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Divine hiddenness as divine mercy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2011

TRAVIS DUMSDAY
TRAVIS DUMSDAY
Affiliation:
Religious Studies Department, Livingstone College, 701 West Monroe St., Salisbury NC, 28144 e-mail: tdumsday@livingstone.edu
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Abstract

If God exists, why isn't His existence more apparent? In recent analytic philosophy this longstanding question has been developed into an argument for atheism typically referred to as the ‘problem of divine hiddenness’. My goal here is to put forward a new reply. The basic idea is that there is some reason to think that for many of us, our moral conduct would not improve even if God's existence were not subject to doubt. However, immoral conduct in such a state of affairs would be even more immoral, and hence justly subject to greater punishment, than it is in a state of affairs in which God's existence is subject to doubt. As such, God mercifully remains ‘hidden’ in order to limit our moral culpability.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 183 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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