Does the Christian worldview provide an apt guide to human psychology? The late counselor Lawrence J. Crabb, Jr. (1944-2021) thought so—a claim that inspired his counseling text and Christian bestseller Effective Biblical Counseling[1] (first released in 1977), which sold over 200,000 copies.[2] The purpose of this essay is to canvass, then evaluate, Crabb’s Bible-based psychology.
II. Crabb’s Model
If the Judeo-Christian Bible is a reliable source of truth, then this would carry some intriguing consequences for human psychology. As a sample, consider the following verses:
Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Ephesians 4:22-24: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Philippians 4:6-7: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Romans 7:22-23: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my member.”
John 8:34: “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.”
What model of mind could validate the above verses? What would the mind’s substance and function be? Crabb’s theory responds to these questions as follows:
1. Nonmaterialism: Unsurprisingly, Crabb’s Christian view of the mind includes a commitment to a nonphysical aspect of the mind’s functioning: “I am not what is called a physicalistic reductionist…. Emotion is more than glandular functioning. Thinking is more than neurobiological activity in the brain…. I do not believe that how we think, act, and feel as persons can be explained completely in terms of physical correlations” (p. 87). This gives rise to a number of predictable, timeworn philosophical questions—How does the mind’s nonphysical part cause changes in the brain’s physical parts? Is Crabb likewise a nonmaterialist concerning animal minds? etc. We’ll leave matters alone, focusing instead on Crabb’s portrait of human psychology.[3]
2. Anatomy of the Mind and Functional Model: Crabb’s model consists of five main parts, which interact to give rise to human thought, behavior, and emotion. This, in turn, can be used to give psychological content to some of the Bible verses above. Crabb offers a helpful diagram of these parts’ roles at pages 106-107. It’s noteworthy (and expected) that Crabb posits a functional difference between the minds of the Christian “believer” and “unbeliever”:
Fig. 1 (a): Diagram of Crabb’s Functional Portrait of the Mind for the Non-Christian (p. 106)
Fig. 1 (b): Diagram of Crabb’s Functional Portrait of the Mind for the Christian (p. 107)
(a) The Conscious Mind: Crabb describes the activities of the conscious mind as involving “talk[ing] to ourselves in sentences,” including the making of “evaluations” of “external events” (pp. 88-89).[4] Notably, “evaluations” include moral judgments (p. 90).
This ability of the conscious mind to evaluate “external events” has emotional significance, since Crabb (similarly to, for instance, Albert Ellis[5]) claims that “events do not control my feelings. My mental evaluation of events (the sentences I tell myself) … affect how I feel” (p. 89).
One clarification: Though Crabb speaks of the “conscious mind,” this doesn’t entail that we’re always aware of the goings-on in the conscious mind: “I may not always notice the sentences I am telling myself, but I am responding in verbal form, nevertheless (p. 89); rather, events in the conscious mind are “conscious” in the subjunctive sense that, “if I paid attention to my mind, I could observe what sentences I am using to evaluate this event” (p. 89).
(b) The Unconscious Mind: Intriguingly, Crabb (“tentatively”) suggests that the unconscious mind can be modeled on a careful reading of the Greek word, phromena. On this understanding, the unconscious mind is described as “a part of personality which develops and holds on to deep, reflective assumptions” (p. 91), or, more specifically: “the unconscious part of mental functioning [is] the reservoir of basic assumptions which people firmly and emotionally hold about how to meet their needs of significance and security” (p. 91 [emphasis original]). These “basic assumptions,” Crabb avers, are best identified as “attitudes … [that] have affective (emotional) as well as cognitive components” (p. 95).
On Crabb’s view, these “basic assumptions” are not neutral in character: “Each of us,” he posits, “has been programmed [by the “unbelieving world”][6] to believe that happiness, worth, joy—all the good things of life—depend on something other than God … [and that] we can … achieve true personal worth and social harmony without kneeling first at the cross of Christ … [and that] something other than God offers personal reality and fulfillment” (pp. 91-92).
As noted before, Crabb’s model echoes Ellis’ “ABC model” in that Crabb locates a number of dysfunctional assumptions in the unconscious mind, for instance (p. 93):
“I must be a financial success in order to be significant.”
“I must not be criticized if I am to be secure.”
“Others must recognize my abilities if I am to be significant.”
Owing to such unhealthy assumptions, Crabb adds, “it is no wonder that many people are anxious, guilty, or resentful” (p. 93).
Yet while these implicit assumptions guide much of human behavior, they are “unconscious” in a striking sense: bringing these assumptions to conscious light requires supernatural intervention:
Scripture teaches that we are masters of self-deception and that we require supernatural help to see ourselves as we really are (Jeremiah 17:9-10)” (p. 95). Honest and accurate exploration of the inner chambers of one’s personal being is the special prerogative of God. Christian counseling at this point depends critically upon the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit. Without His assistance, no one will perceive or accept the truth about his self-centered and wrong approach to life (p. 95).
