An Islamic Response to the Argument from Divine Hiddenness
Taken from A Critique of Deism …
One of the arguments deists raise against theistic religions such as Islam and Christianity is the alleged inherent injustice in the notion of nonbelievers being punished in hell (Morais, 1932, p. 435). They deem it unfair that God would only selectively reveal the truth to a ‘privileged segment’ of the world population while permitting the truth to be effectively ‘hidden’ from the rest. Thus, they claim, not everyone is given an equal opportunity to attain salvation (Byrne, 1989, p. 55). Instead, deists believe, God revealed himself to all of humanity by endowing them with reason to use to ‘contemplate over nature’ to discover God’s moral character and edicts (Paine, 1892, p. 39).
However, as demonstrated earlier, there are difficulties with accepting the notion that unaided human reason suffices as an epistemic tool. Not everyone has equal access to education to learn how to harness their critical reasoning skills and thus reach the required theological conclusions. There are also individual differences among humans in terms of cognitive function. Moreover, human reason is easily prone to bias, and cultural upbringing could significantly influence one person to opt for a radically divergent conclusion from people of different cultural backgrounds. This means that people are bound to disagree on central theological and ethical issues. Therefore, even deists have to contend with the fact that God does not in actuality ‘equally’ reveal himself to everyone, since people are not equally gifted with the same resources and time to enable the development of their reasoning skills. Hence, it appears that even according to deism, God seems ‘hidden’ to many people.
Nonetheless, deists could put forth another argument. They could argue that God is, in fact, hidden and that his hiddenness makes more sense from a deistic perspective than a theistic one. They could appeal to John Schellenberg’s renowned version of the argument from divine hiddenness in support of their case. In what follows, I introduce Schellenberg’s argument from divine hiddenness as explicated by him. Though the argument is originally formulated as proof for atheism, I will explain how it could also be employed in favor of deism. Lastly, I will offer a rebuttal to the argument.[1]
Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness Argument (SDHA)
Schellenberg’s argument is formulated as follows:
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 non-resistantly 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 non-resistantly 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 non-resistantly 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) (2017a, p. 1).
In premise 1, God being ‘perfectly loving’ for Schellenberg denotes that he is “unsurpassably loving and caring” (Schellenberg, 2004a, p. 33). Just like a loving mother for her child, God’s love toward his creation entails: 1) providing them immediate responses to their requests; 2) sparing them of any ‘needless’ trauma and fostering their physical and spiritual well-being; 3) not encouraging them to have misleading thoughts about their relationship to God; 4) desiring a personal interaction with them whenever possible; and 5) longing for personal interaction with them if it is ever absent (Ibid.).
In premise 2, when Schellenberg says “personal relationship” he is referring to “a conscious, interactive, and positively meaningful relationship” (2015, p. 38). God, as a perfectly loving being, is expected to value the “relationship for its own sake” (Ibid., p. 43) and would have created human beings for such a relationship (1996, p. 462). Also, ‘nonresistance’ for Schellenberg entails that nonbelief in God is not due to “any emotional or behavioral opposition towards God” (2008b, para. 2). He mentions four categories of people who he believes qualify to come under the class of nonresistance: 1) former believers; 2) lifelong seekers; 3) converts to non-theistic religions; and 4) isolated non-theists (2007, pp. 228-242).
In premise 3, Schellenberg is stressing that there cannot be any instant of time when nonresistant people do not believe in God and have a personal relationship with him (2005b, p. 206; 2015, p. 106). Schellenberg dismisses any attempt to justify why God may not instantly guide nonresistant people to believe in him. He argues that given God’s “infinite resourcefulness,” any other “goods” which God would be interested in procuring (e.g. moral freedom of his creatures, etc.) could be realized without having to compromise on his relationship with nonresistant people (2007, pp. 215-216).
