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Do the demographics of theistic belief disconfirm theism? A reply to Maitzen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2008

JASON MARSH
JASON MARSH
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 3K7, Canada
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Abstract

In his article entitled ‘Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism’ (Religious Studies, 42 (2006), 177–191), Stephen Maitzen draws our attention to an important feature that is often overlooked in discussion about the argument from divine hiddenness (ADH). His claim is that an uneven distribution of theistic belief (and not just the mere existence of non-belief) provides an atheological challenge that cannot likely be overcome. After describing what I take to be the most pressing feature of the problem, I argue that a hidden premise causes Maitzen to overlook a Molinist solution. The upshot is a softening of the atheological import of the demographic data.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 465 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1.  Stephen Maitzen ‘Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism’, Religious Studies, 42 (2006), 177–191.

2.  Although this is in part pre-figured by William Lane Craig's middle-knowledge response to the soteriological problem of evil, significant differences between the two approaches will present themselves in due course.

3.  Maitzen ‘Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism’, 184–185.

4.  Ibid., 177.

5.  Of course many questions remain. Leaving aside the current dispute about the tenability of Molinism, it may be that upon further reflection (1) will turn out to be too strong. In that case, Molinists might consider defending a slightly weaker formulation of (1), such as (1*), which proposes that for each individual there is some world in which she would have come to believe in and love God short of experiencing the divine directly, but that these worlds were relatively few in number and that none of them contained more good-making properties overall than the actual world.

6.  As for whether the eventual responses of non-believers would be free, I am inclined to think that the answer is yes. But even if that's wrong, there is still the prospect that God would transform the wills of non-believers directly, providing them with a degree of grace that is irresistibly attractive. Now I am aware that many Molinists, including Craig, would find such a notion problematic, though I have yet to see these adequately defend the idea that human freedom is ultimately more valuable than salvation or that a loving God would actualize a world in which a good portion of the population – perhaps most of the human race – would remain perpetually lost. To be sure, while Craig notes in a different context that the actual world might contain an optimal balance between the saved and the lost, the fact that so many remain lost on his view would arguably keep him from adequately responding to Maitzen's version of ADH. For it is one thing to say that God uses the grouping strategy as a means to secure the salvation of those He currently hides from, and quite another thing to imply that all of the individuals He genuinely hides from in this life have been known from eternity to be without salvation. In the former case, one can say with full confidence that God is perfectly loving, whereas in the latter case this becomes much more difficult and, some might say, unfeasible. For this reason, I invite more Molinists to consider that all will be saved and to approach the argument from hiddenness from such an outlook. For Craig's view see, William Lane Craig ‘No other name: a middle knowledge perspective on the exclusivity of salvation through Christ’, Faith and Philosophy, 6 (1989), 172–188.

7.  Some might wonder, for instance, whether a God with omnipotence at his disposal couldn't actualize a world in which everyone was converted during their natural lives (viz. a world void of any essences that require a post-mortem conversion). If such a world were feasible and preferable to the one under consideration, then the Molinist strategy would be in trouble and the question would become why God didn't make better use of His middle knowledge.

8.  I want to thank Stephen Maitzen, Thomas Flint, and Klaas Kraay for their helpful comments.