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Maille, D, 2025. Divine hiddenness and originating initiative: an analytic account. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.
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Abstract
This thesis is an exercise in analytical philosophy of religion, ranging across the philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics. I am concerned with the atheist argument from Divine Hiddenness, which doubts the existence of God due to lack of belief by non-resistant people being inconsistent with a perfectly-loving and all-powerful God who would establish relationship with everyone. The most prominent and forceful of such arguments in current mainstream philosophy is from J.L. Schellenberg.
The dissertation seeks to evaluate Schellenberg’s argument from divine hiddenness, with special attention to his concepts of perfect love, openness, and non-resistant non-belief. I examine the structure of the argument and its key components, before assessing a specific type of Theist response in the literature and then advancing my own novel thesis of a freewill justification for hiddenness which I call ‘Originating Initiative’. Less distinctively novel than the free will justification, is the application of an attitude of hopeful-acceptance for conveying Originating Initiative. While the idea of hopeful acceptance draws on the wisdom of Willam James and Howard-Snyder, the way I propose it in conjunction with Originating Initiative is novel, not least by not begging prior sympathy for Theism as Schellenberg alleges against other responses.
My thesis involves a limited theist response and will technically leave Schellenberg’s argument standing. I target the ‘Western secular’, as a most generally relatable problem for the theist while people all around fit the bill, and for circumscribing a significant and original free will response.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Maille, D. |
| Contributors: | Name Role NTU ID ORCID |
| Date: | September 2025 |
| Rights: | © 2025 Daniel Maille. The copyright in this work is held by the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed to the author. |
| Divisions: | Schools > School of Arts and Humanities |
| Record created by: | Laura Borcherds |
| Date Added: | 09 Apr 2026 16:10 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Apr 2026 16:10 |
| URI: | https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/55533 |
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