Can Non-resistant Non-belief be compatible with Atheism?

 In my rebuttal of Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness argument I show that: 

1. His ultimism doesn't logically entail perfect love.

2. That general (natural theology) and special (the evidence for Jesus Christ) revelation are sufficient for a belief in God.

3. Temporary hiddenness is compatible even within Schellenberg’s framework and only perpetual hiddenness is incompatible with God.

My contention in this post is to suggest that the claim, no God exists or it is unlikely God exists, better known as atheism is incompatible with the claim they are a non-resistant non-believer (NRNB).

A NRNB is Schellenberg’s notion for those who would believe, had they sufficient evidence to believe such a proposition. He (Schellenberg) gives numerous cases of apparent NRN-Belief; such as those who never even heard of Jesus or a personal God, say for instance 10,000 years ago, or individuals that are truly seeking, yet for no lack of trying, do not believe. I do not want to go over the same material as I did previously in my rebuttal, but it is uncontroversial that humanity has a predisposition to belief in the transcendent (God), even if it isn’t necessarily a personal God traditionally understood by theists. 

Additionally, this predisposition, undermines the atheists claim non-belief is the default position in the human disposition! If anything, atheism is the anomaly as a historical position. And I show, that belief, including whatever form it takes, if honestly held, can be counted as righteousness by God, thus isn’t a barrier to accepting true relationship with God.

This isn't the point of my post!

If you claim God doesn’t or is unlikely to exist, this to me seems like an incompatible view with the additional claim many atheists make, that they are NRNB's. If I believe I have evidence God doesn’t exist or likely doesn’t exist, how open minded am I going to be to evidence God does exist? It seems to me any true NRNB should be agnostic to the proposition, does God exists? 

This ties to my 'Unrequited Love Analogy' 

"Imagine Kip, who loves Jane deeply. To express his feelings, Kip leaves thoughtful notes and gifts. However, Jane, captivated by Kim, assumes these gestures come from Kim, never realising Kip’s intentions. While Kip desires Jane’s affection, he respects her autonomy, ensuring his actions are evident but never coercive.

In this analogy, Kip represents God, the notes signify general and special revelation (including prompting by the Holy Spirit), Jane represents non-resistant non-believers, and Kim symbolises naturalism. Jane’s infatuation with Kim blinds her to the true source of Kip’s notes, leading her to misattribute them. This mirrors how non-believers may interpret evidence for God within a naturalistic framework, misattributing divine revelation to natural causes.

For example, evidence such as the beginning of the universe (Kalam Cosmological Argument) may be reinterpreted within naturalism, such as through the multiverse hypothesis, rather than pointing to a transcendent cause.

Additionally consider the following situation:

Imagine that Jane briefly experiences something extraordinary an encounter that momentarily shakes her certainty about Kim. She admits it makes her reconsider, but her infatuation and prior beliefs lead her to rationalise it as a coincidence or misunderstanding rather than evidence of Kip's love.

This parallels Ayer’s near-death experience, where his atheistic presuppositions led him to dismiss the event as a hallucination despite its impact, illustrating how worldview shapes interpretation of evidence.

The key challenge:

As long as Jane attributes everything to Kim, no evidence could convince her of Kip’s love. Similarly, if a cognitive framework prevents a non-believer from recognising divine evidence, this creates a plausible explanation for non-resistant non-belief that is not rooted in resistance to God.

If even one plausible explanation like this exists, it undermines Schellenberg’s claim that a perfectly loving God must eliminate all non-resistant non-belief."[1]

In otherwords, as long as Jane (NRNB) attributes everything to Kim (Naturalism), not Kip (God), Jane, will never properly attribute the true origin of the notes she's been getting.

Atheism as defined in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEoP) as "(A)n atheist is a person who maintains that there is no God, that is, that the sentence “God exists” expresses a false proposition."[2]

If you are a lack-theist, you are simply confused; the claim of atheism is the negation of the theistic claim! If you want to state your psychological state, that is, you lack belief in God (you don't posses the proposition God exists), that isn't a positive claim and frankly removes you from the debate. Your brain state, like a weather pattern, isn't a debatable position and doesn't demonstrate a rationally held position, it's just how your brain happens to be at this point. By this logic, a stone lacks belief in the proposition God exists. In principle this can't be a legitimate position of a NRNB, as that too is a brain state, not a rational position, in fact every proposition is a brain state if this is true, which you just happen to find yourself in. So, why should anyone take anything you say seriously? SEoP evaluates atheism as a psychological state as "One problem with defining “atheism” as a psychological state is that philosophers do not define “theism” as a psychological state, nor should they. “Theism,” like most other philosophical “-isms”, is understood in philosophy to be a proposition. This is crucial because philosophers want to say that theism is true or false and, most importantly, to construct or evaluate arguments for theism. Psychological states cannot be true or false, nor can they be the conclusions of arguments."[2]

In other words, atheism is a propositional claim, that can be true or false, giving it burden of proof for the proponents of such a view. If you are a lack-theist, you are not making any propositional claim, but as of a result, you are not making any meaningful thoughts into the discussion. 

Atheists, therefore, do not constitute NRNB's as they likely:

1. Have philosophically sophisticated evidence fore their atheism, giving them reasons to reject theistic claims. 

2. Any theistic claim, they do encounter, they will have ready answers to reject such propositions and/or rejectsuch assumptions.