(c) Basic Direction (“Heart”): By “heart,” Crabb doesn’t seem to have in mind any particular part of human personality, but rather orientation of “the human personality as a whole” (p. 97). Specifically, Crabb’s idea of “heart” seems to be a kind of center of gravity of the human “rationality, moral judgment, emotions, [and] will” (p. 97).
The “heart,” under Crabb’s understanding, has one of two orientations: self-centered and God-centered; it “represents a person’s fundamental intentions: for whom or what do I choose to live?” Do I “live for self or live for God”? The former orientation, “which we all naturally do,” means that you “are left to yourself … in meeting your personal needs.” On the other hand, if “your basic intention is, by God’s grace, to put Christ first and serve Him…, then you can reject all of the world’s ideas on how to become worthwhile … and you can start filling your conscious mind with the truths of Scripture” (pp. 97-98). For an illustration of this difference, contrast the two pictures in Figure 1 above. Note, too, that this offers a psychological interpretation for the oft-quoted Bible verse 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” and the imperative to “put on the new man” in Ephesians 4:22-24 above.
This, then, is Crabb’s view of the psychological difference between non-Christians and “saved” Christians. The Christian, on this view, is that the Christian has “two sources of input into the conscious mind: what Satan says through the world to our unconscious mind and what God says through the Bible to our conscious mind” (p. 97). As a result, the Christian is often conscious of two ways to make a moral decision: one self-serving (the result of world-inculcated selfish attitudes in the unconscious), the other God-serving (the result of conscious study of the Bible). Non-Christians, however, lack the latter, biblical, source of guidance; thus, the non-Christian, on Crabb’s view, lives only to serve himself and “[a]ll [his] components … work together … toward the sinful goal of self-exaltation” (p. 97). This suggests a psychological interpretation of non-Christians’ “slavery to sin,” as noted at John 8:34 above—to wit, unlike the “saved” Christian, only the “self-serving” path presents itself as an option when the unbeliever makes a moral decision.
(d) Will: Crabb’s understanding of the will is familiar: it is the “capacity for choosing how to behave” (p. 100). The behavior-options available to the will are, in turn, “restricted by the limits of his rational understanding” (p. 100)—i.e., the truths believed by the conscious mind, plus the attitude engendered by the unconscious mind. Of course, these two sources can often be expected to conflict in the (Bible-immersed) Christian, on Crabb’s model. Suppose, for instance, a Christian is gratuitously insulted by a passer-by. The Christian’s “selfish” unconscious can be expected to kick up a desire to retaliate for the insult. But, thanks to the Christian’s Bible-immersion, her conscious mind also calls up a biblical response to the situation: “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). Needless to say, the Christian, despite her biblical immersion, might find it difficult to overrule her unconscious selfish attitude, and forbear from retaliating: “It often involves teeth-gritting effort to choose to behave as we should” (p. 101).
(e) Emotions: People aren’t like the “purely logical” Vulcans found on Star Trek. We are creature with emotions and feelings, and no psychological model can be complete without accounting for them and their causal role in our psychological lives.
On Crabb’s model, emotions have two main functions. First, similar to Ellis’ ABC model, Crabb views emotions to be caused by (our conscious and unconscious evaluations of) events—recall §(a)-(b) above. The second function of emotions is that they motivate behavior—as when we act vengefully out of a feeling of resentment, or act charitably out of a feeling of compassion.
Crabb also hastens to clarify the roles of negative emotions in the Christian life. “Christianity was never intending to be one laugh after another,” Crabb declare, “[w]e all feel bad sometimes. And all ‘bad’ feelings are not morally bad” (p. 103). To the contrary: a feeling is sinful, on Crabb’s view, only if it is “mutually exclusive with compassion” (p. 103). Thus, the emotions of depression, crippling guilt, resentment and anxiety are “sinful,” since in their leading to self-absorption, they crowd out a feeling of compassion for others (pp. 104-105). On the other hand, anguish, “constructive sorrow,” anger, “motivated discontent,” and sorrow are not sinful—since they can motivate virtuous behavior such as (respectively) soul-searching, changing one’s behavior, rebuking sin (as when Jesus expelled the moneychangers from the Temple in Matthew 21:12-17), changing intolerable circumstances, or forward-planning (pp. 104-105).
III. Questions and Concluding Remarks
As we’ve seen, Crabb’s model is well-organized, elegant, and allows for psychological interpretations of various biblical statements involving human psychology. And yet, Crabb’s model suggests some questions. We turn to them now, followed by some concluding remarks.
