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THE SKEPTICAL CHRISTIAN

The Argument from Nonbelief

By Kyle

The Argument from Nonbelief (or, the Argument from Divine Hiddenness) is commonly considered by non-theists to be a persuasive argument against the existence of God. More particularly, the Argument from Nonbelief targets the Christian God, who possesses the characteristics of omnibenevolence and omnipotence. As such, it is critical for Christians to respond to this argument in order to remain justified in belief in God.

How is the Argument Formulated?

Although there are multiple formulations of the Argument from Nonbelief, ranging from the layman to the scholarly, all formulations reach the same conclusion. I will therefore present a version of this argument here.

1. If God exists, He is all-loving, all-powerful, perfectly just, and He wishes for all to know Him personally.
2. If a person has reasonable nonbelief, then they are not given a fair opportunity to know God.
3. If God exists, He has both the power and motive to abolish reasonable nonbelief.
4. Reasonable nonbelief occurs.
5. Therefore, God does not exist.

There is a second form of the Argument from Nonbelief which is quite different. Please see the second part of this article for Theodore M. Drange’s formulation of the argument (along with my response).

As preliminary commentary, it should be mentioned that the Argument from Nonbelief only applies to a God that is all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, perfectly just, and has a wish that others know Him. These qualities happen to be attributes that I believe the Christian God possesses, but any God that does not possess all of the aforementioned qualities is not affected by the Argument from Nonbelief.

In any case, I think two separate refutations of this argument can be formulated.

Reasonable Nonbelief?

The simplest way to avoid the force of this argument is to question premise (4) and claim that reasonable nonbelief does not occur. This is quite offensive towards the atheist (as it basically claims that he/she is unreasonable with regards to the evidence for God’s existence), but it is nevertheless possible that it is true.

Now, it is apparent to me that God’s existence is obvious. I do not feel that God has provided me with too little evidence. If I were to deny that God existed, I would be irrational with regards to what I know.

What should I do when another individual claims that the evidence isn’t obvious to them? Is there any way I can know whether or not the individual is truly reasonable in his nonbelief? Of course not, because I would need to be them in order to understand their thought processes. Actually, this argument closely parallels another common argument used by Christians- Personal Experiences.

As I showed HERE, Personal Experiences are something that can be known only to the individual who has the experience. It may be evidence for the person, but it cannot be evidence for another individual. Likewise, then, though the Argument from Nonbelief may be evidence for the individual who feels that they have not been provided with an opportunity to know God, it can never be considered evidence to another person. Therefore, the Argument from Nonbelief is totally useless as a means to disprove the existence of God to another person.

My critique could stop here, but for the sake of completeness I will offer a few reasons why nonbelief may not actually be reasonable.

1. Bias

Human beings tend to be biased towards a certain viewpoint. Sometimes, this bias can get in the way of an objective analysis of the evidence. Bias can occur for a number of reasons, but whatever the case it is quite possible that those who claim that they have been provided with insufficient evidence are merely biased with regards to the evidence they have.

2. Pride

Another malady that affects a great number of humans is pride. Pride can occur because someone thinks they are superior to others. In the case of atheism, pride could occur because the nonbelievers do not like the idea of being considered sinners that have fallen short of God. Or, pride could occur because an individual does not feel like being "under" a higher power. Whatever the case, pride is a very real factor and could possibly affect an objective look at the evidence for God’s existence.

3. Anger

Perhaps the most common factor, I think, which leads to a lack of belief in God, is anger. This anger could take many forms. Perhaps a person is unsatisfied with the way things are going in their life and they feel that, if God existed, He should do something about it. Perhaps they are upset that somebody they care for died. Anger can often consume an individual and get in the way of rational thought. This could lead to an unjustified rejection of the evidence for God’s existence.

4. Ridiculous Expectations

Many times atheists suppose God should write "Jesus Christ lives. Repent and be saved!" on the moon. They may expect God to come down and have a chat. In both situations, the expectation of evidence is much too high. The individual may unreasonably expect more evidence for God’s existence then they would require for other propositions. This is obviously unfair and is thus not reasonable nonbelief.

