This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on divine hiddenness and divine inscrutability. I argue that theism is trapped between two opposite poles. On one end, we encounter an argument developed by John Schellenberg. God is understood as a being who, in virtue of God's (...) perfect love, would have relationship with any of Her creatures who are open to loving relationship with God. If so, we would not expect there to exist non-resistant non-believers. Yet there are non-resistant non-believers. So, this sort of God does not exist. On the other pole, God is completely incomprehensible. But if God is incomprehensible, then this leads to a series of theological problems. For example, if God is incomprehensible, then it is difficult to understand how any human could rationally endorse God's existence. I argue that both poles are problematic for the theist and that it is difficult to see how to construct a road through the middle that would not inherit the problems of either pole. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness discussed among both theist and non- theist circles. From an atheistic perspective the existence of people who are sincerely looking for God but cannot reach Him is a supportive point for atheism. On the other side, same problem supports agnosticism since there are equal evidence from both side for the existence of God from an agnostic perspective. The theists who are belonging to different religion have tried to find some solutions to (...) this problem. For instance; there is a theistic understanding which claims hiddenness of God provides us freedom to believe and another one says it is the only way to have personal relationship with God. A different position brings solution from the Jewish idea that chosen people of God. In this article, I have evaluated those different approaches. In the first section, I have indicated that there is no agreement on the implication of divine hiddenness problem even amongst non-theistic positions by shortly introducing atheistic and agnostic approaches. In the second section, I dealt with theistic approaches and the problems that they produced while trying to provide a solution to the problem. After an inquiry on how we are supposed to understand hiddenness, I have tried to show the problem has nothing new since premises of the divine hiddenness problem are not verifiable by everyone. As a conclusion I have offered postponing the divine hiddenness problem and discussing existence of God on a rational ground by presenting a counterargument. (shrink)

A critique of J. L. Schellenberg's argument from Divine Hiddenness: Schellenberg's conclusion that since apparently there are 'capable inculpable non-believers in God' the cognitive problem of divine hiddenness is actually an argument for the non-existence of God. Schellenberg's conclusion seems at least partly based on his misunderstanding or disregard of significant aspects of the Judeo-Christian tradition and certain assumptions, especially regarding nature of religious belief as well as primacy and instrumentality of reason. I suggest (...) that given the kind of God proposed by the Judeo-Christian tradition it is not necessary that reasonable non-belief in His existence be impossible; moreover it may even be the case that possibility of reasonable non-belief is necessary given the nature and purposes of God as proposed by the Judeo-Christian tradition. (shrink)

I present three versions of the argument from divine hiddenness that are grounded in moral considerations regarding how a just deity would act and auxiliary commitments that theists often have. First, I argue that the problem of hiddenness is made worse if one also holds that many will suffer in the afterlife due to not achieving a proper orientation towards God and the demands of morality in this life. Second, I argue that if any version of (...) the moral argument for theism is successful, then God has a very good reason to not remain hidden. Third, I argue that a just God would not allow people to do evil in her name. (shrink)

In an important discussion of the problem of hiddenness, Michael Rea briefly presents and defends an argument from divine hiddenness which he thinks encapsulates the problem of divine hiddenness, and then develops a detailed and nuanced response to this argument. Importantly, Rea claims that his response does not depend on the commonly held theistic view that God allows hiddenness to secure human goods. In this paper I offer a detailed criticism of Rea’s (...) account of what justifies God in allowing divine hiddenness, arguing that Rea’s response to the argument from divine hiddenness is unsuccessful. (shrink)

In 1993, for the first time, John L. Schellenberg, the contemporary philosopher of religion, proposed the “Hiddenness Argument’’. According to this argument, as God doesn’t provide for many people sufficient evidence for His existence, He is Hidden. In the other words, 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. This paper argues that his defense of two controversial premises of his argument is unsuccessful: one is that God’s love is incompatible with His allowing some to remain in doubt in His existence, and the other is: the nonbelief of some agnostics is inculpable. Theistic Religions have plausible reasons, which Schellenberg has not succeeded in refuting, for thinking that all nonbelief is culpable. (shrink)

Many people do not know or believe there is a God, and many experience a sense of divine absence. Are these (and other) “divine hiddenness” facts evidence against the existence of God? Using Bayesian tools, we investigate *evidential arguments from divine hiddenness*, and respond to two objections to such arguments. The first objection says that the problem of hiddenness is just a special case of the problem of evil, and so if one (...) has responded to the problem of evil then hiddenness has no additional bite. The second objection says that, while hiddenness may be evidence against generic theism, it is not evidence against more specific conceptions of God, and thus hiddenness poses no epistemic challenge to a theist who holds one of these more specific conceptions. Our investigation leaves open just how strong the evidence from hiddenness really is, but we aim to clear away some important reasons for thinking hiddenness is of no evidential significance at all. (shrink)