Schellenberg insists that even if there are goods which are not logically attainable unless God temporarily permits an absence of a relationship with nonresistant people, then these goods cannot possibly outweigh a relationship with God in importance anyway (2004a, p. 37). Thus, Schellenberg maintains that God, given his perfect love, must only seek goods which are “relationship-compatible” (2015, p. 109). He contends that a perfectly loving God would have created the world while ensuring that the pursuit of any relationship-incompatible goods is not required (Ibid., pp. 45-46).
In premise 4, Schellenberg argues that such nonresistant people do exist. If premises 3 and 4 are true, then premise 5 follows. Premise 6 is phrased in a manner which suggests that the only possible notion of God is one who is perfectly loving; however, Schellenberg does qualify this assertion elsewhere as I will show in the next section. Finally, the conclusion follows from premises 5 and 6.
In summary, Schellenberg believes that his characterization of what he expects a perfectly loving God to connote is a superior and more “intellectually attractive picture” of a perfect God (Schellenberg, 2005c, p. 300), and thus if God as an ultimately perfect being does exist, he should satisfy the requirements of Schellenberg’s assumptions of divine perfection.
How Is SDHA Relevant to Deism?
SDHA is formulated in a manner seeking to prove atheism right. So why is this argument relevant to deism? It is relevant because the SDHA is attacking the concept of a theistic God, instead of the deistic one (Howard-Snyder, 2016, para. 43; Ventureyra, 2018, p. 910). Even though Schellenberg himself appears to not think so highly of a deistic-like notion of God (2005a, p. 340; 2015, pp. 108-109), he does admit that his argument is mostly against “traditional theism” (2004a, p. 41). Hence, a deist could use SDHA to his advantage. A deist could evade SDHA by denying God’s goodness—and thus his love—altogether. Alternatively, if the deist does affirm God’s love, he may choose not to do so as an omni-property, thereby contending that God could be very loving, but not necessarily perfectly loving. Therefore, not only does the SDHA lose its force against deism, but the deist could also utilize the SDHA in his favor to lend credibility to his conception of God.
A Critique of SDHA
Despite disagreements over Schellenberg’s characterization of what perfect love entails,[2] I will be focusing my critique on Schellenberg’s assertion that God’s attribute of perfect love necessitates that there cannot be any possible reason for why God could temporarily delay the materializing of a relationship with those deemed to be nonresistant. Schellenberg bases his contention on two underlying assumptions: 1) a loving relationship with God is the greatest good; thus, no other good could possibly warrant the delay of it coming to fruition, and 2) nonresistance entails that this is both the ideal and required time for God to guide the nonbeliever by entering into a loving relationship with him. I will dispute both assumptions below.
A Critique of the First Assumption
I wish to propose a unique possible reason for why God created nonresistant people to endure not having a relationship with him temporarily.[3] Islamic theology teaches the doctrine of the Ahlul Fatrah. The Ahlul Fatrah refer to nonbelievers who have not received the message of Islam in an undistorted manner. Islam teaches that those who die in the state of being among the Ahlul Fatrah will be given a special test by God in the afterlife to have their eternal fate determined. Those who had been sincere truth-seekers who sought God and did everything they reasonably could to discover God, given their physical and intellectual capacities, would pass the special test and subsequently enter heaven to enjoy an everlasting idyllic relationship with God (Al-Jawzīyyah, 2008, pp. 899-903).[4] But why would God create the Ahlul Fatrah? I propose that one possible purpose for their creation was to serve as a test for believers who were collectively duty bound to preach Islam to them. God created human beings to test their loyalty to him. According to Islam, one of God’s moral edicts is that his divine message be spread to all corners of the earth. Thus, the apparent existence of the Ahlul Fatrah is a signal and reminder to believers that there are sincere nonbelievers who would be receptive to their preaching if done effectively. The existence of the Ahlul Fatrah deprives believers of any opportunity to justify their shortcomings in preaching their faith by arguing that effective proselytization would have been futile since nonbelievers are resistant to the truth anyway. The existence of the Ahlul Fatrah could implicate believers who may have to answer to God in the hereafter for why they failed to advance their faith. Thus, the Ahlul Fatrah play a pivotal role in God’s test for humanity. More importantly, they will not be wronged, since they will be given a special divine test in the afterlife which will justly determine their fate.