1. Re: The Conscious Mind
(Q1) Crabb describes the contents of the conscious mind as “sentences” or “propositions.” But it appears there are ample nonlinguistic contents of our streams of consciousness. For instance, I might entertain an image of Charlie Chaplin’s slipping on a banana peel. Indeed, even Crabb points out that the “‘real you’ involves … an imagination capable of scheming hideous sins” (p. 55). Isn’t this an event in the conscious mind? Or is mental imagery handled by a different (and unnamed?) mental faculty? And what are we to say about pre-linguistic infants or nonlinguistic animals?
2. Re: The Unconscious Mind
(Q2) Crabb claims that Satan uses “the world” to inculcate self-centered “false programming” concerning our needs and how to meet them. But is the world’s “programming” so bleak? Children are routinely taught (at home and at school) the importance of helping others altruistically (see, for example, Shel Silverstein’s perennial bestselling The Giving Tree[7]). Why isn’t this “positive” programming accounted for in Crabb’s model?
(Q3) Many children are taught the importance of God—whether this deity is called “Jehovah,” “Allah,” or “HaShem.” Why doesn’t Crabb’s model acknowledge non-Christian faith systems that have theistic content?
(Q4) Crabb claims that, “Apart from God’s sovereign work, people ultimately are out for themselves” (p. 97). This view is well-known in the philosophical literature as psychological egoism. Moreover, there are abundant arguments that show that psychological egoism, while superficially plausible, is ultimately a false characterization of human motivations.[8]
(Q5) Crabb distinguishes the Christian from the nonbeliever as one who (i) “loses oneself in Christ” and (ii) avails oneself of “what God says through the Bible to our conscious mind” (p. 99). Couldn’t this process also be achieved by, for example, losing oneself in Allah and availing oneself of what Allah says through the Quran to the conscious mind? If not, why not? Moreover, why isn’t simply reading the Bible enough to avail oneself of biblical teachings?
(Q6) How is the conscience to be understood on Crabb’s model?
3. Re: The Will
(Q7) By Crabb’s model, an unbeliever’s rejection of Christianity isn’t a result of a “weak will”; rather, “the problem with an unsaved person is not his inability to choose God … but [rather] his darkened understanding [the conscious and unconscious mind?] will not allow his will to make that choice. He does not need a strengthened will, he needs and enlightened mind, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit” (pp. 100-101). But if the will is not “allowed” to choose Christianity by “the understanding” (save a supernatural intervention by the Holy Spirit), in what sense does a nonbeliever freely choose his nonbelief? In what sense is an atheist morally responsible for his belief, if he couldn’t have chosen otherwise (save a supernatural intervention by the Holy Spirit)? It seems unlikely that Crabb would intend to let the unbeliever off the moral hook for his sins.
4. Re: Emotions
(Q8) In what sense are depression and anxiety “sinful” emotions, as Crabb terms them? It would seem that something is “sinful” only if someone is morally responsible for that emotion. Yet medical science recognizes types of depression and anxiety that are not a “choices” by the sufferer, but rather symptoms of a neurological condition.[9] How does Crabb’s model account for advances in psychopharmacology, which shows that various emotions are products of neurophysiology/chemistry, rather than the volitional products of a person’s psychodynamics?
(Q9) Crabb suggests that the emotions are effects of evaluations by the conscious mind and/or attitudes of the unconscious mind. But isn’t it evident that emotions can cause events in the mind, as well? Is a person suffering from clinical depression because of their pessimistic thoughts? Isn’t it more plausible that a person’s pessimistic thoughts are caused by a depressed mood (which, in turn, is caused by an imbalance in neurochemicals?
5. Re: General Questions
(Q10) Obviously, nonbelievers have occasion to read the Bible. How does a nonbeliever’s exposure to the Bible differ from that of a believer’s, on Crabb’s model? Is this because of factors that are present in the believer’s mind, yet absent in the nonbeliever? Or vice versa? Or both? Would such differences be observable in a brain-imaging scan (e.g., an fMRI)?
(Q11) What differences between Crabb’s model and nontheistic models might be amenable to experimental tests (if any)?
(Q12) Many models of human moral development don’t distinguish between a person’s religious affiliations (consider, for example, Lawrence Kohlberg’s three levels of moral development). Yet Crabb seems to suggest that non-Christians’ moral development is “arrested” at an egocentric, self-centered stage. How would the defender of Crabb’s model respond to discrepancies between nonreligious theories of moral development and Crabb’s model?
Crabb’s model gives rise to a number of weighty questions. Some of these questions appear to cause no trouble for the Crabb model; a refurbishment or clarification might address them sufficiently. Other questions, though, seem to present significant challenges to Crabb’s model, most conspicuously, Crabb seems out of step with contemporary psychology concerning the topics of child development (Q1, Q2, & Q12 above), human altruism (Q4 above), and neurobiology and psychopharmacology (Q8 & Q9).