3. Any sensory evidence/data, will be seen through a naturalistic framework e.g., The Unrequited Love Analogy.

Lack-theists, therefore, do not constitute NRNB's as:

1. They are not making any propositional claim, thus can't be true or false.

2. Psychological brain states, can't be true or false, thus aren't rationally held beliefs.

3. If they aren't rationally held, they have no barrier to non-belief.

If the atheist insists they are open to the evidence, they need to show how they can be while simultaneously claiming naturalism is true while rejecting any supernatural claims as false. That is, if they insist everything can be interpreted in a reductionist manner, how can they be open minded. My Unrequited love analogy, shows that if Jane always sees evidence in light of Kim, Kip’s notes will never be properly attributed to Kip, thus Jane will never know the true source of the notes. Again, if this is plausible, this is enough to undermine Schellenberg’s argument. 

If the Lack-theists insists they are open minded, and the evidence just points more in favor of atheism. Then they are adopting the stronger claim, moving back to the standard definition of atheism, giving them a burden of proof and my Unrequited love analogy comes into force. If they just remain unconvinced, on what grounds are they 'uncovinced'?, how can a psychological state be convinced or otherwise? This seems to me to be unintelligible set of words that have no meaning if they truly believe (if that is even a meaningful set of words), what they say. 

The most charitable way I can understand this, is that they do believe they are rationally making an informed decision, and atheism makes the most sense to them, but that would commit them to a stronger claim. So, it seems to me, that lack-theists who do not want a burden of proof, should just accept they are not making any claim and stay out of the debate, untill such a time they wish to make a meaningful claim. But this also commits them to not being a NRNB. 

Atheists, therefore, need to show how their worldview doesn't preclude any evidence like A.J Ayer’s near-death experience seen through his naturalistic lense, made him reject his profound experience. For instance C.S Lewis concluded that if God didn't exist because of the Problem of Evil, he had a preconceived notion of what God was like "If a good God made the world why has it gone wrong? And for many years I simply refused to listen to the Christian answers to this question, because I kept on feeling “whatever you say, and however clever your arguments are, isn’t it much simpler and easier to say that the world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren’t all your arguments simply a complicated attempt to avoid the obvious?” But then that threw me back into another difficulty." [3] In other words, his worldview shaped what he expected God to be like and do, in addition that his worldview was a simpler explanation. "My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? "[3] The idea the universe or life is cruel and unjust, assumes a standard to judge against. "Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist-in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality-namely my idea of justice-was full of sense."[3] For the argument that the universe is unjust or unfair, there has to be a standard to judge it against, other than our personal preference, thus the idea of justice is something that must be intelligible. "Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."[4] Now, obviously Lewis's view isn’t philosophically sophisticated, but colloquially he is brilliant and his views intuitively hit home. 

The idea of God atheists attack, often, even if unintentional, are too simple. Philosophically sophisticated atheist like Schellenberg, try to mitigate this by broadly adopting the traditional omni-property God, which Schellenberg calls "ultimism...a reality that is triply ultimate: metaphysically, axiologically, and soteriologically. Theism entails ultimism, but the converse does not hold."[5], he goes on to say "First, let's notice what theism's (or personal ultimism's) axiological component entails. The Ultimate, if a person, would have to be an unsurpassably great person. The value of power and knowledge as well as benevolence in persons is commonly highlighted by philosophers who spell out the content of theism. But, although neglected, the value of love in persons is certainly no less obvious. So we have to say that an unsurpassably great person could not be other than unsurpassably loving toward other persons."[5] As I show in my rebuttal, nothing about the axiological component, in isolation or combined with the metaphysical and or soteriological components entail unsurpassably loving or perfect love. 

The claim of ultimism rests on the three axioms: metaphysical, axiological, and soteriological which, whether taken in isolation or together, do not entail or imply perfect love. For example:

• Axiological (ethical): Being ethical is not equivalent to being loving. An A.I. bot, for instance, could approximate ethical behavior without exhibiting love, let alone perfect love.

• Soteriological (salvation): Even the axiom of salvation does not necessitate perfect love. It is conceivable that, in virtue of this ethical axiom (which does not require love), the "Ultimate" could decide that saving humanity is the “right” thing to do without ever being loving, let alone perfectly loving.

In short, while Schellenberg connects ultimism to unsurpassably great and perfect love, the connection is not justified by the axioms themselves. This distinction highlights a critical flaw in his reasoning and emphasises that ultimism, as he defines it, is not synonymous with love nor more importantly, my preferred understanding of God. 

In other words,  Schellenberg’s claim that “an unsurpassably great person could not be other than unsurpassably loving toward other persons” assumes a particular interpretation of love, one that prioritises eliminating non-belief through direct intervention. However, this interpretation may overlook other aspects of love, such as respecting human freedom, fostering personal growth, or allowing individuals to seek and find God in a way that leads to a deeper, voluntary relationship.[1]

In conclusion, it seems to me, people who identify as atheists are not as open-minded as they claim, this isn’t to psychoanalyse anyone, but rather to show that claiming you are an atheist, entails a strong claim to knowledge, which seems on closer analysis to be incompatible with the claim they are NRNB's. 

Additionally, I break down Schellenberg’s presuppositions to ultimism and show why they may be too simple. I maintain that any NRNB, should adopt a more modest worldview, like agnosticism to the proposition God exists and related subjects like materialism is true.

References.

[1] https://micahministries.blogspot.com/2025/02/divine-hiddenness.html

[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

[3] Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis, 1952, HarperCollins-ebook edition (2009). p38.

[4] Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis, 1952, HarperCollins-ebook edition (2009). p39.

[5] Divine Hiddenness and Human Philosophy, J.L Schellenberg. http://www.jlschellenberg.com/uploads/8/5/6/1/8561683/divine_hiddenness_and_human_philosophy.pdf