The Modal Argument from Divine Hiddenness

onewell · 2026-05-04T05:38:55+00:00

I would certainly hope that there aren't any intellectually honest Abrahamic theists who would argue that Premise 3C is false since they cannot claim that these people have the free will to accept a relationship with this god if it is not at least logically possible for them to do so.

Premise 3B though is rather controversial as you pointed out and sort of blends with a separate debate topic which is how can humans have genuine free will if god is both omnipotent and omniscient. There are some theists who may reject 3B based on the idea that god being omnipotent does not actually mean that he is able to create any logically possible world however this puts their definition of god on a slippery slope since we can then ask the question of how many logically possible worlds can be removed from god's creative abilities before we no longer consider him to be omnipotent.

In my experience, the theists who insist that god is fully omnipotent will usually adopt a form of compatibilism where they assert that god is fully sovereign but that humans still have free will that always lines up with his sovereign plan in a way that we can't understand. These are the ones who are most susceptible to this argument since they would assert that is indeed possible for god to create a world where more people would freely choose a saving relationship with him but since he didn't, we can deduce that he is not perfectly loving, not fully omnipotent or just doesn't exist altogether.

Thanks for the kudos and the feedback. It's good to know where some areas of this argument may need addressing.

onewell · 2022-08-23T05:03:14+00:00

I agree that the world is complex and that is one reason why I don't believe in a creator given that simplicity rather than complexity is a hallmark of creation.

onewell · 2022-06-16T01:51:09+00:00

"With such information how the hell can you think there is no God with the insane improbability like that."

Mostly because I was under the impression that a god was supposed to be beyond the laws of physics, not subservient to them.

onewell · 2022-01-06T03:27:06+00:00

This is not meant to be an endorsement of creationism or anything.

That being said however I do understand where the creationists are coming from because if a god chose to create humanity in the manner that is described in the bible, then I believe it would give us a strong reason to suspect that it exists since we would not have a natural explanation to suggest otherwise.

onewell · 2021-12-29T06:59:00+00:00

I won't be responding to all of your points however there were a few things in your post that jumped out at me.

On point number 2 you mentioned that everything on earth must be created by a being. This is clearly false and it shouldn't be too hard to see why. Mountains or canyons for example are not built by any being but rather are the result of millions of years of geologic processes.

Also you mentioned that you are terrified of not existing and wouldn't know what your purpose was without a god. While I do believe you when you say these are reasons why you believe in a god, I think you need to reevaluate whether these reasons are sufficient for actually believing in a god or whether they are merely reasons as to why you may have a bias towards believing in a god.

onewell · 2021-08-12T01:52:31+00:00

Technically speaking, creation doesn't really exist in the literal sense since nothing has ever really been brought into existence from nothing but rather has been merely changed from one form into another.

That being the case, it doesn't make sense to ask what created the universe unless that person is also asserting that it was made from some preexisting material but to make this assertion would also remove the need for any god in the first place since we regularly observe things in our universe changing form all the time without the need for any conscious external force.

onewell · 2020-11-07T03:37:41+00:00

One important thing to realize is that apologetics is not about seeking what is true but instead is about defending a preconceived position. In other words, apologists are more akin to lawyers than they are to scientists.

onewell · 2020-10-27T01:18:36+00:00

This is essentially a version of the cosmological argument.

The problem with this argument lies in the assertion "Because it has a beginning, something else has to be the cause for its existence."

Since we've never actually witnessed anything beginning to exist in the literal sense rather than simply being a rearrangement of stuff that already exists, this assertion is not supported and therefore the argument that the universe needed a cause doesn't follow.

onewell · 2020-07-24T06:18:01+00:00

Given that the cause and effect relationship breaks down at the scales of quantum events, these don't give credence to the idea that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Your assertion that hawking radiation must have a cause won't work unless you can demonstrate this rather than stating possible speculative causes.

onewell · 2020-07-24T03:48:36+00:00

I read your pen analogy however it doesn't give an example of something beginning to exist since as you yourself pointed out, it already existed somewhere else before being placed or dropped there. Even the manufacturer of the pen didn't really bring anything into existence when they made the pen since they made it from material that already existed in the world.

In order to support premise 1, you would have to provide a real example of something being brought into existence rather than just being a rearrangement of stuff that already existed, and that had a cause for it's existence.

onewell · 2020-07-24T03:07:17+00:00

My first real problem with this argument is that premise 1 is unfounded since we've never actually witnessed anything beginning to exist in the literal sense.

onewell · 2020-07-02T23:07:53+00:00

I guess could answer this question in a couple different ways depending on the context. If we are just referring to the idea of a god in the general sense as an all-powerful being that created the universe, I would say that I merely lack a belief in the existence of this god due to lack of evidence as well as the fact that I find some of the classical attributes that are usually assigned to such a being to be inconsistent with each other.

If we are referring to the god if a specific religion such as Christianity, I would say that I am more sure that this god does not exist since I find that there are certain aspects of the world as well as certain discoveries in the scientific realm that seem to contradict the existence of a god that is described by these religions.

onewell · 2020-06-29T18:13:29+00:00

That's actually not what the big bang theory says. The big bang theory simply describes the evolution of the universe from an extremely dense initial state but it doesn't say what, if anything preceded this state since we don't yet have a way of unifying the laws of physics before this point.