And yet, even if Crabb’s model is, as we’ve seen, sorely inconsistent with actual human psychology, it’s notable as an indication of the psychology that evangelical Christians project onto nonbelievers. Small wonder that such theists presume that unbelievers are capable of selflessness or principled moral behavior. It would be worthwhile to suggest a program for educating evangelicals about unbelievers’ actual moral psychology, but that is a topic for another time.
Notes
[1] Lawrence J. Crabb, Effective Biblical Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013).
[2] Daniel Silliman, “Died: Larry Crabb, Christian Counselor Who Kept Exploring.” Christianity Today, March 5, 2021. <https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/march/died-larry-crabb-christian-counseling-spiritual-direction.html>.
[3] For a helpful guide, see Robert Van Gulick, “Consciousness” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 edn.) ed. E. N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2014). <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/consciousness/>
[4] Though Crabb emphasizes “external events” in the world, his model also seems able to account for evaluations of events “internal” to the mind—i.e., evaluations of my own thoughts and feelings. For instance, while I might not actually tell off my boss, I might mentally entertain (imagine) doing so, judge such a confrontational thought as “shameful,” and feel pangs of remorse.
[5] Albert Ellis, Mike Abrams, and Lidia D. Abrams, Personality Theories: Critical Perspectives (Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2009), pp. 479-526.
[6] Crabb doesn’t speak of any of these “basic assumptions” in the unconscious mind as inborn or innate; as far as he remarks, these “basic assumptions” are all the result of environmental inputs. In that’s right, I can’t help but wonder how this view (that seems so reminiscent of Skinnerian behaviorism) squares with contemporary learning theory. See Saul McLeod, “What is Operant Conditioning and How Does it Work?” Simply Psychology (March 14, 2023). <https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html>.
[7] Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1964).
[8] For a primer on this issue, see Robert Shaver, “Egoism” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 edn.) ed. E. N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2014). <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/egoism/>
[9] Stephen M. Stahl, Depression and Bipolar Disorder: Stahl’s Essential Psychopharmacology, 3rd edition (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Humorist Leo Rosten once posed a hypothetical question to agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell: “Let us suppose, sir, that after you have left this sorry vale, you actually found yourself in heaven … [and] before your very eyes was God. What would you say?” To which Russell replied: “I would probably ask, ‘Sir, why did you not give me better evidence?'”[1]
According to Russell’s view, then, there is not sufficient evidence to infer the existence of God. But might we not infer a stronger conclusion—to wit, that this insufficiency of evidence actually implies the nonexistence of God? Those who press the problem of the hiddenness of God assert just that.
In this brief essay, I’ll focus on an argument that purports to show that God’s “hiddenness”—i.e., the fact that God’s existence is not obvious—is inconsistent with God’s existence. First, I’ll recount J. L. Schellenberg‘s hiddenness argument (discussed in his book Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason[2]). Then, I’ll recount and evaluate objections that Theodore M. Drange offers to this argument in his Secular Web essay “Nonbelief as Support for Atheism.”[3] This prompts me to offer a revised version of the hiddenness argument that incorporates Drange’s constructive criticisms. I conclude with some further speculation on the hiddenness of God problem(s).
I. Schellenberg’s Argument and Drange’s Critique
At issue is Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument (HA):
(HA1) If God exists, then He’s perfectly loving. (HA2) If a perfectly loving God exists, then reasonable nonbelief does not occur. (HA3) Reasonable nonbelief does occur.
From these premises, it immediately follows (from the last two premises and modus tollens) that:
(HA4) A perfectly loving God does not exist,
and thus, by premises (HA1) and (HA4) and modus tollens again, one concludes:
(HA5) God does not exist.
Now, Drange’s critique is three-fold:
First, he avers that Schellenberg’s opening premise is false, since “there are theists who do not view God as perfectly loving.” It’s difficult to fault Drange’s objection—after all, the generic name “God” might refer to solely a Creator-deity (Ã la Enlightenment deist Benjamin Franklin[4]). Hence Drange’s constructive suggestion that Schellenberg’s first premise requires, in its antecedent, the assumption of “some specific deity (e.g., the God of evangelical Christianity) rather than God in general.”
Likewise for Drange’s objection to (HA)’s second premise: “There is nothing in the concept of love itself that would warrant the inference” that such a loving deity would necessarily reveal his existence to a disbeliever. After all, as Drange points out, there’s no contradiction in the concept of “loving from afar.” In order to move from antecedent to consequent in premise (HA2), Drange notes, we need to go “beyond the concept of divine love, perhaps making an appeal to Scripture or some additional properties of God.”
