J.L. Schellenberg, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy’s New Challenge to Belief in God (Oxford University Press, 2015).
The writer of Ecclesiastes famously opined, “There is nothing new under the sun.” It’s a sentiment that might seem at times to characterize the field of philosophy of religion. To be sure, there are new advances, but new arguments for or against God? Now that’s a rare thing indeed.
And yet, just over twenty years ago Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg did develop a novel argument against God’s existence. Commonly called “the divine hiddenness” argument (though Schellenberg prefers the simpler moniker “the hiddenness argument”), the core datum is surprisingly simple: “the existence of God invites our belief less strongly than it would in a world created by God.” (vii) Based on this feature of the world — the apparent hiddenness of God — Schellenberg argues that God does not exist.
Schellenberg initially developed this argument in his 1993 monograph Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Since then, the hiddenness argument has spawned a voluminous literature, a clear indicator that it has caught the imagination of atheist and theist alike.
The Argument
Now Schellenberg has written an accessible introduction to his argument and the wider debate it has spawned. While The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy’s new challenge to belief in God is intended for a general readership, Schellenberg does not sacrifice rigor or precision on the altar of accessibility.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about the argument.
Chapter 1 begins with “Some Basic Tools” to orient the non-philosopher to the field. For example an “argument” is a piece of reasoning: “Not that philosophers don’t ever fight and have arguments. But they’re supposed to avoid this by giving arguments–careful reasoning for their point of view….” (2) Schellenberg goes on to discuss the importance of validity (logical form, including modus ponens and modus tollens) and soundness (truth). This material may seem rather basic for some, but there is an economy and clarity in Schellenberg’s writing that makes this fruitful material even for the philosopher who can discover precise new ways to convey basic concepts. If his classroom is anything like his book, Schellenberg must be a great teacher.
In chapter 2 Schellenberg lays out a “conceptual map” for the book that focuses on two concepts: hiddenness and ultimism. Schellenberg acknowledges that the term “hiddenness” is potentially misleading in that “what’s hidden exists.” (14) Thus, the concept might seem to presuppose theism. The real question is whether the apparent hiddenness of God is best interpreted as God actually hiding or whether, in fact, it supports the conclusion that God doesn’t exist.
And what of ultimism? Schellenberg explains:
“Ultimism … is the general claim that there is a reality ultimate in three ways: in the nature of things (metaphysically), in inherent value (axiologically), and in its importance for our lives (soteriologically). And that’s all it says….” (18)
Ultimism concerns the most basic or fundamental facts of reality as regards these three areas. Western monotheism presents one theory of ultimism, namely one which seeks to ground the nature of things, inherent value, and salvific significance in the nature of an absolute personal being. But there are other ultimist theories. Thus, the theistic question is whether the ultimate reality is best explained in terms of a personal being.
As an aside, Schellenberg’s concept of ultimism is very helpful and I wish more Christian apologists would come to terms with it. How common it is to find Christian apologists assuming that atheism is committed to nihilism or some other bleak view of the world. But atheists are free to pursue impersonal ultimist theories as surely as theists pursue personal ultimist theories.
In chapter 3, aptly titled “Why so late to the show?” Schellenberg considers why the hiddenness argument was not developed prior to his ground-breaking work. Schellenberg includes an interesting survey of anticipations of his argument in intellectual history and also discusses the relationship between hiddenness and the problem of evil. As he notes, these problems need to be distinguished. While suffering is a problem (i.e. a state of disvalue) whether God exists or not, the same is not true of nonbelief in God, for this is only a problem if God does exist: “The hiddenness argument in its very specific emphasis on nonbelief doesn’t require nonbelief to be bad at all.” (31)
Schellenberg begins to unpack the argument in chapter 4. He starts with some personal background, noting how he grew up in a Christian home on the Canadian prairies where atheism was all but unthinkable (35). Eventually, questions began to present themselves as young Schellenberg wrestled with the apparent religious ambiguity of the world. As a Christian he was faced with the fact that “honest doubt about God is possible.” (37) But this didn’t seem to make sense. If God desired to share with his creatures “a conscious, interactive, and positively meaningful relationship” (38), why would God leave room for doubt about his very existence? These troubling observations gradually formed into the kernel of a skeptical argument:
“If there was good reason for God to prevent religious ambiguity, then this very evidential situation might be disambiguating, showing that all things considered–that is, with the fact of ambiguity included in the evidence–the world wasn’t religiously ambiguous but instead spoke clearly against the existence of God.” (37)
To be sure, Schellenberg wasn’t naively assuming that God is obliged to behave like the overbearing aunt at Thanksgiving dinner who pinches your cheeks before enveloping you in a bear hug. In other words, God may very well remain at some distance from us, like a still small voice, allowing human creatures the space to develop a relationship on our own terms. But God will nonetheless be available to those looking to find him. And yet God seems to be unavailable — hidden — from many people who earnestly desire a relationship with him.
Over the next fifty pages Schellenberg carefully assembles an argument, step by step, from this puzzling datum of divine hiddenness, culminating in a summary presentation of the argument on page 103:
(1) If a perfectly loving God exists, then there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person.
(2) If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
(3) If a perfectly loving God exists, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists (from 1 and 2).
(4) Some finite persons are or have been nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
(5) No perfectly loving God exists (from 3 and 4).
(6) If no perfectly loving God exists, then God does not exist.
(7) God does not exist (from 5 and 6).
In chapter 8 Schellenberg offers some clarifications of the premises and some brief responses to objections.
