RT Article
T1 Getting to Know a God You Do Not Believe in: Panentheism, Externalism, and Divine Hiddenness
JF Zygon
VO 56
IS 2
SP 352
OP 373
A1 Cawdron, Harvey
LA English
PB Wiley-Blackwell
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1764117034
AB J. L. Schellenberg's hiddenness argument is one of the key contemporary justifications for atheism and has prompted numerous responses from those defending the plausibility of belief in God. I will outline a recent counterargument from Michael C. Rea, who claims that relationships with God are far more widely available than Schellenberg assumes. However, I will suggest that it invites a response from proponents of the hiddenness argument because it leaves some nonbelievers unaccounted for. I will rectify this by suggesting that a model of panentheism in which God is embodied in the cosmos allows all, including all nonbelievers, to have a relationship with God. I will then claim that semantic externalism and externalism about beliefs can enable nonbelievers to get to know this God. I will then challenge the hiddenness argument by suggesting that these relationships can accommodate the key motivations behind Schellenberg's insistence on personal relationships without requiring subjects to recognize that they are in a relationship with God.
K1 personal relationships
K1 Panentheism
K1 Divine Hiddenness
K1 divine embodiment
DO 10.1111/zygo.12689