Drange’s suggestion seems a constructive one. If we restrict our attention (as he suggests) to the God of “evangelical Christianity,” then it’s easy to find such “additional properties”—the properties of omnipotence and omniscience, for starters, and the more specific property that God wants a relationship with all people (conducive to their salvation). Such a property is made explicit by Christian scripture: “I exhort … that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men,” urges one Pauline epistle, “[f]or this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour … who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1,3-4 KJV [emphasis added]). Other properties, cited by both Schellenberg and Drange, include (respectively): (a) God’s desire of a personal relationship with his human creations (which clearly requires that such creations believe that God exists)[5] and (b) that God desires that his human creations love him—a desire that is made biblically explicit in the book of Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (6:5).
Drange offers another suggestion regarding the appearance of the adjective “reasonable” in the second and third premises. In Drange’s view, this qualification is unnecessary, for even if a person’s nonbelief were “unreasonable” (based, say, on ad hominem prejudice against Christians), Drange wonders why a loving God wouldn’t “set vindictiveness aside and still want to help nonbelievers … by supplying them with evidence of His existence … [such as] some spectacular miracle, or … a religious experience.” For the record, I’m sympathetic to Drange’s suggestion here—the (generous) forgiveness such a deity would be granting even “undeserving” nonbelievers is reminiscent of the (generous) forgiveness we find in the famous parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).
Would a loving God forgive “unreasonable” nonbelief? While I’m inclined to agree that he would, I’d like to table this matter in the present debate. After all, if Drange is correct, Schellenberg’s argument is still sound—it’s just weaker than it could be.[6] And even if Drange is incorrect, Schellenberg’s argument can still be sound. So the soundness of Schellenberg’s argument doesn’t require us to take a position on Drange’s suggestion.
In addition, I can’t help but offer a semantic quibble: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions of reasonable belief (as opposed to nonreasonable belief)? In the interest of clarification, I would suggest that “reasonable” belief amounts to a well-established ordinary concept: the concept of intellectual honesty. Specifically, we might distinguish between:
intellectually honest nonbelief in God, i.e., nonbelief that is the result of an intellectually honest inquiry, obeying (what we might call) principles of epistemic virtue—open-mindedness, a desire to discover the truth, etc.[7]
versus
intellectually dishonest nonbelief in God, i.e., nonbelief that is engendered solely by emotion (e.g., rebellion against the idea of God), or that brazenly takes epistemic shortcuts to its conclusion—employing wishful thinking, ad hominem, or other fallacies.
The foregoing trio of qualifications, I suggest, strengthens Schellenberg’s original argument. In light of points (A) and (B) above, the revised hiddenness argument’s (RHA’s) first premise becomes:
(RHA1) If the God of evangelical Christianity exists, then He’s perfectly loving, omnipotent, and has a strong desire that people have a (“saving” and/or “loving”) relationship with him.
Further, in light of points (B) and (C), replace Schellenberg’s second premise with the following:
(RHA2) If such a God existed, then there would be no intellectually honest unbelievers of God’s existence.[8]
But, alas, it doesn’t take much inquiry to discover the following:
(RHA3) There are intellectually honest unbelievers in God’s existence.
From this it follows that the God of evangelical Christianity does not exist. Q.E.D.
II. Further Facets of the Hiddenness of God
One way of understanding the hiddenness of God problem is that, for many of us, nothing in our experience—our worldly experience, our psychological experience—cries out for theistic explanation. As philosopher David Hume pointed out long ago, anthropological accounts of miracles need not be accepted at face value; they are (at least) as plausibly explained by the excess of human credulity in the face of fantastic stories.[9] Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman points out, too, that Gospel accounts of the Resurrection need not be taken at face value; they are (at least) as plausibly explained by embellishments made in the decades of oral tradition that preceded the Gospels being written down.[10] And as contemporary psychology posits, feelings of existential forlornness are (at least) as plausibly explained by natural disruptions of a person’s human relationships (and/or their serotonin levels), rather than estrangement from a supernatural deity.[11] In sum, if there had existed a Judeo-Christian God eager for the salvation of human beings, well… wouldn’t that omnipresent Creator and redeemer’s fingerprints on creation and our hearts be more conspicuous and unequivocal?
Perhaps, then, it’s more apt to speak of the problems of the hiddenness of God (in the plural), for there are a host of aspects in which divine absence is surprising and befuddling. In that spirit, I suggest two further bits of speculation that spring from aspects of divine hiddenness:
(A) Anselm’s Argument: “The fool in his heart says there is not God,” reads the well-known verse from the Psalms (14:1; see also 53:1).[12] Intriguingly, medieval philosopher Saint Anselm understood this verse literally: “Why,” he asked, “has the fool said in his heart, there is no God…, since it is so evident, to a rational mind, that you do exist in the highest degree of all? Why, except that he is dull and a fool?”[13] We can put this proposition in compact premise form:
(Ans1) If the Judeo-Christian God exists, then there’s a sound argument for his existence that only a fool (dullard) would deny is sound.
