The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

146 The Hiddenness of God
(2) Patricia believes that God does not exist.
(3) Patricia believes, for reason B, that God exists.
It is, for example, consistent with God’s wanting Patricia to believe in
him that he regard (1) as a good state of affairs, (2) as a bad state of
affairs, and (3) as a bad state of affairs that is much worse than (2).
(And this would be consistent with reason B’s being an epistemically
unobjectionable reason for belief in God: reason B might be, from the
point of view of someone interested only in justification or warrant, a
perfectly good reason for believing in the existence of God.) And this is
no idle speculation about a logical possibility. Most theists hold that God
expects a good deal more from us than mere belief in his existence. As
James says in his epistle, ‘‘You believe in the one God—that is creditable
enough, but the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with
fear’’ (2: 19). 10 God expects a complex of things, of which belief in his
existence is a small (although essential) part. It is certainly conceivable
that someone’s believing in him for a certain reason (because, say, that
person has witnessed signs and wonders) might make it difficult or even
impossible for that person to acquire other features God wanted him or
her to have.
Can we make this seem plausible? Let us wander a bit, and look at
some examples and analogies. Let us consider a second New Testament
text. Remember the story of the rich man in Hell in chapter 16 of
Luke’s Gospel. The rich man, who had in life treated the poor with
contemptuous neglect, is in Hell (for that very reason), and petitions
Abraham (who is somehow able to converse with him across a ‘‘great
gulf ’’) that a messenger should be sent to his still living brothers, who
also have starving beggars at their sumptuous gates, to warn them to
mend their ways before it is too late. Abraham replies, ‘‘If they do not
hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one
rose from the dead.’’ A very striking parable, but can its message really
be true? That is, can it be true that witnessing a miracle, even a very
personal and pointed miracle, would have no effect on the character of
values of someone who witnessed it, no effect on the type of person
he or she is? In order that our imaginations may not be distracted by
the quaint literary devices of an old book, let us imagine a parable
for our own time. This parable has two central characters. The first
is the Russian strategist whose contribution to his country’s cause in
Afghanistan was the clever idea of placing powerful bombs disguised as
bright shiny toys in the vicinity of unreliable villages. This man dies (in