The problem of Divine hiddenness, or the hiddenness problem, is more and more commonly being treated as independent of the problem of evil, and as rivalling the latter in significance. Are we in error if we acquiesce in these tendencies? Only a careful investigation into relations between the hiddenness problem and the problem of evil can help us see. Such an investigation is undertaken here. What we will find is that when (...) certain knots threatening to hamper intellectual movement are unravelled, the hiddenness problem emerges as a contender in its own right—one that may generate serious difficulties for theism regardless of conclusions drawn concerning the force of the problem of evil. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that J. L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness Argument is committed to a problematic implication that is weakened by research in cognitive psychology on affective forecasting. Schellenberg’s notion of a nonresistant nonbeliever logically implies that for any such person, it is true that she would form the proper belief in God if provided with what he calls “probabilifying” evidence for God’s existence. In light of Schellenberg’s commitment to the importance of both affective and propositional (...) belief components for entering into the proper relationship with God, this implication of his argument becomes an affective prediction or forecast. However, research in cognitive psychology has shown that in multiple and varied circumstances humans often make inaccurate predictions of their future affective states or reactions. Thus, this research provides strong empirical reasons to doubt that the implication is warranted. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop and respond to a novel objection to Conciliatory Views of disagreement. Having first explained Conciliationism and the problem of divine hiddenness, I develop an objection that Conciliationism exacerbates the problem of divine hiddenness. According to this objection, Conciliationism increases God’s hiddenness in both its scope and severity, and is thus incompatible with God’s existence (or at least make God’s existence quite improbable). I respond to this objection by showing (...) that the problem of divine hiddenness is not made any worse by Conciliationism. (shrink)

Lougheed argues that a possible solution to the problem of divine hiddenness is that God hides in order to increase the axiological value of the world. In a world where God exists, the goods associated with theism necessarily obtain. But Lougheed also claims that in such a world it’s possible to experience the goods of atheism, even if they don’t actually obtain. This is what makes a world with a hidden God more valuable than a world where (...) God is unhidden, and also more valuable than an atheistic world with no God. We show that Lougheed never considers the comparison between a world where God hides and an atheistic world. We argue that it’s possible for a person to experience theistic goods in a world where God does not exist, a possibility Lougheed never considers. If this is right it undermines his axiological solution to divine hiddenness. We conclude by showing how our discussion of the axiology of theism connects to the existential question of whether God exists; that is, we show that the axiological question is dependent on the existential question. (shrink)

Divine intention is an important problem for both philosophy and Kalam. This problem has two aspects as the subject and action of the intention. The intention of the subject occurs for the motion or the action itself. The intention of the action is to reach the motion or the action itself. According to this, when a person travels to Mecca to visit Kaaba, the visit is the intention of the subject and the journey is the intention of (...) the action. In this context, does Allah have an intention? And what are the intentions of the actions aris-ing from him? In the Islamic philosophy, the first question is handled as "intention of the sub-ject/divine intention” and the second question as "the intention of the actions/divine inten-tion of the actions". In order to answer the first question, we must examine all types of inten-tions. Each subject takes action to benefit them, to benefit others and to act for the sake of the goodness and kindness. Allah would be dependent being if he acted to benefit him and to make up for a flaw for the first of these intentions. In the second intention type, if Allah acted for someone else, this sit-uation would be on the degree of cause for the subject and he would be passive. For the third intention type which is to act to reach for perfection, it would deem Allah as a dependent being. The above-mentioned intentions are flawed. On the contrary, Allah is perfect and does not need any of these intentions to create. Thus, he is not subject to any of these possible inten-tions. These intentions are only used by imperfect subjects. Of course, it does not mean that Allah does not have intentions. According to Avicenna and Mulla Sadra, intention of Allah is the love towards his essence which is free from any flaw. According to this, all beings are entailed to the divine essence and they exist due to the love of essence of Allah. Allah has a direct intention as well as an indirect one. As mentioned before, Allah is in love with his essence. Allah loves the works and actions of his essence as well, according to the principal that one, who loves the essence, loves the works and actions of that essence as well. In this context, the love of essence of the Allah is a direct intention, while the love of his es-sence's works and actions is an indirect intention. After the divine intention is explained, we must also explain the intention of the divine ac-tions. According to both Mulla Sadra and Avicenna, since possible beings are flawed, their intention is to reach to certain perfections which are compatible with themselves. Mulla Sadra states that Allah bestows motivation to possible beings to advance towards the perfection and he claims that these beings make use of that motivation to be perfect. Therefore, possible beings try to make up their flaws and reach to perfection. Since Allah is the absolute perfect being, the final intention of the possible beings is Allah. In other words, all beings that seek for perfection, take example of him. The other intentions act as a primary tool to reach the final intention. How can flawed beings by essence reach to perfections compatible with them? Avicenna and Mulla Sadra stated different opinions on the search of perfection of the flawed beings in the Islam philosophy. According to Avicenna, beings change with extinction and creation. This change happens by accident and the substance stays constant. In accordance with this approach, this change and development is only possible with accidental motion. It occurs with the replacement between forms. But the theory of the Avicenna has some flaws. Because forms are not the intentions of each other and first hyle is not strong enough to have an intention. Thus, no form is superior to the other. It is also not possible to have substance development because the substance and es-sence of the material are constant. It only goes through changes in appearance with the acci-dental motion. It is clear that the changes in the appearance and the shape are not standards for perfection. On the other hand, Mulla Sadra's development theory, which is based on the fundamentality of existence, existential gradation and substantial motion, suggests that the material world is moving towards the perfection. The motion in the substance of material beings is reason of substantial and accidental developments. All beings try to promote themselves to a higher position by reaching perfection in accordance with their intentions. Thus, the theory of Avicenna focuses on the accidental and formal changes in the search of perfection of the material beings, while Mulla Sadra’s theory explains accidental changes as well as the essential ones. Mulla Sadra does not limit the explanation of which Allah is the intention of possible beings to ontological dimension. According to him, Allah is an intention of possible beings as well. He points out the Hadith Qudsi "I was a hidden treasure, I desired to be recognized so I created the creature" and states that "This (Hadith Qudsi) indicates that he is the subject and the in-tention of the universe in an ontological manner as well as the intention of the universe in an epistemological manner." Thus, according to Mulla Sadra, possible beings have two inten-tions, to reach to and understand Allah. (shrink)