And, being a traditional theist, Anselm also believed:
(Ans2) The Judeo-Christian God exists.
From this, by modus ponens, we get the Anselmian corollary:
(Ans3) There’s a sound argument for God’s existence that only a fool (dullard) would deny is sound.
Now what, pray tell, would such an argument look like? In light of the centuries of dispute occasioned by the cosmological (“first cause”) argument and the teleological (“design”) argument, it’s unsurprising that Anselm bypassed these routes and sought a novel form of argument. Instead of relying upon abstruse notions of causation, eternity, infinity, and cosmic design, Anselm cleverly sought proof of God’s existence in the most immediate place—believing that the proof of God was hiding “in plain sight,” as it were—in the very idea of God. “[W]e believe,” he writes:
that [God is] a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart, there is no God?… But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak—a being than which nothing greater can be conceived—understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding…. And assuredly that than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality [emphasis mine].[14]
Now Anselm deserves praise for the innovation and elegance of this “ontological” argument. Yet, paradoxically, while he aimed to frame an undeniable proof of God’s existence, Anselm’s argument is notorious for the fact that practically no one grants its soundness! (As for why such an objectionable argument has such staying power in the annals of philosophy, this seems to derive from the fact that everyone rejects it—but disagrees about the reason(s) for rejecting it.[15]) But the fact stands: once scrutinized, we find nonfoolish reasons for rejecting the soundness of Anselm’s argument.[16] And, more generally, after millennia of philosophical and theological effort, it seems safe to conclude that no such obviously sound argument exists. (It would be quite paradoxical to claim that the soundness of the proof that makes God’s existence obvious is, itself, unobvious!) Or, to put the point compactly, we have the negation of premise (Ans3):
~(Ans3) There’s no sound argument for God’s existence that only a fool (dullard) would deny is sound.
But when we couple this with premise (Ans1), we deductively conclude:
~(Ans2) The Judeo-Christian God does not exist.
Anselm’s modus ponens [(Ans1), (Ans2) | ∴ (Ans3)] has fallen in the wake of a more forceful modus tollens [(Ans1), ~(Ans3) | ∴ ~(Ans2)]—an argument that infers God’s nonexistence from his hiddenness (nonobviousness).
(B) Psychological Hiddenness: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord,” wrote Saint Augustine in his Confessions, “and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Now, who does Augustine’s pronoun “our” refer to? Presumably, Augustine meant everyone. After all, suppose God created human beings, consistent with the Christian plan of desiring a (“saving”) relationship with everyone.[17] Then it stands to reason that human beings would feel incomplete or unsatisfied (or “restless,” in Augustine’s wording) if they lacked a relationship with the Christian Creator-God[18] Or, put more briefly:
(Psy1) If the Judeo-Christian God exists, then all unbelievers would feel “restless” (dissatisfied with life).
But even a cursory survey of actual human psychology fails to unearth such existential dissatisfaction as a universal pathology among non-Christians. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman, for instance, has devoted a his rich career to scrutinizing the lived experiences of apostates[19], secularists[20], and post-Christian Scandinavian societies.[21] He concludes that secularism is consistent with a rich satisfaction with life—that fulfillment emerges, not necessarily from a relationship with God, but with our bonds with people:
Community is more important than faith. Belonging is more important than belief. Gathering is more important than God. As the similar findings of American social psychologists Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt have confirmed, bonding with other humans is the driving engine of increased charity and generosity, not believing in a deity.[22]
All of this strongly evidences the following premise:
(Psy2) Some nonbelievers don’t feel “restless” (dissatisfied) with life.
But the foregoing two premises entail (by modus tollens again) that
(Psy3) The Judeo-Christian God does not exist.
Once again, we’ve inferred some divine fingerprints that we’d expect if the Judeo-Christian God existed (in (Psy1)), observed that these fingerprints are absent (in (Psy2)), and thus concluded that the best explanation for the absence of these fingerprints is that (contrary to the popular song) God doesn’t “have the whole world in his hands.”
III. Conclusion
If the evangelical Christian worldview were true, then we should find unequivocal evidence galore of God’s existence. No intellectually honest inquirer would remain a nonbeliever (according to the Schellenberg–Drange argument); in fact, only a dull fool would fail to infer God’s existence (according to Anselm’s premise, (Ans1)). Moreover, nonbelievers would suffer conspicuous psychological distress caused by their nonbelief—namely, an existential “restlessness,” or dissatisfaction with life (according to Augustine’s premise (Psy1)). Yet none of these corollaries are true—which invites the inference that God does not exist.
