God's Moral Obligation to Hide

Abstract

The following is a response to J.L. Schellenberg's argument from the fact of divine hiddenness for unbelief in God. If God is capable of making a vast number of distinct universes, then God might be justified in allowing universes to exist that are fundamentally natural in how they can appear to a great many sentient beings in those universes. A reductio ad absurdum argument is presented, based on the assumption of the moral principle that it is wrong for God, or anyone else, to allow universes to exist that are ambiguous in regard to the question of whether they are naturally or divinely originated. Adopting such a principle implies that one must either contradictorily assert that we cannot know God's existence, or that we have a moral obligation to prevent the continuation of sentient life in this universe by any ethical means available.