Is the absence of evidence an evidence for absence? Over the years, this question has troubled not only philosophers who specialize in epistemology but also those who dabble in philosophy of religion which deals with the existence of God where this problem came to be known as divine hiddenness. Religious believers will often deny the question by saying that just because the evidence for God is not apparent does not mean he does not exist. They also further argue that faith will lose its significant value or purpose if God made himself obviously revealed and that he is excused to conceal his existence for purposes we cannot fully comprehend. On the contrary, contemporary philosopher, John Schellenberg argues in his work, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason, that the very fact that God is hidden is evidence or justification that God does not exist.
Before we begin, divine hiddenness can be interpreted in one of three ways – namely, that 1) God’s nature is incomprehensible, 2) it’s difficult to point how exact God works in the world, or 3) that God has deliberately or intentionally obscured his existence. For the purposes of this article, we shall only use the third sense – that it is not obvious that God exists and there is a lack of evidence for his reality or that he perhaps hid himself from us. However, Schellenberg argues that divine hiddenness is incompatible with the idea of a morally perfect or perfectly loving God, especially if we consider the fact that disbelief is not the non-believer’s fault:
The Argument
1. If God exists, God is perfectly loving.
1.1 A perfectly loving God is always open to relationship with every finite person.
1.2 Being in a relationship with God requires believing that God exists.
1.3 Therefore, a perfectly loving God would ensure that any person willing to relate to Him could believe in His existence.
2. Hence, if God is perfectly loving, there should be no non-resistant non-believers.
3. But there are non-resistant non-believers.
4. Therefore, God is not perfectly loving.
5. Therefore, God does not exist.
According to Schellenberg, if God exists then he is perfectly loving. We’re talking about a maximally great being and most theologians would agree that this being must possess the highest degree possible in all aspects and capacities we would understand to be ‘good’, which includes moral perfection or possessing love/justice in its highest form. However, this of course, is an assumption and it does not rule out the possibility of a god who is completely evil.
If God is perfectly loving, then disbelief (that again, is not the non-believer’s fault) should not occur. A perfectly loving God would ensure that every person has an equal opportunity to know that he exists and would not allow anyone willing to relate to him to remain unable to believe. Schellenberg does not say that the evidence for God should be undeniably obvious but rather that it must be sufficient to cause and produce indubitable conviction that leads to belief. The point is simple: we cannot have a romantic relationship with someone we do not know exists. Likewise, we cannot be in a relationship with a being whose existence remains unknown. Since a perfectly loving God is always open to a relationship with every finite person, he would ensure that anyone genuinely willing to relate to him could believe that he exists. Being in an authentic relationship with God requires believing that God exists. Hence, if God exists, there should be no blameless, non-resistant non-believers.
But, that is precisely what we find: non-resistant blameless non-belief exists. Schellenberg asks us to imagine three scenarios. First, God exists and everyone believes, so there is no divine hiddenness. Second, God exists, but all non-believers reject God due to resistance or self-deception; thus, any hiddenness is self-imposed rather than caused by God. Third, God exists, yet alongside resistant non-believers are non-resistant non-believers – those who sincerely seek the truth but remain unconvinced by the evidence. It is this third scenario, where honest non-belief exists despite openness to God, that gives rise to the problem of divine hiddenness. Their non-belief is not caused by any resistance to God or to a relationship with God. Rather, it is the result of their sincere assessment of the evidence. In fact, other than the scarcity or insufficiency of evidence which is outside the atheist’s control, there are many other cases in which non-belief is not the fault of the non-believer.
In an article written by Jason Megill and Daniel Linford, they have presented five cases of blameless non-belief. One is based on Hume’s argument that the concept of a transcendent God (invisible, beyond imagination and sensory experience, and barely understandable) is too distant from human experience to naturally become an object of belief, therefore, not believing in God is not their fault. Two, belief is heavily influenced by geography. If one is born in India, he is likely to become Hindu; in Thailand, he is Buddhist; in Greece, he is Orthodox; in Israel, he is most likely Jewish; in Scotland, most likely atheist. Again, unbelief of another religion is outside their control. Three, monotheism is relatively recent. For most of human history, nobody even knew about Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. People born before monotheism did not have the opportunity to be monotheists for which they cannot reasonably be blamed. Four, modern psychology suggests belief partly depends on the ability to attribute minds and intentions to others. Hence, autistic people often have reduced agency detection in which they are statistically less likely to become theists which isn’t their fault. Finally, they also argue that people come to God partly through conscience. Psychopaths often lack empathy or normal guilt. So, if conscience is one path toward God, psychopaths lack such a path which is not their choice. To end with, Linford established that if God is just, he would not deny essential goods (salvation, meaning, morality, heaven) to people for something outside their control or make belief in Him a necessary condition for receiving such goods. One thing in common with all these five cases is that their disbelief is not their fault.
From this, I see that Linford’s work implies the idea that If God denies these essential goods because of non-belief, especially considering that it is not the non-believer’s fault and outside their control, then he is not perfectly loving. I would also like to add that it is also not becoming of a god who claims to be perfectly loving to send people to hell for eternity for something as naïve as disbelief or not knowing him in the same manner that we do not murder people simply because they do not happen to know us.
Believers cannot simply accuse non-believers of rejecting God because they want to be atheists. Belief does not work that way. Yes, belief involves choice but only to a certain extent. We can choose whether to investigate, question, or remain open-minded. What we cannot simply choose is to genuinely believe something merely because we want to. If belief were nothing more than a voluntary decision, it would amount to little more than adopting a favorable attitude toward an idea. Belief is also involuntary. It is determined by what we find reasonable and what evidence is available to support that belief – especially if we accept that it is both morally and epistemically wrong to believe something without sufficient evidence. That is why the accusation is ironic. It often comes from those whose own belief ultimately rests on a leap of faith by assuming certainty where the evidence itself does not compel it. Since blameless and non-resistant disbelief exists and is permitted by what the major religions claim to be a perfectly loving God, it follows that such a God simply does not exist. The evidence for nothingness is nothing itself.
Perhaps God is not hiding at all. Rather, there is no God there to be hidden in the first place.
Sources:
Schellenberg. John., Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (New York: Cornell University Press, 2006).
Megill, Jason., and Linford, Daniel., On the Unimportance of Theistic Belief, Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism 25.2 (2017): 1-21, https://doi.org/10.1558/eph.XXXXX
