence against the hiddenness argument, employing the Christian doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God. In my paper, I argue that this defence fails. It is based on an incorrect claim that the Incarnation makes God necessarily hidden to humans. This allows one to formulate a new problem of hiddenness, related to the fact that there are nonresistant human beings who do not accept the divinity of Christ. The problem of hiddenness as described by Schellenberg forms an essential part of this new problem . (shrink)

In this paper I argue that moral virtue is sometimes causally necessary both for theistic belief and for nonbelief. I then argue for some further connectionsbetween these results and the Calvinist view, recently revived in the philosophy of religion, according to which theistic belief is typically warranted and all those who dissent from such belief persist in their nonbelief because of sin. Specifically, I maintain that the virtue of belief militates against its being warranted, and that the virtue (...) of nonbelief renders the Calvinist generalization concerning nonbelief and sin implausible. (shrink)

A growing number of powerful arguments have been formulated by philosophers and logicians in recent years demonstrating that the existence of God is improbable. These arguments assume that God's existence is possible but argue that the weight of the empirical evidence is against God's actual existence. This unique anthology collects most of the important arguments for the improbability of God that have been published since the mid-1900s. The editors make each argument clear and accessible by providing a helpful summary. In (...) addition, they arrange this diverse collection of arguments for the improbability of God into four thematic groups: Part 1 contains cosmological arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the origin of the universe; Part 2 presents teleological arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the order in the universe; Part 3 deals with inductive evil arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the widespread and horrendous evil in the world; and Part 4 contains nonbelief arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the widespread nonbelief or the reasonable nonbelief in the world. The list of distinguished authors includes William Rowe, Theodore Drange, Quentin Smith, Victor Stenger, J. L. Schellenberg, and Michael Martin, among others. With this new anthology as a companion to their earlier anthology, The Impossibility of God (2003), Martin and Monnier have created an indispensable resource in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

In this commentary I attempt to extend the argument made by Atran and Norenzayan in two ways. First, I distinguish between the causes and the consequences of religious belief and speculate on the positive and negative consequences of religion. Second, I raise some questions about individual differences in religiosity and suggest that the origins of nonbelief are worth investigating.

Erasmus of Rotterdam was the greatest Christian humanist scholar of the Northern European Renaissance, a correspondent of Sir Thomas More and many other learned men of his time, known to his contemporaries and to posterity for subtlety of his thought and the depth of his learning. He was also, according to some modern writers, an anti-Semite. In this complete analysis of all of Erasmus' writings on Jews and Judaism, Shimon Markish asserts that the accusation cannot be sustained. For Markish, to (...) ask whether Erasmus was a friend or enemy of the Jews is to ask a modern question of a sixteenth-century man, whose attitude can best be called "asemitism." Erasmus' chief preoccupation was with the future of "the true philosophy of Christ"; he had little interest in the Jewish community of his own time. Erasmus and the Jews discusses Erasmus' critique of Mosaic law and his view of the conflict between "Judaism" as legalistic morality and Jesus' teaching; his judgment on the Pharisees of Jesus' time; his emphasis on the importance of the study of Hebrew; and his opinions of sixteenth-century Jews. This meticulous analysis reveals an Erasmus who defended his vision of true piety by rejecting "Judaizing" Christians more than Jews and who saw the Old Testament as integral to the Christian worldview. As a Christian, he regretted nonbelief and pitied unbelievers, without vicious hostility toward any single people. His theological opposition to a form of religious thought which he identified with Judaism was not translated into crude prejudice against actual Jews. In general, his calm consideration of the strange and the foreign and his willingness to restrict his judgments to the philosophical realm were, Markish argues, early and significant steps toward enlightened toleration. Markish's discussion of Erasmus is supplemented with an Afterword by theologian and philosopher Arthur A. Cohen, who offers a variant interpretation of Erasmus' writings and attitudes. The juxtaposed arguments of the two scholars make this an especially illuminating work for any student of Erasmus and his influence. Erasmus and the Jews also gives a necessary clarity to our understanding of the meaning of anti-Semitism and the history of religious toleration. Markish's profound knowledge of Erasmus allows him to demonstrate the fundamental importance of putting arguments and terminology in the context of a thinker's work and his own time. (shrink)