CADRE Comments

The so-called problem of divine hiddenness has apparently gained currency among skeptics as not only an interesting question, but an affirmative argument for atheism. The argument goes something like this (as Michael Murry describes John Schellenberg's forumlation in Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason ): 1. If there is a God, he is perfectly loving. 2. If a perfectly loving God exists, then no one could be a reasonable atheist. 3. But there are people who are reasonable atheists. 4. Thus, no perfectly loving God exists. 5. Thus, there is no God. There are, of course, variations of the argument and more detailed explanations of each point. You will often hear, for example, Nos. 2 and 3 are phrased in terms of "inculpable disbelief" or "reasonable unbelief," the idea being that there are people who reasonably or justifiably conclude there is no God based on the evidence, or lack of evidence, available to them. The argument does not deny the existence of re...

A.N. Wilson -- a noted British writer and journalist -- grew up in the Christian faith. In the 1980s, he deconverted, announced his atheism and published a pamphlet, Against Religion . He also authored critical biographies of Jesus, Paul, and C.S. Lewis. In an April 2008 article in the New Statesman, however, A.N. Wilson explains " Why I Believe Again ." Wilson recounts the initial joy he found in the certainty of atheism. A certainty that had eluded him as an adult Christian. He rubbed elbows with New Atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens, reveling in being in line with the sophisticated intelligentsia of his time. But Wilson realized that he is a doubter by nature, not just anti-religious, and began to question the certainty of the atheists. Yet he struggled to cling to his new-found atheism much as a fragile Christian doubter might: This creed that religion can be despatched in a few brisk arguments (outlined in David Hume’s masterly Dialogues Concerning Natural Re...