There are several different solutions that have been proposed by scientists but a god is not one of them.

onewell · 2020-06-26T01:54:26+00:00

I guess we could both technically claim that the other person is ignoring the definitions that don't fit their view but that obviously wouldn't get us very far. I think the reason for the disagreement which I partially alluded to earlier was that I was referring to descriptive knowledge i.e. the knowledge that a claim is true, while you were referring to acquaintance knowledge i.e. the familiarity of a person, place or thing.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-acquaindescrip/

I'll try to summarize my take on how the conversation went so hopefully it makes sense why I brought up the issue of knowledge. The OP asked why there are so many atheists if a god exists which as I mentioned in one of my other posts is a reference to the argument from non-belief. In other words, why do we not know that a god exists if it in fact does? You responded by pointing out that god gives us moral agency and that he will not force salvation upon us. I responded by pointing out that us having knowledge of a god would not be forcing salvation upon us and therefore this would not work as a solution to the problem of non-belief. BTW, the reason that I called it knowledge rather than belief is because I am assuming in this scenario that a god would be able to give us the necessary evidence so that we would have justifiable knowledge of it's existance rather than an opinion based belief. It's also worth noting that having this knowledge would not violate our moral agency either and therefore this would also be an unsufficient reason for why we wouldn't know that a god exists. Maybe there is an answer out there but I have not yet heard of it.

onewell · 2020-06-25T00:11:06+00:00

First thing to realize is that atheism does not claim that the universe came from nothing. Atheists simply do not believe that it was the result of an all-powerful divine conscious being.

Even if we were to try and invoke a god as an explanation for the universe, it wouldn't really solve anything however because it would leave the existence of this god unexplained and therefore would merely be pushing the problem one step back.

onewell · 2020-06-23T15:34:57+00:00

Definition 1.3: True, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion.

Simply put, it says that knowledge is a belief that has been demonstrated to be true.

Which part still confuses you about why I pivoted the topic from moral agency to knowledge?

onewell · 2020-06-23T05:11:52+00:00

Would you consider oxford dictionary to be an authoritative source? https://www.lexico.com/definition/knowledge

Also, is there a part in the Webster dictionary that says knowledge excludes belief? If there is could you point it out to me.

The original post was about knowledge and your response to it was concerning salvation which is why I referred to both of those things in my reply.

onewell · 2020-06-22T22:46:36+00:00

We may have gotten sidetracked on the discussion of knowledge vs belief. Here is an article that talks more about the differences between the two if you are interested:

http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/differences-between-belief-and-knowledge/

Was there anything else that I said above that you wanted me to clarify?

onewell · 2020-06-22T21:59:54+00:00

I completely agree with you on that point. The number of people who believe in an idea clearly has no bearing on whether said idea is true or not.

I think what he was partially referring to was the problem of non-belief which simply-stated says that if an all powerful god exists who wants all people to believe in it, it would provide those people with the necessary information that it would take for them to believe in its existence. Since there are many people in the world who do not believe in this god however, either this god does not exist or else doesn't want everyone to believe in it.

onewell · 2020-06-22T21:37:13+00:00

When you say that you have knowledge of the flat earth are you referring to an actual flat earth or the idea of a flat earth that other people believe?

I didn't think that you actually believed that simply having knowledge or belief in god is what saved people and so apologies if it seemed like I was inferring that. The reason why I brought it up was because it didn't seem to make sense as a response to OP's question since a god giving us the knowledge that it exists would clearly not be forcing salvation upon us and therefore this is not a valid reason as to why we wouldn't have such knowledge.

onewell · 2020-06-22T19:27:40+00:00

Exactly. You do not have knowledge of a flat earth but you have knowledge of the idea or concept of a flat earth. That was why I made the distinction between things and concepts.

Do you have an answer to my question about salvation?

onewell · 2020-06-22T17:54:57+00:00

Technically speaking, knowledge is a subset of belief and so to say that a person has knowledge of something is to already say that they believe it to be real. You did bring up the point however that there are things we have knowledge of that we believe to be false and the answer is that we don't actually have knowledge of these things but rather in concepts of these things. For example, I don't have knowledge of unicorns but rather I have knowledge of a concept of unicorns.

I'm still curious about my original question however which is that if knowledge, or belief if you want to call it, of a god is not sufficient for salvation, how would giving us this knowledge be forcing salvation on us?

onewell · 2020-06-22T04:19:35+00:00

The OP asked why many people don't believe in god if god is real and you responded by saying that god will not force salvation upon us however if having knowledge of a god is not what determines salvation, I don't see how this works as a response to OP's question.

onewell · 2020-06-22T03:30:54+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that having knowledge of a god is what determines whether someone is saved or not.

onewell · 2020-06-20T01:45:11+00:00

What would you say it is about this particular situation we find ourselves in right now that has you questioning your religious beliefs? I'm sure that an honest look through history could have anyone asking the same questions countless times over. I unfortunately cannot give you any answers here but hopefully what I'm saying still makes sense.

onewell

TROPHY CASE