The Critical Examination of Swinburne's Greater-Good Defense against the Hiddenness Argument

This paper seeks to present an argument against Swinburne's two-fold greater-good defense against the argument from divine hiddenness. According to this argument, the gratuitous theological, philosophical, and moral costs of this defense prevent it from being a reasonable resort. Some of these costs arise from the structure of this defense, which consists in accepting all the premises of the argument and adding an additional premise to block the conclusion, while other costs stem from the explicit and implicit claims of that added premise. The theological costs of this defense include the lack of moral value of prophets, the possibility of punishment for nonbelievers who mistakenly think they are honest agnostics, and the necessity of assuming an unbridled version of universalism. The philosophical costs include a form of metaphysical necessitarianism and entanglement in an epistemological dilemma, according to which either there is no honest agnostic, or theists will not succeed in their responsibility to guide nonbelievers toward theism. Attributing an inappropriate moral theory to God and sacrificing some individuals for a greater good are among the moral costs of this defense. Given these costs, it can be concluded that this defense is not a suitable way to respond to the argument from divine hiddenness.