But suppose—just suppose—that an unbeliever died and found herself in Heaven, face to face with the Almighty. What then? Well, this brings us full circle: the surprised unbeliever would be well within her rights to take a page from Bertrand Russell and ask: “Ma’am, why did you not give me better evidence?”[23]
Notes
[1] Leo Rosten, “Bertrand Russell and God: A Memoir.” The Saturday Review (February 23, 1974): 25-26, p. 26. Kudos to Anthony G. Flood for his detective work in tracking down the original source for this oft-cited Russell anecdote: “‘Why did you not give me better evidence?,’ the atheist would ask God, as though his demand for evidence were not itself evidence.” See Flood, “‘Why Did You not Give Me Better Evidence?,’ the Atheist Would Ask God, as Though his Demand for Evidence were not Itself Evidence” (August 6, 2020). Anthony G. Flood: Helping you Navigate this Dispensation’s Last Days blog. <https://anthonygflood.com/2020/08/why-did-you-not-give-me-better-evidence-the-atheist-would-ask-god-as-though-his-demand-for-evidence-were-not-itself-evidence/>.
[2] J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993). It’s worth noting that Schellenberg initially presented his argument in the spirit of a “Devil’s advocate.” Specifically, his aim was to show that the inference from God’s nonobviousness to God’s nonexistence is not a spurious argument, but rather an argument deserving of attention—”there is an argument here,” he declares, “an argument of considerable force” (1993, p. 12). From this, it does not follow that Schellenberg actually believes the atheistic conclusion—this “is not an accurate representation of my intent” (1993, p. 12), he writes.
[3] Theodore M. Drange, “Nonbelief as Support for Atheism” (August 1998). The Secular Web. <https://infidels.org/library/modern/theodore-drange-nonbelief/>.
[5] Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason, pp. 18-29.
[6] By “sound argument,” I mean the logician’s familiar meaning of this phrase, that is, a deductively valid argument with all true premises.
[7] “Intellectual honesty combines good faith with a primary motivation toward seeking true beliefs” (Wikiversity, 2022). “Intellectual Honesty” (January 9, 2022). Wikiversity. <https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty>.
[8] The logic behind this premise is clear. Use the familiar schema of conditional proof:
Given the antecedent of (RANB2),
(RHA2a) The God of evangelical Christianity exists.
we can infer two premises:
(RHA2a) God wants to make obvious his existence to everyone who honestly inquires into his existence (in light of his desire for a “saving” or “loving” relationship with his human creatures);
(RHA2b) God can make obvious his existence to all who honestly seek him (in light of his omnipotence).
The following proposition is a necessarily true claim about omnipotent agency:
(RHA2c) God does what he wants if he can do it.
Thus, by the foregoing three propositions:
(RHA2d) God does make obvious his existence to all who honestly seek him.
But, clearly, the following is necessarily true:
(RHA2e) If God makes obvious his existence to all who honestly seek him, then there would be no intellectually honest unbelievers of God’s existence.
But the consequent of this last proposition (which follows from the above two premises and modus ponens),
(RHA2f) There are no intellectually honest unbelievers of God’s existence,
is the consequent of (RHA2). Thus, by conditional proof, (RHA2) follows.
[10] Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2009), chapter 5. See also: “The Problem with Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” (January 17, 2013). The Bart Ehrman Blog. <https://ehrmanblog.org/the-problem-with-liar-lunatic-or-lord-for-members>.
[11] For an attempt to incorporate the evangelical Christian God into human psychology, see Lawrence J. Crabb, Jr., Effective Biblical Counseling: A Model for Helping Caring Christians Become Capable Counselors (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1977). For my review and critique of this book, see: Timothy Chambers, “Crabb’s Model of Christian Psychology” (September 15, 2020). Timothy Chambers’ Book Reviews blog. <https://timothychambersbookreviews.blogspot.com/2020/09/crabbs-model-of-christian-psychology-by.html>.
[12] Other scripture passages in a similar vein include: Psalms 19:1-3 (“The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, Where their voice is not heard”) and Romans 1:20-22 (“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools”).
[13] St. Anselm, Proslogium, chapter 3.
[14] Anselm, chapter 2.
[15] For a helpful primer, see: Graham Oppy, “Ontological Arguments” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 edn.) ed. E. N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2019). <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/ontological-arguments/>. For my own take on the issue, see: “On Behalf of the Devil: A Parody of St. Anselm Revisited.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (New Series), Vol. 100 (2000): 93-113.
[16] For a valiant (if abstract) attempt to “rationally reconstruct” Anselm’s reasoning that “to reject the existence of God lands one in a foolish position [not just a mistaken one],” see R. L. Barnette, “Anselm and the Fool.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Vol. 6 (1975): 201-218.