Do we rightly expect a perfectly loving God to bring it about that, right now, we reasonably believe that He exists? It seems so. For love at its best desires the well-being of the beloved, not from a distance, but up close, explicitly participating in her life in a personal fashion, allowing her to draw from that relationship what she may need to flourish. But why suppose that we would be significantly better off were God to engage in an explicit, (...) personal relationship with us? Well, first, there would be broadly moral benefits. We would be able to draw on the resources of that relationship to overcome seemingly everpresent flaws in our character. And we would be more likely to emulate the self-giving love with which we were loved. So loved, we would be more likely to flourish as human beings. Secondly, there would be experiential benefits. We would be, for example, more likely to experience peace and joy stemming from the strong conviction that we were properly related to our Maker, security in suffering knowing that, ultimately, all shall be well, and there would be the sheer pleasure of God's loving presence. As a consequence of these moral and experiential benefits, our relationships with others would likely improve. Thirdly, to be personally related to God is intrinsically valuable, indeed, according to the Christian tradition, the greatest intrinsic good. In these ways our well-being would be enhanced if God were to relate personally to us. Moreover, the best love does not seek a personal relationship only for the sake of the beloved. As Robert Adams rightly notes, "It is an abuse of the word 'love' to say that one loves a person, or any other object, if one does not care, except instrumentally, about one's relation to that object."1 Thus, God would want a personal relationship with us not only for the benefit we would receive from it but for its own sake as well. So, if a perfectly loving God exists, He wants a personal relationship with us, or more accurately, every capable creature, those cognitively and affectively equipped to relate personally with Him.. (shrink)

Arguments from divine hiddenness attempt to show that God, as understood by traditional Christianity, does not exist.Eleonore Stump has argued that, contrary to a key premise in such arguments, it is possible for God to have a personal relationship with human beings who do not believe that he exists. I describe Stump’s account of the will and describe its connection to her explanation of divine hiddenness. Specifically, I show that her account of the knowledge of persons (...) cannot solve the problem of divine hiddenness. I also argue that Stump’s account of the will commits her to the claim that lacking belief in God’s existence entails resistance to God’s grace. (shrink)

The axiological question in the philosophy of religion is the question of what impact, if any, God’s existence does make to the axiological value of our world. It has recently been argued that we should prefer a theistic world where God is hidden to an atheistic world or a theistic world where God isn’t hidden. This is because in a hidden theistic world all of the theistic goods obtain in addition to the experience of atheistic goods. I complete this line (...) of argument by showing that theistic goods do indeed obtain in a world where God hides. In doing so I indirectly argue against proponents of divine hiddenness arguments such as J.L. Schellenberg. The correct answer to the axiological question turns out to be a solution to the problem of divine hiddenness. (shrink)

The nineteenth century English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins struggled throughout his life with desolation over what he saw as a spiritually, intellectually and artistically unproductive life. During these periods, he experienced God’s absence in a particularly intense way. As he wrote in one sonnet, “my lament / Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent / To dearest him that lives alas! away.” What Hopkins faced was the existential problem of suffering and hiddenness, a problem widely (...) recognized by analytic philosophers to be left relatively untouched by conceptual explanations. In this essay, I argue that Hopkins’ poems themselves fill this gap left by conceptual approaches by articulating the existential crisis faced by those who feel the searing pain of suffering and the numbing, leaden echo of silence. His lyric speaks into existential suffering in ways akin to biblical laments and, as such, creates a space in which those who suffer can meet God, even if only to contend. Understood within Hopkins’ view of the incarnation and passion, these poems also suggest a way to identify with Christ in the experience of hiddenness, thereby making God present even in divine absence. (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)