5. Wish to disregard theistic morality

Another possibility is that nonbelievers do not wish to change their lifestyles to accommodate belief in God. They may feel that Biblical morality is too strict. For example, many nonbelievers express distress with the expectation that Christians avoid lust, even if it is hands-off. Christianities rejection of pre-marital sex is also an issue that brings up quite a bit of indignation. The wish to live one’s life in a particular manner may lead to an unfair analysis of the evidence for God’s existence.

6. Insufficient Effort

The question of whether or not God exists is possibly the most important issue humans face. However, many people (theist and non-theist alike) don’t give the issue the attention it deserves. Therefore, those atheists who give only a cursory examination of the evidence cannot be considered to have reasonable nonbelief.

The Argument from Nonbelief is already thoroughly discredited. It can never be considered evidence for anybody but the individual who has the complaint. However, my analysis of the Argument from Nonbelief is not yet complete. There is another important issue to discuss.

Is Reasonable Nonbelief Always Unfair?

Premise (3), which claims that God has both the power and the motive to abolish reasonable nonbelief, is not at all obvious either. It is my contention that God may have benevolent motives for nonbelief as long as it does not last for the whole lifetime of a person.

In other words, God may allow a person to have truly reasonable nonbelief for a certain time period in his/her life, as long as He makes sure that the person does not die without ever having reasonable evidence for His existence presented to them.

The ironic thing about the Argument from Nonbelief is that the only way somebody can ever truly claim that they have unfair reasonable nonbelief is if they have lived out their entire existence and are now dead! Of course, dead men aren’t able to argue against the existence of God, so no man alive is able to fairly claim that the existence of God should be doubted because He would not allow reasonable nonbelief.

Once again, the Argument from Nonbelief is completely discredited, but for the sake of completeness I would like to offer a few possible reasons why temporary reasonable nonbelief may occur.

1. increased love and respect for God.

God knows that a state of complete love and respect between man and Himself is a very desirable thing. A person who has not been presented with enough evidence for a period of time may learn to love and respect God more than they ever would once they have such evidence. Ultimately, God’s decision to withhold evidence could actually be for the benefit of the individual.

2. Testimony

God’s ultimate goal is to get as many people as possible to know Him. The testimonies of former atheists are often very powerful in helping persons through periods of doubt or sowing the seeds of belief in an unbeliever. God may withhold the evidence from an atheist so that the person can later help hundreds of others to come closer to Him.

3. Inability to offer evidence.

Some individuals find themselves in positions where the offering of evidence is either impossible or dangerous. For example, a native living in the jungle could misinterpret any evidence God could provide and misconstrue it as a false religion (which could eventually mislead others as well). In this case, God may wait for a missionary to come until He provides the necessary evidence for the individual.

These three reasons are both possible and plausible, so we have every reason to believe that God may allow temporary periods of reasonable nonbelief.

Theodore M. Drange and the Argument from Nonbelief

In the article The Arguments from Evil and Nonbelief, Theodore M. Drange attempts to support the case for atheism. 1 The Argument from Evil is beyond the scope of this article and will be dealt with at another place. However, Drange’s formulation of the Argument from Nonbelief is quite different than the previous one, so I would like to offer my response to Drange. The following is the formulation of Drange’s Argument:

ANB: To formulate ANB, I put first forward these two definitions:
Set P = the following three propositions:
(a) There exists a being who rules the entire universe.
(b) That being loves humanity.
(c) Humanity has been provided with an afterlife.

Situation S = the situation of all, or almost all, humans coming to believe all three propositions of set P by the time of their physical death.

Using the above definitions, ANB may be expressed as follows:
(A) If God were to exist, then he would possess all of the following four properties (among others):
(1) being able to bring about situation S, all things considered;
(2) wanting to bring about situation S, i.e., having it among his desires;
(3) not wanting anything else that conflicts with his desire to bring about situation S as strongly as it;
(4) being rational (which implies always acting in accord with his own highest purposes).