[17] “I exhort … that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men,” urges one epistle in the Christian Bible, “[f]or this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour … who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1,3-4 KJV [emphasis added]). Consider also the oft-quoted verse from the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”
[18] What might such “restlessness” be like? Perhaps Augustine has in mind a sense later described by Schopenhauer in his essay, “The Vanity of Existence”: “[A] man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbour with masts and rigging gone” (Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism: A Series of Essays (London, UK: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1893), p. 35.
[19] Phil Zuckerman, Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012).
[20] Phil Zuckerman, Luke W. Galen, and Frank L. Pasquale, The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016).
[21] Phil Zuckerman, Society without God (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2008).
[22] Phil Zuckerman, What It Means to Be Moral (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2019), chapter 1.
[23] I thank an anonymous referee for helpful critique and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay.
Why do people fall "out of love" with their faith? Well, lots of reasons. One of the best books I've read about the phenomenon is sociologist Phil Zuckerman's book, Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion. In this book, Zuckerman finds 9 main reasons why people walk away from their faith:
1. Parents: "when only one parent is religious and the other one is lukewarm or an outright nonbeliever, the likelihood of apostasy for the children of such a couple is increased" (page 153)
2. Education:"Many of the men and women I talked to found that going to college made them look at the world diff erently, forced them to ask questions that they had never wanted or even thought to ask, and caused them to scrutinize their own values and beliefs" (page 154)
3. Misfortune:"For some people, when they experience loss or pain in their lives, it leads them to question God’s goodness, even God’s existence" (pages 154-155)
4. Other Cultures, Other Religions: "For some people, it is moving to a new country and being exposed to new ways of life that makes them question their beliefs. For others, it is experiencing or becoming acquainted. with other religions. For still others, it is simply taking a class in which they learn about other religions, other cultures. But the underlying dynamic is always the same: experiencing, witnessing, or learning about other people who do things diff erently, believe diff erent things, and/or hold diff erent outlooks on life can stir up a process of critical self-refl ection that can be potentially corrosive to one’s long-held religious convictions" (page 156)
5. Friends, Colleagues, Lovers: "If it isn’t our parents that aff ect and infl uence us, then it is other people who are closest to us" (page 156)
6. Politics: "Many religious people who support gay marriage, oppose the war in Iraq, support protecting the environment, fear the likes of Sarah Palin, or simply identify as vegetarians are apt to feel some confl ict with what they are hearing at church or around their family’s dinner table" (page 159)
7. Sex:"There were basically three key ways in which issues of sex and sexuality were contributing factors in many people’s rejection of religion:
[(a)] The first had to do with desire. Some people, as they hit their teenage years or early twenties, found themselves wanting to have sex. But this desire was flatly condemned by their religion....
[(b)] A second way in which sex can contribute toward apostasy has to do with guilt. Many religions spend a lot of time and energy making their adherents feel shame and guilt about sexual urges and desires. Sex becomes heavily associated with sin, uncleanliness, and moral depravity....This emotional linkage of healthy sexual desire/experience. with guilt/shame can leave a bitter taste in some people’s mouths. They came to resent what they had been taught, and the way it made them feel. Some distanced themselves from religion....
[(c)] Finally, there is the matter of homosexuality. There is simply no question that being gay or lesbian can strongly contribute toward someone’s apostasy. Gays and lesbians learn early on that their sexual identity is unwelcome, unacceptable, and downright unholy. So many leave—and they go on to embrace secular values and secular worldviews that confi rm and celebrate who they are, rather than deny and deride" (pages 159-161)
8. Satan and Hell: "Many of the people I interviewed, particularly those who had been raised in conservative Protestant denominations or strongly Catholic households, had been taught to fear Satan and hell. And they did. And this fear remained an ugly, damaging, disturbing element of their lives for many years. As they got older, they began to resent it, hate it, and eventually question it" (page 162)
9. Hypocrisy/Malfeasance of Religious Associates: "Most religious people, at one time or another, come into contact with unsavory people who should not, given their outward religiosity and ostensibly piety, be so unsavory. Perhaps it is one of their fellow congregants. Or maybe it is their priest, pastor, or minister. For many of the men and women whom I interviewed, their withdrawal from religion was spurred in large part by religious people that they knew, or knew of, who acted in such a way as to create feelings of unease, disappointment, or repugnance" (page 162)
It would be interesting to see more examples, and find out if this list is all-inclusive--or whether there are still other reasons that people give up on their faith.
Timothy Chambers, Review of Teaching Plato In Palestine
In: Teaching Philosophy (December 2016), pages 531-534. A pair of basic
questions inspires Carlos Fraenkel's book: 1) "Can doing philosophy be
useful outside the confines of academia?" 2) "Can philosophy help turn
tensions that arise from diversity into a 'culture of constructive
debate'?" This review sketches Fraenkel's project. Carlos Fraenkel
