J. L. Schellenberg

In this paper I discuss a neglected form of argument against religious belief -- generically, 'the probabilistic argument from pluralism'. If the denial of a belief is equivalent to the disjunction of its alternatives, and if we may gain some idea as to the probabilities of such disjunctions by adding the separate probabilities of their mutually exclusive disjuncts, and if, moreover, the denials of many religious beliefs are disjunctions known to have two or more mutually exclusive members each possessing a significant degree or probability, then at any rate in many such cases, the denial of a religious belief can be shown to be more probable than it is -- which is to say that the belief can be shown to be improbable. I consider a large number of responses to arguments of this form, concluding that none suffices to overthrow it altogether. Indeed, the argument remains as a significant threat to any religious belief confronted by a plurality of alternatives

The problem of Divine hiddenness, or the hiddenness problem, is more and more commonly being treated as independent of the problem of evil, and as rivalling the latter in significance. Are we in error if we acquiesce in these tendencies? Only a careful investigation into relations between the hiddenness problem and the problem of evil can help us see. Such an investigation is undertaken here. What we will find is that when certain knots threatening to hamper intellectual movement are unravelled, the hiddenness problem emerges as a contender in its own right—one that may generate serious difficulties for theism regardless of conclusions drawn concerning the force of the problem of evil.