(B) If a being who has all four properties listed above were to exist, then situation S would have to obtain.
(C) But situation S does not obtain. It is not the case that all, or almost all, humans have come to believe all the propositions of set P by the time of their physical death.
(D) Therefore [from (B) & (C)], there does not exist a being who has all four properties listed in premise (A).
(E) Hence [from (A) & (D)], God does not exist.

According to this formulation of the argument I would deny Drange’s A(1) and A(3).

With regards to A(1), which claims that it is possible for God to bring up a situation in which all or almost all accept salvation by their death, I must say that I find such impossible. God also, due to his benevolence, wishes to provide human beings with free will. It is thus logically impossible for God to make a situation in which all humans freely decide to follow God. Since even God cannot bring about a logically impossible situation, it is thus impossible for A(1) to be true. (Note: This is referred to as the Free Will Defense, and it is technically an objection to A(3). However, I believe it might be impossible for God to even theoretically create a world in which humans have no free will, as doing such would go against his benevolence.)

With regards to A(3), I would counter that there are a few things that may interfere with God’s wish for all to accept Salvation.

a.) Free will. God wishes to allow humans to have free will. If humans didn’t have free will, then they would be nothing but automatons. Since God created man in his image, it is essential that humans possess the important attribute of free will.

b.) Love and respect. If God made people know that He exists and He offers Salvation, they may accept that belief. However, they would not necessarily love God. They could hate him with a passion, despite knowledge that He exists. This situation would be even more disastrous than nonbelief. Therefore, God does not wish to overly coerce people because knowledge of Him does not mean respect of Him. It must also be mentioned that knowledge of Salvation is not sufficient for Salvation anyways. I person who goes through the motions but is not sincere in his/her repentance will not achieve eternality in heaven anyways. So it is not at all obvious that God would wish to make himself known just so that individuals could hate him and not receive eternal life anyways.

c.) Justice. If God made or overly coerced individuals to believe in Him, then they may accept Salvation not out of love and respect for God, but out of self-motivations. This is not justice at all, and in any case it is not certain that such individuals would attain eternal life anyways.

Concerning Drange’s Defense of Proposition A(1)

In his article, Drange mentions a variety of means God could use to convince all or almost all that they must receive Salvation. Unfortunately, none of these ideas would necessarily guarantee much of a success rate.

First he suggests merely implanting belief in everyone or implanting a "belief gene" inside the human genome. Of course, this would be flagrant violation of free will, so I see no reason to suppose that God would have motivation to do such a thing. However, Drange does suggest numerous things that would not impede free will.

For example, Drange supposes that God could perform spectacular miracles such as speaking with a thundering voice from the sky. However, there is no guarantee that certain individuals might complain that such an event was in their head, or that it was some vast conspiracy. As is shown with organizations such as the flat earth society, overwhelming evidence doesn’t always sway the mind of people who are not receptive towards a certain idea.

Drange also supposes that Jesus Christ could have appeared to millions. Of course, individuals today would probably claim that such was merely legendary development and not historical fact. Individuals living in the time of Christ could make up all sorts of excuses as well. Perhaps the Christ was an impostor, perhaps Christ never died on the cross. Whatever the case, absurd rationalization is certainly not an uncommon happening in humanities history.

Next up, Drange offers the suggestion that God could send millions of angels disguised as people to preach to humans the Gospel in a manner so convincing that all or almost all accept Salvation. Obviously, there is no evidence that such persuasive reasoning is even possible. Does Drange suppose that "persuasive reasoning" could sway the opinions of those who hold to the theory of the flat earth?

Drange also suggests that fantastic prophecy could be in the Bible causing all or most to believe. However, having strange and inconceivable (at the time) prophecies in the Bible could conceivably lead to many ancients rejecting Salvation. In any case, there is no way to know whether or not the prophecies would be rationalized away by a large majority of the population.