Schellenberg could counter that God’s ultimate reason for allowing the Ahlul Fatrah to exist does not justify his temporary suspension of a relationship with them, for there is no greater good than having a relationship with God. But there are two problems with that argument. First, it presumes that we can discern all the moral goods which are attainable behind a given divine action; however, due to our limited knowledge and wisdom, we cannot justify having such confidence (Sokoloski, 2012, p. 111). Secondly, Schellenberg has not offered any objective method that we are obligated to follow when assessing the ‘value’ of moral goods. Some moral goods are incommensurable and cannot be objectively compared and contrasted in value terms. To explicate this point, Parker provides the following illustration:
Consider an instance where my four-year old son Jacob is trying to put together a puzzle which is difficult for him to do. I can help him complete the puzzle, or I can let him try to do it on his own. If I help, Jacob experiences my concern for him in a tangible way, we can have the good of working together in completing the task, and the possibility of his failing can be avoided. On the other hand, Jacob completing the puzzle without my help would be valuable for him, both intrinsically and instrumentally (e.g., in increasing his confidence, completing a difficult task on his own, etc.). It seems to me that the opposing sets of goods in this situation are such that there is not a determinate ranking of one over the other, and I would be morally justified in choosing to help or to refrain from helping. I think that something similar is the case, though obviously on a vastly larger scale, for God when deciding what general strategy to take with regard to providing evidence for his existence, or when deciding to allow a specific case of divine hiddenness (2014, pp. 152-153).
Parker also provides the following moral goods which are attainable if God grants believers the freedom to proselytize to nonbelievers, as opposed to God always intervening to instantly guide nonresistant nonbelievers: 1) moral freedom; 2) intellectual probation; 3) social dependency; 4) learning for oneself that God exists; and 5) desiring to know God (2014, pp. 180-191).[5] Furthermore, any ‘harms’ which may result from a temporary absence of a relationship with God would be offset by two things: 1) elimination of that harm and 2) just compensation for that harm. Both apply in the case of the sincere truth-seekers from among the Ahlul Fatrah. Islam teaches that those who make it to heaven will forget any hardships they might have endured in this life,[6] and this would include the elimination of any emotional scars carried over from the absence of a relationship with God. Furthermore, the Ahlul Fatrah who pass God’s special test will be compensated with eternity in paradise, which is infinitely longer than any temporal amount of hardship endured. With the harm eliminated, in addition to the person being more than justly compensated, any anguish which may have arisen from God’s hiddenness would be offset.
One may raise a Kantian objection and argue that it appears that God is using the Ahlul Fatrah as a means to test those who believe in him, while human beings should be treated as ends in themselves. Keeping aside the fact that this is not problematic according to Divine Command Theory, there is still no indication that God is unjustly exploiting the Ahlul Fatrah here. Kant’s humanity formula does not entirely prohibit that we use people as means, but rather insists that we must not exploit human beings to merely serve as a means to fulfill our ends (Johnson, 2016, para. 45). God does not do this with the Ahlul Fatrah, for he recognizes their human worth and sincerity, and desires to have an everlasting relationship with those among them who pass his test. This is far removed from Kant’s concern about human beings being reduced to mere means.
A Critique of the Second Assumption
To insist that divine perfection demands instantaneous remedial action to bring affairs into an ideal state is a significant claim, which when consistently applied to all of God’s attributes strips God of his agency to do what he wills. For example, should we understand that God’s being ‘perfectly just’ necessitates that God instantly brings unrepentant sinners to justice? Hardly any theologian would concur. So why make such demands when it comes to divine love?
