5 Reasons God Allows Atheism

After several months of researching and organizing information, I’m excited to announce the launch of BeliefMap’s new section on the problem of divine hiddenness. This is specifically supposed to be a problem with belief in God’s existence, and goes like this:

If a perfectly loving God existed, then wouldn’t that God have made sure no one is an atheist or agnostic? After all, choosing to be in relationship with God is an impossibility for them, and as philosopher J.L. Schellenberg asks:

“What loving parent would ever willingly allow this possibility [of personal interaction] to be taken completely away? Parental love will not permit this to occur when it can be prevented.” [“What the Hiddenness of God Reveals,”Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (Cambridge, 2002), 24.]

Over the past 20 years, literally hundreds of peer reviewed sources, books and articles, have been published on this topic by philosophers who are working to explore every nook and cranny of the debate. (See BeliefMap’s bibliography of about 50 of those sources here.) What follows is a simple outline of some responses for the reader to dig into, with hyperlinks to allow easy access for more details.

The reasons for why God might not bring all to belief can perhaps be sorted into five categories.

Reason 1: Some would just reject relationship

Read the rest: https://beliefmap.org/blog/divine-hiddenness/