The book then concludes with a brief word on the way forward under the title “After Personal Gods.” Schellenberg writes: “Ultimism is too impressive an idea for us rightly to suppose it exhausted by personal gods.” (121) In short, one may still believe there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But if Schellenberg is correct, a personal God is not among them.
Evaluating the Argument
Schellenberg’s intent was to write an introduction to the hiddenness argument that is accessible, brief, and vigorous (ix). The Hiddenness Argument is all those things, but I think the adjective that best describes it is elegant, as in gracefully refined. Like a wooden banister that has been worn perfectly smooth by hours of 2000 grit sandpaper, so the sentences and paragraphs of this book are worn smooth by years of reflection on the topics addressed therein. The result is a model of philosophy of religion, a concise and elegant work that is ready to unsettle, encourage, and ignite a passion for philosophical reasoning in the reader.
And what of the success of the argument itself? Schellenberg observes, “I don’t assume that every well-functioning intellect, after reading the previous chapters of this book, will be pointing unwaveringly toward atheism.” (104) I count myself in that camp. While Schellenberg has masterfully articulated an elegant argument that is logically valid and has plausible premises, I am unpersuaded.
Since the hiddenness argument is logically valid, if I want to avoid the conclusion I will need to deny at least one of the premises. In this review, I will challenge premise (2):
(2) If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
Before progressing, we should get a sense of precisely what Schellenberg means by “personal relationship.” He defines the concept as follows: “a conscious, interactive, and positively meaningful relationship.” (38) He also adds that it encompasses “the general and familiar idea of positively meaningful interaction between persons that they are aware of experiencing.” (40) Thus, for Schellenberg, if a person is to have a personal relationship with God, that person must be conscious of God and the fact that they are in relationship with God, and this entails that the person believe the proposition “God exists”. Consequently, any person who denies the proposition “God exists” is not in a personal relationship with God.
My first concern comes when I reflect on the relationship of a developing child to their parent. There is no doubt that a parent/child relationship should normally develop to the point where the young child is aware of the parent as a person with whom the child is in relationship. In other words, a parent/child relationship should grow to the point where it constitutes what Schellenberg calls a “personal relationship.”
But even so, that relationship is existentially significant for both parties long before it ever becomes a personal relationship by Schellenberg’s definition. This is important because while the non-resistant nonbeliever lacks a personal relationship with God, it does not follow that this individual lacks an existentially significant (or even a soteriologically effective) relationship with God.
So here’s the first question for us. Could something similar to the parent/child relationship be true of the relationship between God and truly non-resistant nonbelievers? Could God be in existentially significant relationships with human persons that have not yet developed to the stage of personal relationship?
Before proceeding further, let’s note that there is an obvious problem with the analogy I just proposed. The small child only lacks a personal relationship with the parent because they are cognitively undeveloped (e.g. an infant) or cognitively deficient (e.g. mentally handicapped). But the non-resistant nonbeliever who desires to know if God exists is not like this. They are cognitively capable of grasping God’s existence and they want to know if God exists. So why would God not reveal his existence to these individuals, thereby allowing this existentially significant relationship to advance to the status of a full-fledged personal relationship?
Before addressing that question, let me point out that an existentially significant relationship that lacks the dimension of personal relationship is not as limited or impoverished as you might think. Consider the case of Liz, a young lady who doesn’t believe in God but who does believe in what she calls “absolute goodness” (a view on the spectrum of impersonal forms of ultimism). Liz seeks to cultivate virtue in accord with this absolute goodness that she believes enlivens the universe and provides purpose and significance to human life. Shortly after her thirtieth birthday God will reveal himself to Liz at which point the existentially significant relationship that Liz has with the Almighty will graduate to a full-fledged personal relationship. In that moment Liz realizes that her belief in “absolute goodness” was in fact, a belief in God. In other words, she now recognizes that the absolute goodness in which she believed is a person. This is undoubtedly a critically important advance in her understanding, but note that it is indicative of continuity (Liz always believed absolute goodness exists) as much as discontinuity (Liz comes to believe that absolute goodness is personal).
But why would God wait until Liz’s thirtieth birthday to reveal his personal existence to her, especially when she was non-resistant the entire time? The simple answer is that God would do so if he had morally sufficient reasons to defer that revelation.
Like what, you ask? Here’s one possible scenario. It is possible that in the decade during which she is an atheist, Liz will bring many resistant nonbelievers to a greater understanding of absolute goodness, an understanding which provides a crucial step for those individuals eventually becoming non-resistant and then later moving into a personal relationship with God. And counterfactually, had God revealed himself to Liz at an earlier time, her witness as a theist would have been rendered ineffectual for these particular individuals that God wanted to reach. (Perhaps they would have tuned out Liz’s evangelical Christian preaching about the personal absolute goodness, but they carefully assimilated her preaching about impersonal absolute goodness.) Thus, God providentially delays revealing himself personally to Liz because he can reach people through Liz’s state of nonbelief that he would not be able to reach through Liz’s state of belief.
So far as I can see, scenarios of this kind are certainly possible, indeed, in my view they are plausible. Moreover, they appear to me to offer morally sufficient reasons for God to defer revealing himself personally to non-resistant nonbelievers like Liz. Consequently, I remain unpersuaded by premise (2).
That said, let me conclude this review on a positive note by reiterating my admiration for The Hiddenness Argument. This book deserves careful study and it belongs on the shelf of every person interested in questions of theology and philosophy of religion.
If you benefited from this review, please consider up-voting it at amazon.com.
Thanks to OUP Canada for a review copy of this book.