This essay presents a point of view for looking at `free will', with the purpose of interpreting where exactly the freedom lies. For, freedom is what we mean by it. It compares the exercise of free will with the making of inferences, which usually is predominantly inductive in nature. The making of inference and the exercise of free will, both draw upon psychological resources that define our ‘selves’. I examine the constitution of the self of an individual, especially the involvement (...) of personal beliefs, personal memories, affects, emotions, and the hugely important psychological value-system, all of which distinguish the self of one individual from that of another. The foundational position that adopted in this essay is that all psychological processes are correlated with corresponding ones involving large scale neural aggregates in the brain, communicating with one another through wavelike modes of excitation and de-excitation. Of central relevance is the value-network around which the affect system is organized, the latter, in turn, being the axis around which is assembled the self, with all its emotional correlates. The self is a complex system. I include a brief outline of what complexity consists of. In reality all systems are complex, for complexity is ubiquitous, and certain parts of nature appear to us to be ‘simple’ only in certain specific contexts. It is in this background that the issue of determinism is viewed in this essay. Instead of looking at determinism as a grand principle entrenched in nature independent of our interpretation of it, I look at our ability to explain and to predict events and phenomena around us, which is made possible by the existence of causal links running in a complex course that set up correlations between diverse parts of nature, in this way putting the stamp of necessity on these events. However, the complexity of systems limits our ability to explain and to predict to within certain horizons defined by contexts. Our ability to explain and predict in matters relating to acts of free will is similarly limited by the operations of the self that remain hidden from our own awareness. The aspects of necessity and determinism appear to us in the form of reason and rationality that explain and predict only within a limited horizon, while the rest depends on the complex operation of self-linked psychological resources, where the latter appear as contingent in the context of the exercise of free will. The hallmark of complex systems is the existence of amplifying factors that operate as destabilizing ones, along with inhibiting or stabilizing factors as well that generally limit the destabilizing influences to local occurrences, while preserving the global integrity of a system. This complex interplay of destabilizing and stabilizing influences lead to the possibility of an enormous number of distinct modes of behavior that appear as emergent phenomena in complex systems. Looking at the particular case of the self of an individual that guide her actions and thoughts, it is the operation of our emotions, built around the psychological value-system, that provide for the amplifying and inhibiting factors mentioned above. The operation of these self-linked factors stamps our actions and thoughts as contingent ones that do not fit with our concepts of reason and rationality. And this is what provides the basis of our idea of free will. Free will is not ‘free’ in virtue of exemption from causal links running through all our self-based processes - ones that remain hidden from our awareness, but is free of what is perceived to be ‘reason and rationality’ based on knowledge and the common pool of beliefs and principles associated with a shared world-view. When we speak of the choice involved in an act of exercise of free will what we actually refer to is the commonly observed fact that various different individuals of a similar disposition respond differently when placed under similar circumstances. In other words, free will is ‘free’ precisely because it is not subject to constraints of a commonly accepted and shared set of principles, beliefs, and values. While it is possible that, in an exercise of free will, the self-linked psychological resources are brought into action when a number of alternatives are presented to the self by the operation of the ingredients of a commonly shared world-view, it seems likely that, that set of alternatives is not of primary relevance in the final response that the mind produces, since the latter is primarily a product of the operation of the self-based psychological resources. What is of greater relevance here is the operation of emotion-driven processes, guided by the psychological value-system based on the activity of the so-called reward-punishment network in the brain. These processes lead the individual to a response that appears to be free from the shackles of determinism precisely because their mechanisms, which are hidden from us, do not conform to commonly accepted and shared rules and principles. In contrast, inductive inference is a process that is based on the ‘cognitive face’ of self, where the self-based psychological resources play a supportive role to the commonly shared world-view of an individual. There is never any freedom from the all-pervading causal links representing correlations among all objects, entities, and events in nature. In the midst of all this, the closest thing to freedom that we can have in our life comes with self-examination and self-improvement. The possibility of self-examination appears in the form of specific conjunctions between our complex self-processes and the ceaseless changes of scenario in our external world. This actually makes the emergent phenomenon of self-examination a matter of chance, but one that keeps on appearing again and again in our life. Once realized, self examination creates possibilities that would not be there in the absence of it, and these possibilities include the enhancement of further self-enrichment and further diversity in the exercise of our free will. (shrink)

Although there has been little written to date that speaks directly to problems of religious luck, described in other terms these problems have a long history. Contemporary contributors to the literature have referred to “soteriological luck” (Anderson 2011) “salvific luck” (Davidson 1999) and “religious luck” (Zagzebski 1994). Using “religious” as the unifying term, Part I of this monograph begins with the need a more comprehensive taxonomy. Serious philosophic interest in moral and epistemic luck took hold only after comprehensive taxonomies for (...) those kinds of luck were introduced, but this has not yet been done for religious luck. Even if incomplete, the more comprehensive taxonomy, as introduced in Chapter One enables better diagnostic questions to be raised for researchers. Emerging questions about potentially ‘luck leaning’ attributions of good/bad religious luck, and of the possibility and desirability of “luck free theologies,” are questions which I hope to motivate as of central interest to researchers in philosophy of religion, both secular and religious. The taxonomy highlights why we should take two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — to be inextricably connected. The connection between attributing good/bad luck and violating inductive norms is easy to see upon reflection. One related distinction common in recent work on epistemic luck is that between benign evidential luck (‘benign’ because consistent with justified belief and knowledge), and malign (positive epistemic status undercutting) veritic luck. How, philosophically, this distinction should be understood is an especially acute problem when it comes to testimonial trust, and to intellectually virtuous or vicious ways of assessing testimonial claims, and sources of claims. So the chapter concludes with development of the case of Tess, as an example of testimonial environmental veritic luck. The Tess case is constructed to be formally analogous to the environmental veritic luck operating in fake barn cases (where visual perception rather than reception of testimony is the source of the agent’s belief). There does seem to be an intrinsic connection between epistemic assessment of the agent’s beliefs and the inductive context in which their own and their religious community’s inquiry takes place. This will allow for some potentially powerful thought experiments in successive chapters, about luck, risk, and questions of epistemic in/justice as they pertain to religious faith ventures. (shrink)

Drawing on the writings of the Jewish thinker, Abraham Joshua Heschel, I defend a partial response to the problem of divine hiddenness. A Jewish approach to divine love includes the thought that God desires meaningful relationship not only with individual persons, but also with communities of persons. In combination with John Schellenberg’s account of divine love, the admission of God’s desire for such relationships makes possible that a person may fail to believe that God exists (...) not because of any individual failing, but because the individual is a member of a larger community that itself is culpable. (shrink)

