Natural Nonbelief as a Necessary Means to a Life of Choiceworthy Meaning

Abstract

Many have thought that certain types and distributions of apparent nonresistant nonbelief in the world are among the best reasons to think naturalism is more probable than theism. Jason Marsh has argued that one specific type of nonresistant nonbelief, called natural nonbelief in early humans, supports naturalism over theism. However, I will argue that it is epistemically possible that God has a morallysufficient reason for permitting natural nonbelief in early humans. First, according to Axiarchism, God's goal for physical reality is to intentionally structure it so that a choiceworthy degree of moral, intellectual, and aesthetic value will be realized. Second, since theism entails Axiarchism, and it is far from clear on our total available evidence that eliminating the possibility of natural nonbelief would have led to a choiceworthy degree of moral, intellectual, and aesthetic value being realized for early humans, the degree to which natural nonbelief supports naturalism over theism is softened. Then what is it all and what are we all? What is the point of it and of us? Perhaps one clue is that we can even ask these questions… Sophie's World It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.Prov. 25:2 IntroductionMany have thought that certain types and distributions of apparent nonresistant nonbelief in the world are among the best reasons to think naturalism is more probable than theism. Jason Marsh has argued that a specific type of nonresistant nonbelief called natural nonbelief supports naturalism over theism.1 According to this argument, untold numbers of the earliest human beings were probably affectively2 willing 1 Marsh, "Darwin and the Problem of Natural NonBelief," 349-376. To be clear, Jason Marsh gives three reasons to think the implications of Darwinian evolution support naturalism over theism of which natural nonbelief is only one. I shall not consider his other two reasons here. 2 Schellenberg, "What Divine Hiddenness Reveals": "..in at least some of these people the absence of theistic belief is not in any way the result of their own emotional or behavioral opposition towards God or relationship with God or any of the apparent implications of such a relationship."

Divine Hiddenness, Greater Goods, and Accommodation

“…It is commonly held that God cannot impose an evil on some innocent person S for the sake of some good that does not benefit S. I address this in note 9. These criteria are addressed in Vandergriff (2016).…”