Wagering Against Divine Hiddenness

Authors

  • Liz Jackson University of Notre Dame

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v8i4.1757

Abstract

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 non-resistant non-believer. Then, I argue that many people fulfil 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.

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Published

2016-12-22

How to Cite

Jackson, Liz. 2016. “Wagering Against Divine Hiddenness”. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (4):85-108. https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v8i4.1757.

Issue

Section

Research Articles