The paper discusses the issue of psychophysical agency in the context of Indian philosophy, focusing on the oldest preserved texts of the classical tradition of Sāṃkhya–Yoga. The author raises three major questions: What is action in terms of Sāṃkhyakārikā (ca. fifth century CE) and Yogasūtra (ca. third century CE)? Whose action is it, or what makes one an agent? What is a right and morally good action? The first part of the paper reconsiders a general idea of action – including (...) actions that are deliberately done and those that ‘merely’ happen – identified by Patañjali and Ῑśvarakṛṣṇa as a permanent change or transformation (pariṇāma) determined by the universal principle of causation (satkārya). Then, a threefold categorization of actions according to their causes is presented, i.e. internal agency (ādhyātmika), external agency (ādhibhautika) and ‘divine’ agency (ādhidaivika). The second part of the paper undertakes the problem of the agent’s autonomy and the doer’s psychophysical integrity. The main issues that are exposed in this context include the relationship between an agent and the agent’s capacity for perception and cognition, as well as the crucial Sāṃkhya–Yoga distinction between ‘a doer’ and ‘the self’. The agent’s self-awareness and his or her moral self-esteem are also briefly examined. Moreover, the efficiency of action in present and future is discussed (i.e. karman, karmāśaya, saṃskāra, vāsanā), along with the criteria of a right act accomplished through meditative insight (samādhi) and moral discipline (yama). (shrink)

Cognitive science of religion (CSR) raises a number of issues that are of interest to theologians and philosophers of religion. The latter have focused primarily on the epistemological implications of CSR, that is, whether science shows religious belief to be irrational or unjustified. Another broad question is whether CSR is compatible with theism and Christian theology. Theological doctrines, such as Calvin’s views about sensus divinitatis and the noetic effects of sin, play an important part in these conversations. Less attention (...) has been directed to how CSR can function as a source for theological and philosophical inquiry. So far, CSR has been invoked in discussions on the natural knowledge of God, classical theism and divine hiddenness. This article provides an overview of the recent philosophical and theological engagements with CSR. (shrink)

Theistic and analytic philosophers of religion typically privilege classical theism by ignoring or underestimating the great threat of alternative monotheisms. [1] In this article we discuss numerous god-models, such as those involving weak, stupid, evil, morally indifferent, and non-revelatory gods. We find that theistic philosophers have not successfully eliminated these and other possibilities, or argued for their relative improbability. In fact, based on current evidence – especially concerning the hiddenness of God and the gratuitous evils in the world – (...) many of these hypotheses appear to be more probable than theism. Also considering the – arguably infinite – number of alternative monotheisms, the inescapable conclusion is that theism is a very improbable god-concept, even when it is assumed that one and only one transcendent god exists. [1] I take ‘theism’ to mean ‘classical theism’, which is but one of many possible monotheisms. Avoiding much of the discussion around classical theism, I wish to focus on the challenges in arguing for theism over monotheistic alternatives. I consider theism and alternative monotheisms as entailing the notion of divine transcendence. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg has recently argued that there is a logical incompatibility between God’s being perfectly loving and there being non-resistant nonbelievers in the proposition that God exists. In this paper I highlight the parallel between this claim and the claim made by the logical problem of evil. Following Plantinga’s strategy in undermining the logical problem of evil, I argue that all that is needed to undermine the alleged incompatibility of divine love with non-resistant non-belief is a (...) counterexample showing how the two might possibly co-exist. But whereas most attempts to show this have been grounded anthropologically, by drawing on forms of love-relationship that God and humans have in common, I offer a defense of the compatibility of perfect divine love with human non-resistant non-belief in God’s existence grounded theologically, in the unique sort of love relationship that God wants with us, which is the relationship of “imaging.”. (shrink)

We provide a cognitive analysis of how children represent belief using mental files. We explain why children who pass the false belief test are not aware of the intensionality of belief. Fifty-one 3½- to 7-year old children were familiarized with a dual object, e.g., a ball that rattles and is described as a rattle. They observed how a puppet agent witnessed the ball being put into box 1. In the agent’s absence the ball was taken from box 1, the (...) child was reminded of it being a rattle, and emphasising its being a rattle it was put back into box 1. Then the agent returned, the object was hidden in the experimenter’s hands and removed from box 1, described as a ‘‘rattle,” and transferred to box 2. Children who passed false belief had no problem saying where the puppet would look for the ball. However, in a different condition in which the agent was also shown that the ball was a rattle they erroneously said that the agent would look for the ball in box 1, ignoring the agent’s knowledge of the identity of rattle and ball. Their problems cease with their mastery of second-order beliefs. Problems also vanish when the ball is described not as a rattle but as a thing that rattles. We describe how our theory can account for these data as well as all other relevant data in the literature. (shrink)

I develop two problems, which I call the problem of divine location and the problem of divine age, to challenge the theist belief that God created the universe. The problem of divine location holds that it is not clear where God existed before he created the universe. The problem of divine age holds that it is not clear how old God was when he created the universe. I explore several theist responses to (...) these two problems, and argue that all of them are problematic under the existing conceptions of space and time in physics. The philosophical magnitudes of these two problems are equal to that of the problem of evil. (shrink)