Finally, Drange suggests that God could use the Internet to sway nonbelievers. How this could work I am not sure. If Drange supposes that evidence is enough to turn one’s mind, I will again mention that such does not seem to have much of an effect upon the flat earth society.

Of course, Drange could see the above as mere nitpicking. The fact of the matter is, he may claim, that the above would cause a significant portion of the population to accept repentance. Although I do not necessarily think that is true, I will go ahead and agree with that claim for the sake of argument. Therefore, I will go on to proposition A(3) and see if it holds water.

Drange’s Defense of Proposition A(3)

Firstly, Drange critiques the Free Will Defense. Drange claims that showing people miracles does not interfere with their free will. This much is true. By merely showing a miracle God leaves it up to the human as to whether or not such will be accepted as evidence.

However, Drange goes even further and claims that inserting belief in God into every human being would not be in violation of free will. I believe Drange has gone a bit too far here, for I cannot imagine a more fragrant violation of free will at all. If you force someone to love you by inserting a gene in their brain, you are, by definition, interfering with their free will to choose whether or not they have love for you.

"Even direct implantation of belief into a person's mind need not interfere with his/her free will. If that person were to want true beliefs and not care how the beliefs are obtained, then for God to directly implant true beliefs into his/her mind would not interfere with, but would rather comply with, the person's free will."

Even assuming Drange is right about this, there is certainly no way to know whether any humans who don’t already accept Salvation really do wish to know the truth. In any case, forcing someone to love you is perhaps the most flagrant and obvious violation one can think of. If that doesn’t qualify as interfering with free will, then I don’t know what does.

Next up, Drange claims that there is nothing wrong with God interfering with free will in this case to "straighten them out". This just begs the question of the importance of free will to God. There is no conceivable way that anything could be more important than free will because the lack of free will takes away the very thing that makes us humans.

"FWD seems to claim that God wants people to believe the propositions of set P in an irrational way, without good evidence."

Free Will Defense implies no such thing. In fact, FWD requires rationality. That is the whole point. To believe something because that belief is part of your very anatomy would not be a belief that is arrived at rationally. By God demanding that we accept His existence without forcing us, He is requiring us to be rational in order to come to that true belief.

From what I’m aware, the other two factors that I claimed could interfere with God’s wish for all to achieve Salvation are not addressed in Drange’s article. I have, however, found a response to it in another article.² This response, however, is not very substantive:

"One objection to this defense, among others, is that a person's immediate response to theistic belief may not remain fixed. People could come to believe in God and at first respond inappropriately, but after some time has elapsed, they may come to modify their response."

This response is useless, because certainly God knows when or if a person will respond appropriately. Those who would never respond appropriately, therefore, are the concern of God, and probably the main reason that He does not provide a ridiculous amount of evidence for his existence. It is certainly better for a person to be ignorant of God’s existence than it is for them to hate God. (It must be mentioned that it is my contention that God does provide everyone with enough opportunity to come to know Him, as I explained previously. The rejection of that evidence could be due to the various factors I listed earlier in this article). Therefore my propositions (b) and (c), along with my defense of the Free Will Defense (a) are all still valid and thus the Argument from Nonbelief is invalid.

Conclusion

The Argument from Reasonable Nonbelief fails on two fronts. It is completely discredited as a rational objection against the existence of God. In addition, the Argument from Nonbelief as formulated by Theodore M. Drange is also a complete failure. The Christian remains fully justified in his or her belief in God despite the Argument from Nonbelief.

NOTES

Theodore M. Drange, The Arguments from Evil and Nonbelief, http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...nge/aeanb.html

Theodore M. Drange, Nonbelief as Support for Atheism, http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Reli/ReliDran.htm
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The Skeptical Christian is dedicated to a logical defense of the Christian faith. It features original articles, book reviews, critiques of non-Christian writings, and debates. The Internet is an extremely accessible information source, and it is often used to perpetuate the false notion that Christianity is a rationally indefensible belief system. The primary goal of The Skeptical Christian is to provide a counter to this claim, in order to
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