Schellenberg’s approach to the divine property of love restricts the other attributes (e.g. omnipotence, wisdom, etc.) by making God’s love dominate over them. But why can’t God be powerful and wise enough to actualize a world wherein some people are trialed with a test whose spin-off is that some nonresistant people are left temporarily unguided by God? Why cannot God’s allowing a temporary suspension in relations with nonresistant nonbelievers form a part of his perfect plan to test his creation? Schellenberg’s presupposition is that once a nonbeliever qualifies as nonresistant, this must entail that this is the ideal and required time for God to guide the nonbeliever by entering into a relationship with him. But ideal for whom? It may not be optimal for God who has created humanity with moral autonomy for the purpose of also testing them. For a state of affairs to be ‘ideal’, it ought to be in a certain way to achieve a predefined objective. But what if God’s motive to create is testing humanity by providing them with sufficient moral freedom which likely results in the temporary existence of nonresistant nonbelievers? Schellenberg in his attempt to elevate God’s perfection by exaggerating the implications of perfect love has undermined God’s omnipotence and ability to do things which are neither logically impossible nor evidently contrary to his divine nature. Schellenberg believes that his notion of a perfectly loving God is “superior” to others; however, one could argue that Schellenberg’s conception of God results in an inferior idea of God whose omnipotence is compromised.[7]
In summary, there is no substantive evidence provided in support of SDHA’s premises: that a nonresistant person’s relationship with God is the highest good which trumps all other moral goods, and that divine perfection necessitates immediate action to actualize an ‘ideal’ state of affairs.
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[1] There are different formulations of the divine hiddenness argument; however, Schellenberg’s version is by far the most popular and widely discussed. Its formulation is argued to be the “most robust” (Dumsday, 2015, p. 2) and the various versions of the hiddenness argument are said to be “offshoots of J.L. Schellenberg’s central argument” (Anderson, 2017, p. 120). Moreover, my rebuttal to Schellenberg’s argument would apply to the other versions, so I deemed it unnecessary to discuss all of the argument’s variations here.
[2] Schellenberg notes that philosophers would not dispute that perfect love is a necessary attribute of God (2005b, p. 201); however, this does not necessitate that Schellenberg’s understanding of what this divine property entails is indisputable. Some believe that perfect love only connotes a “desire for seeking open relationship, not that it entails the actual seeking” (Dumsday, 2015, p. 11). Others adopt an apophatic theological stance on God’s attributes, whereby they do not literally affirm that God loves anyone (Howard-Snyder, 2016, para. 43). Some suggest that Schellenberg is relying on a specific Christian understanding of perfect love and using that understanding to represent the entirety of traditional theism (Dole, 2018, p. 301). Schellenberg acknowledges these objections (2015, p. 89; 2017b, p. 7) but insists that his characterization of perfect love is more befitting of a perfect God.
[3] A wide range of suggested reasons has been proffered to explain why God may temporarily allow a nonresistant person to remain ‘relationship-less’ with him. A few examples are God 1) waiting for the person to have correct motives to believe in God; 2) respecting moral autonomy by waiting for the person to freely believe in God; 3) allowing the person’s intensity of desire for God to develop further; 4) letting the person’s understanding of God to deepen more accurately; 5) waiting for the person to fulfill certain conditions such as repentance of previously committed sins; 6) waiting for the person’s love for God to become more genuine; 7) encouraging the pursuit of virtue by allowing nonresistant people to traverse the path of seeking God, etc. (Azadegan, 2014, p. 109; Howard-Snyder, 2016, para. 36; McFall, 2016, p. 9; Paytas, 2017). Schellenberg has dismissed these attempts either because he deems them to be lesser goods or attainable without God having to temporarily put a hold on the relationship with the nonresistant person.
[4] This Islamic doctrine stands in contrast to Christian theology which denies the existence of inculpable nonbelief (Parker, 2014, pp. 154-155).
[5] These goods similarly apply in the case where God grants believers the freedom to preach to the Ahlul Fatrah.
[6] See Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Ḥadīth 2807; available from: https://sunnah.com/muslim/52/42
[7] It is similar to how some compromise God’s necessary existence because they have gone to the extreme in terms of their conception of God’s omnipotence whereby they argue that God is ‘powerful’ enough to terminate his own life. Comparably, Schellenberg’s understanding of what perfect love entails severely constrains God’s ability to do many things which are not inherently impossible.