The suppression thesis is the theological claim that theistic non-belief results from culpable mistreatment of one’s knowledge of God or one’s evidence for God. The thesis is a traditional one but unpopular today. This article examines whether it can gain new credibility from the philosophy of self-deception and from the cognitive science of religion. The thesis is analysed in terms of the intentionalist and the non-intentionalist model of self-deception. The first proposed model views non-belief as intentional suppression of one’s (...) implicit knowledge of God. It is less feasible psychologically but has a good theological fit with Paul’s and Calvin’s versions of the thesis. This model also helps the argument for the culpability of non-belief. The second model views suppression as a process of subconscious motivated reasoning driven by a desire to avoid an uncomfortable truth. It fits Pascal’s view that one’s desire for or against God determines whether one sees general revelation as providing sufficient evidence for God. There is some empirical and anecdotal evidence for both models, but obvious cases of non-resistant non-belief present a major problem for the suppression thesis. Also, it is hard to see what might motivate anyone to deceive oneself about God’s existence. (shrink)

In this chapter: I distinguish the existential problem of divine hiddenness from the evidential problem of divine hiddenness. The former being primarily concerned with the apparent hiddenness of a personal God in the lives of believers amidst terrible suffering. The latter being primarily concerned with the apparent hiddenness of God being evidence against God’s existence. In the first section, I highlight the basic contours of the evidential problem of divine (...) class='Hi'>hiddenness, and suggested that the argument rests on two important assumptions: the perfectly loving assumption and the no-fault assumption. In the second section, a few possible responses to the evidential problem of divine hiddenness were considered, which center on rejecting either the perfectly loving assumption or the no-fault assumption. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is no problem of Divine Hiddenness for Christians and offer an alternate explanation for the widespread claim that God's existence is hidden based on the Christian doctrine of Original Sin.

A Blueprint for the Hard Problem of Consciousness addresses the fundamental mechanism that allows physical events to transcend into subjective experiences, termed the Hard Problem of Consciousness. -/- Consciousness is made available as the abstract product of self-referent realization of information by strange loops through the levels of processing of the brain. Readers are introduced to the concept of the Hard Problem of Consciousness and related concepts followed by a critical discourse of different theories of consciousness. -/- (...) Next, the author identifies the fundamental flaw of the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and proposes an alternative that avoids the cryptic intelligent design and panpsychism of the IIT. This author also demonstrates how something can be created out of nothing without resorting to quantum theory, while pointing out neurobiological alternatives to the bottom-up approach of quantum theories of consciousness. -/- The book then delves into the philosophy of qualia in different physiological knowledge networks (spatial, temporal and olfactory, cortical signals, for example) to explain an action-based model consistent with the generational principles of Predictive Coding, which maps prediction and predictive-error signals for perceptual representations supporting integrated goal-directed behaviors. Conscious experiences are considered the outcome of abstractions realized out of map overlays and provided by sustained oscillatory activity. -/- The key feature of this blueprint is that it offers a perspective of the Hard Problem of Consciousness from the point of view of the subject; the experience of ‘being the subject’ is predicted to be the realization of inference inversely mapped out of hidden causes of global integrated actions. -/- The author explains the consistencies of his blueprint with ideas of the Global Neuronal Workspace and the Adaptive Resonance Theory of consciousness as well as with the empirical evidence supporting the Integrated Information Theory. A Blueprint for the Hard Problem of Consciousness offers a unique perspective to readers interested in the scientific philosophy and cognitive neuroscience theory in relation to models of the theory of consciousness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Exaltation views’ of humility are grounded on a kenotic view of humility, such that divine blessing comes proportionate to the extent to which an agent humbles herself. This article rejects exaltation views of humility which define humility kenotically, justify their arguments from a divine hiddenness perspective, and which conclude that divine concurrence with evil is justified as long as all humble believers eventually are exalted and blessed. Rather, I will contend that exaltation views misunderstand the meaning (...) of both ‘humility’ and ‘exaltation,’ even from their own Christian standpoint. I ultimately offer an alternate response to the problem of evil based on an existentially grounded conception of ‘humility’, which provides for a transmuted turn away from individual kenotic acts and toward community to transform those who suffer from atrocities. (shrink)

The success of the atheistic hiddenness argument depends on the “consciousness constraint” it imposes on the divine-human loving relationship: namely, that this relationship requires human conscious awareness of being in the relationship with God. I challenge the truth of this proposition by introducing the concept of a physical relationship with God that is not subject to this constraint. I argue, first, that a physical relationship with God is metaphysically possible; second, that its plausibility is supported by natural theology; (...) and third, that a perfectly loving God would prefer physical relationships with human beings over consciousness-constrained relationships, because a perfectly loving God would prefer to preserve the integrity of human freedom of participation and allow inclusion of all people regardless of their natural cognitive capabilities. I also offer an interpretation of apparent divine hiddenness in the light of the idea of God’s openness for physical relationships. (shrink)

Gwen Bradford has plausibly argued that one attains achievement only if one does something one finds difficult. It is also plausible that one must attain achievement to be worthy of “agential” praise, praise that is appropriately directed to someone on the basis of things that redound to their credit. These claims pose a challenge to classical theists who direct agential praise to God, since classical theism arguably entails that none of God’s actions are difficult for God. I consider responses to (...) this challenge and commend a view accord- ing to which God’s loving character is not necessitated by God’s nature but is a contingent and difficult achievement. I argue that this view can still satisfy the explanatory ambitions of natural theology. (shrink)

