Free Will and a Hidden God

One of my favorite arguments in favor of reasonable non-belief is called the argument from divine hiddenness. It goes roughly as follows:

1. There is a personal (relationship-seeking) and perfectly loving God.

2. There are people capable of having a relationship with this God.

3. A perfectly loving God would not act to hinder this relationship.

4. Belief in God is a necessary condition for a person to enter into this relationship.

5. Creatures capable of this relationship that do not resist God will always have this belief.

6. Yet, there exists reasonable non-belief.

Basically, if there are reasonable non-believers, then there is not sufficient evidence for belief. If there is not sufficient evidence for belief, then there is not a relationship-seeking, perfectly loving God.

The most popular response I’ve heard is that God presenting obvious evidence that he exists would restrict our ability to make morally significant free choices. Somehow if I knew God were real, then I would basically be forced to do good.

This quickly results in absurdity. Many Christians, for example, claim to have great confidence in God’s existence and yet apparently don’t think their freedom is hindered. The disciples were with God every day performing wonderous deeds and they are revered - certainly we wouldn’t say they didn’t make morally significant choices. Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden and still made a free choice. Or how about Moses, Noah, David, and even Satan? Did none of these people make free choices?

If these people were able to make morally significant free choices, despite having immediate knowledge of God’s existence and power, then the objection fails.

The Problem of Heaven

Rank these possible ways to exist in order of preference:

1. People have free will and no evil exists
2. People have free will and some evil exists
3. People do not have free will and no evil exists

 

There is some debate about whether the second or third option is better, but clearly the vast majority of people would prefer the first option. It’s not even close, right? You have your cake (free will) and eat it too (eliminate evil). So, it seems fair to say that option (1) is objectively better than options (2) or (3).

According to most forms of Christianity, our world is best described by (2), but option (1) actually exists too—it’s called Heaven. Ironically, we’ll see that the existence of Heaven actually entails some serious problems for traditional Christian theism. Let’s explore these problems by asking a question.

 

What would the greatest possible being do?

God is often called the greatest possible being, dating back to St. Anselm of Canterbury. Whatever we take this to mean, I think one assumption is clearly justified: When given two or more options, the greatest possible being will necessarily take the best option available. Imagine a being that has two options. She can either cure every form of cancer or put a band-aid on a child’s skinned knee, but not both. Which action will be taken by the greatest possible being? Obviously she would cure cancer. This is a no brainer, right? Even though both actions would result in some amount of good, there is a clear candidate for which is the better action.

Now let’s consider the choices God had when creating the world. Does our own world represent the best choice among available options? If you’ve ever suggested to a theist that God could have eliminated evil when creating the world, you’ve probably heard something like, “Evil is a necessary byproduct of freedom.” This is a contrast between (2) and (3) and saying (2) is morally preferable. Notice the problem? They are ignoring (1), which they cannot deny is a realistic option because they actually believe it exists. So, the problem that God could have created a world with both free will and the absence of evil still stands. This means God did not perform the best action available.

 

Conclusion

If Heaven exists (or is a realistic option), then that means God is not the greatest possible being. We have reached a classic reductio ad absurdum where two commonly held Christian beliefs actually contradict each other, showing that either one or both is false.