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Along with the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness has become one of the most prominent arguments for atheism in the contemporary philosophy of religion. Roughly it is this: if there is a loving God, surely he would make his existence apparent to us, and in a way that we could not rationally doubt. Why? (i) Because it is of the nature of love that the lover will seek open relationship with the object of love, and (ii) because on most traditional theisms it is claimed that our ultimate well-being requires having a positive relationship with God, which relationship presupposes belief in God's reality. Yet as a matter of fact many people fail to believe in God, and that through no fault of their own. Such nonbelief is incompatible with the truth of theism. Therefore God does not exist. Here I explore how the writings of C. S. Lewis (probably the twentieth century's most popular Anglican author) can be brought to bear on the problem.
(1) Introduction
If God exists, why doesn't he make his existence more obvious, such that it could not rationally be doubted? This is a question of longstanding interest within Christian theology, going back to the patristic period.1 More recently, it has been turned into an argument for atheism popularly known as the "problem of divine hiddenness": on any well-formulated theism, God loves us and so desires a relationship of explicit and reciprocal love with us, both because the seeking of such a relationship is entailed by the nature of love and because this relationship is required for our ultimate well-being as humans. But we cannot have such a relationship with God unless we first believe that God exists. Consequently, God would ensure that everyone (or at least everyone who was not actively resisting God) had a rationally secure belief in him at all times. But as a matter of fact, lots of people fail to believe in God, often through no fault of their own. The state of affairs we see in our world contradicts what theism would lead us to expect a priori. So which assumption should be jettisoned? The most basic assumption, namely that God exists at all.
While a number of authors earlier...