Peter de Rivo (b. ca. 1420), argues for the existence of human freedom despite its alleged incompatibility with the truth of future contingent propositions. Rivo’s solution doesn’t follow the common medieval attempt to dissolve the alleged incompatibility, but claims that future contingent propositions aren’t determinately true. This approach troubled Rivo’s contemporaries, who thought it was incompatible with biblical infallibility, particularly the veracity of prophetic statements. Rivo tries to reconcile his solution with orthodox Christianity by grounding authentic prophetic statements in God’s (...) cognition of future events. In the end, Rivo’s attempted reconciliation fails because grounding the truth of prophetic statements in God cognition is incompatible either with his theological assumptions or his conception of free action. (shrink)

John Schellenberg’s version of the divine hiddenness argument is based on a concept of God as an omnipotent, morally perfect, and ontologically perfect being. I show that Schellenberg develops his argument in a way that is inconsistent with each of these aspects, from which it follows that the argument in question proves to be unsustainable.

According to cognitive science of religion (CSR) people naturally veer toward beliefs that are quite divergent from Anselmian monotheism or Christian theism. Some authors have taken this view as a starting point for a debunking argument against religion, while others have tried to vindicate Christian theism by appeal to the noetic effects of sin or the Fall. In this paper, we ask what theologians can learn from CSR about the nature of the divine, by looking at the CSR (...) literature and what it identifies as commonalities across religions. We use a pluralist, non-confessional approach to outline properties of the divine. We connect our approach to Hick’s religious pluralism, Ramakrishna’s realization of God through multiple spiritual paths, and Gellman’s inexhaustible plenitude. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg claims that the weakness of evidence for God’s existence is not merely a sign that God is hidden, “it is a revelation that God does not exist.” In Divine Hiddenness : New Essays, Michael J. Murray provides a “soul-making” defense of God’s hiddenness, arguing that if God were not hidden, then some of us would lose what many theists deem a good thing: the ability to develop morally significant characters. In this paper, I argue (...) that Murray’s soul-making defense not only fails to defend God’s hiddenness, it produces an argument for the nonexistence of God. (shrink)

In the present article, he explains why divine silence poses a serious intellectual obstacle to belief in God, and then goes on to consider ways of overcoming that obstacle. After considering several ways in which divine silence might actually be beneficial to human beings, he argues that perhaps silence is nothing more or less than God’s preferred mode of interaction with creatures like us. Perhaps God simply desires communion rather than overt communication with human beings, and perhaps God (...) has provided ways for us to experience God’s presence richly even amidst the silence. (shrink)

This article argues that the Indian philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo espoused a sophisticated form of cosmopsychism that has great contemporary relevance. After first discussing Aurobindo’s prescient reflections on the “central problem of consciousness” and his arguments against materialist reductionism, I explain how he developed a panentheistic philosophy of “realistic Adwaita” on the basis of his own spiritual experiences and his intensive study of the Vedāntic scriptures. He derived from this realistic Advaita philosophy a highly original doctrine of evolutionary cosmopsychism, according (...) to which the Divine Saccidānanda is “involved” in everything in the universe and gradually manifests itself at each stage of the evolutionary process from matter to life to mind, and ultimately, to Supermind—the final stage that is yet to come, upon the attainment of which we will attain knowledge of our true divine nature as Saccidānanda. I then reconstruct Aurobindo’s novel solution to the individuation problem, according to which the Divine Saccidānanda individuates into various distinct consciousnesses by playfully limiting itself through a process of “exclusive concentration.” Finally, I highlight the continued relevance of Aurobindo’s evolutionary cosmopsychism by bringing him into conversation with Itay Shani, a contemporary proponent of cosmopsychism. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of the divine light in the mystical works of St Symeon the New Theologian in the context of the Eastern Christian ascetical tradition. The author focuses on the passages referring to the divine light in the works of Evagrios Pontikos, St Isaac the Syrian, St Maximus the Confessor, and in the Makarian corpus. As is shown in the present contribution, none of these authors created a fully-developed theory of the vision of (...) the divine light. Being close to these writers in many ideas, St Symeon was generally independent of any of them in his treatment of the theme of vision of light, always basing himself primarily upon his own experience. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose two arguments from Thomas Aquinas’s reflection on theism and faith to rebut Schellenberg’s claim that divine hiddenness justifies atheism. One of those arguments, however, may be employed so as to re-propose Schellenberg’s conviction, which is crucial to his argument, that there are ‘non-resistant’ or ‘inculpable’ unbelievers. I then advance what I call the suffering unbeliever argument. In short, the unbelievers mentioned by Schellenberg are expected to suffer because of their non-belief, which—as Schellenberg says—prevents (...) them from achieving the greatest possible well-being. If they suffer, however, they cannot consider themselves unbelievers, since one cannot suffer from not having been given a certain good if one believes that the good in question has never existed. If they do not suffer, on the other hand, there is simply nothing for which they can consider themselves inculpable. (shrink)

