A Critical and Comparative Study of John Schellenberg and Blaise Pascal’s Views on the Problem of Divine Hiddenness

Based on the theory of “divine hiddenness”, God has not given human beings sufficient reasons to know Him. According to Schellenberg, divine hiddenness indicates that there is no god, because if there were, he would give humans sufficient reasons to know Him, but he did not. However, according to Pascal, divine hiddenness is necessary for theism because of the positive effects it has on human beings’ life. Our findings of the comparison of the two philosophers’ views are that Pascal's reasons cannot justify the necessity of divine hiddenness. At the same time, Schellenberg's argument based on the divine hiddenness can be answered by theists and cannot justify atheism.