J.L. Schellenberg argues that divine hiddenness provides an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist, for if God existed he would not allow non-resistant non-belief to occur, but non-resistant non-belief does occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I argue that the stakes involved in theistic considerations put pressure on Schellenberg’s premise that non-resistant non-belief occurs. First, I specify conditions for someone’s being a resistant non-believer. Then, I argue that many people fulfill these conditions (...) because, given some plausible assumptions, there is a very good pragmatic reason to be a theist rather than an atheist. I assume it is more likely that theists go to heaven than atheists, and I argue there is a non-zero probability that one can receive infinite utility and a method of comparing outcomes with infinite utilities in which the probability of each outcome affects the final expected values. Then, I show how this argument entails there is no good reason to think that there are very many non-resistant non-believers. (shrink)

In this paper, I engage in a preliminary discussion to the thorny problem of analogous naming in Aquinas; namely, the Maimonidean problem of how ourconceptual content can relate to us any knowledge of God. I identify this problem as the First Semantic/Epistemic Problem (FSEP) of religious language. Theprimary determination of semantic content for Aquinas is what I call the Aristotelian Epistemic Principle (AEP). This principle holds that a belief is related tosome experience in order to be (...) known. I show how an examination of the extent the AEP engenders the problem and allows us to find a way out of the FSEP. Forexample, through such an analysis, we can see how the AEP relates to Aquinas’s use of the distinction between the res significata and the modus significandi; the latter which includes the intension of being a created being where the former does not. (shrink)

The problem of imaginative resistance holds interest for aestheticians, literary theorists, ethicists, philosophers of mind, and epistemologists. We present a somewhat opinionated overview of the philosophical discussion to date. We begin by introducing the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. We then review existing responses to the problem, giving special attention to recent research directions. Finally, we consider the philosophical significance that imaginative resistance has—or, at least, is alleged to have—for issues in moral psychology, theories of cognitive architecture, and (...) modal epistemology. (shrink)

Although the free-will reply to divine hiddenness is often associated with Kant, the argument typically presented in the literature is not the strongest Kantian response. Kant’s central claim is not that knowledge of God would preclude the possibility of transgression, but rather that it would preclude one’s viewing adherence to the moral law as a genuine sacrifice of self-interest. After explaining why the Kantian reply to hiddenness is superior to standard formulations, I argue that, despite Kant’s general (...) skepticism about theodicy, his insights pertaining to hiddenness also provide the foundation for a new theodicy that merits serious attention. (shrink)

Recent epistemology offers an account of what it is to know other persons. Such views hold promise for illuminating several issues in philosophy of religion, and for advancing a distinctive approach to religious epistemology. This paper develops an account of interpersonal knowledge, and clarifies its relation to propositional and qualitative knowledge. I then turn to our knowledge of God and God's knowledge of us, and compare my account of interpersonal knowledge with important work by Eleonore Stump on "Franciscan" knowledge. I (...) examine how interpersonal knowledge may figure in liturgical practice, in diffusing the problem of divine hiddenness, and in motivating a novel understanding of divine love. I also explore the possibility of epistemic injustice arising from dismissal or neglect of our religious testimony to one another, or of divine testimony to humanity, focusing specifically on the import of interpersonal knowledge. (shrink)

Recent works in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences draw an “unconventional” picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, some contemporary theories claim that cognition is a situated process that encompasses the human agent’s boundaries. In particular, the Extended Mind Hypothesis (EMH) and the Enactive approach to cognition claim that embodied action is constitutive of cognitive (...) processes, and thus of the mind. Although both theories give an “extended” or “extensive” picture of cognition and of the mind, they disagree on the epistemic value of internal representations. The EMH claims that we need to posit internal action- oriented representations (AORs). AORs would account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. The enactive approach to cognition argues against AORs. The concept of AOR does not fulfill the representational conditions necessary to talk about representations properly. Furthermore, AORs are expressive of an internalistic prejudice, which makes the EMH weak. Moreover, a semiotic analysis of AORs shows that these items called “representations” are not active at all. Therefore, the epistemic posit of AOR plays no interesting job in the project of extending the mind in virtue of a reassessment of the concept of representation aimed at making it embodied and active. Therefore I claim that the concept of AOR has to be rejected. Action- control, action-selection, and the anticipation of aspects of action-perception loops can be explained in a more enactive way. Embodied action in a field of affordances explains how agents respond selectively to environmental features and how action-perception loops are anticipated by the “affective agent”. Furthermore, the enactive approach to cognition - especially if coupled with a semiotic description of cognitive niches and with some insights from the affective sciences (e.g. appraisal of core relational themes) - gives an explanation of action that, in contrast to the EMH, is actually able to “extend the mind”. (shrink)

John Schellenberg has advanced the hiddenness argument against God’s existence, based on the idea that an all-loving God would seek personal relationships. This paper develops a reply to Schellenberg’s argument by examining the notion of moral impurity, as understood by Paul the Apostle. Paul conceptualized moral impurity as a causal state that transfers from person to person, like a contagious disease. He also believed that moral impurity precludes divine-human relationship. The goal of this paper is to develop these (...) ideas into a problem for one Schellenberg’s key premises. (shrink)

The problem of cognitive domains is that one can conceive the territory only as it is portrayed in the map. It involves conflating the domain of representation with the domain of what it represents. This is a category mistake: there are essential qualitative and quantitative differences between map and territory. The output of cognitive processes, both perceptual and scientific, is recycled as the input.