I've also always really enjoyed Walter Kaufmann's Critique of Religion and Philosophy- its also fairly broad and encyclopedic, and while Kaufmann's writing is very clear and easy to read, it assumes at least an introductory-level understanding of most topics/the history of philosophy (especially the philosophy of religion) in broad strokes. One of the few philosophy books that I go back and re-read every now and then.

And Kaufmann was an interesting character- he was maybe the most important Nietzsche scholar/translator in the 2nd half of the 20th century, and was the person most responsible for defeating and replacing the highly distorted and inaccurate prevailing wisdom RE Nietzsche's views, that were the result of aggressive propaganda campaigns by the Third Reich and Joseph Goebbels (with the assistance of Nietzsche's crazy Nazi-loving sister and her husband) to appropriate Nietzsche's philosophy, even though Nietzsche was a very outspoken critic of the state, nationalism (especially German nationalism), and state violence.

Kaufmann's popular book, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist is (or at least was) sort of the gold standard of Nietzsche interpretation/scholarship, and so is highly recommended if you have any interest in Nietzsche (personally, I find Nietzche's views and writing to be fascinating, even though I think he was wrong about 80% of the time).

I'll stan for Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy; its sort of an introductory-level summary of the problems 20th century analytic philosophy/philosophy of language was concerned with (the existence of universals/abstract objects, the existence of "external objects", and so on), and Russell is a very competent writer and communicator (in addition to being one of the most distinguished philosophers of the 20th century) so its very clear and easy to read, even for a beginner. Highly recommended.

Another good one is Copleston's History of Philosophy series; 9 books that cover the history of (mostly western) philosophy starting with ancient Greece and Rome, all the way up to 19-20th century existentialism and analytic philosophy/logical positivism/etc.

I think some universities still use this series as an introductory-level textbook- also very clear and easy to read, and much more encyclopedic/exhaustive than Russell's book. You can often find them at used bookstores, rummage sales, and so on, since (I'm assuming) its fairly expensive to buy the entire series new. And each one is self-contained, so you can pick and choose which ones you want to read, as your own interests dictate

Another reliably awesome resource is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (here), which contains entries from basic overviews of basic philosophical topics to very specific/specialized topics at a higher-than-introductory level. Entries are written by scholars/educators in a relevant field, so very high quality stuff (and free is always good, right?)

Puscifer- Horizons

John Coltrane- Blue Train :heart:

I think I've seen this one, but I'm not sure. Worth a rewatch in any case. You ever read any of Sabine's books?

:up:

Yeah that is interesting. I suppose he can plausibly say that CCC should be preferred to inflationary models since inflationary models have never had predictions corroborated observationally. And doesn't the existence of dark matter sort of naturally follow in CCC as well?

Yeah I find CCC fascinating (and Penrose is just a treasure). I don't have the math/physics background to evaluate Penrose's claim of positive corroboration in the Planck/WMAP data, but its an awesome idea even purely as a speculative proposal. I hope he lives for another 50 years, the guy is just a monster.

I remember he was on PBS Space Time's ToE livestream (one of them at any rate) along with Sabine Hossenfelder (who is also awesome). Really enjoyed that. Excellent communicator and sharp physicist with some really interesting proposals and ideas. His cosmological natural selection proposal is super interesting but also highly speculative; he proposes that black hole formation leads to a new "big bang" expansion into a separate spacetime, and reasons out some testable predictions to evaluate this proposal. Just the sort of creative thinker physics needs right now.

Lee Smolin is a great contributer to the physics and the human community — universeness

He certainly is! Have you read his cosmological natural selection proposal (from e.g. Life of the Cosmos iirc)?

Robert Fripp- Music for Quiet Moments 4: Requiem

Oh trust me, I know the feeling all too well (being an atheist myself)- the intellectual legacy of the "New Atheists" is... a mixed bag, to put it mildly. But that was also why I wasn't calling out anyone in particular, and was mostly talking about dynamics that I've seen elsewhere, typically forums/boards/etc with a less philosophically sophisticated userbase than PF/TPF.

Yeah no one ever said that Nietzsche lacked literary skill, for all his many faults. The guy could write.

But its also interesting (and instructive, imo) that Nietzsche is using the language of religious revelation or mystical experience to describe the aesthetic experience of creative inspiration, despite his being very explicitly both an atheist and an anti-theist/anti-Christian; for Nietzsche, it is the aesthetic experience that is the true religious experience... more traditional religious or mystical experience being an illusion or a second-best thing.

Um, right. That was my point all along. And also that, in at least some instances, people seem to be insisting on the lack-theism definition of atheism in order to avoid having to meet either burden of proof and/or epistemic justification (even when their own views would more properly fall under the older, traditional definition of atheism as explicit rejection of theism). I didn't say that all do, or that anyone in particular does.

I always found Nietzsche's account of creative inspiration to be extremely interesting and evocative:

Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any distinct notion of what poets of a stronger age understood by the word inspiration?

If not, I will describe it. If one had the smallest vestige of superstition left in one, it would hardly be possible completely to set aside the idea that one is the mere incarnation, mouthpiece, or medium of an almighty power. The idea of revelation, in the sense that something which profoundly convulses and upsets one becomes suddenly visible and audible with indescribable certainty and accuracy—describes the simple fact. One hears—one does not seek; one takes—one does not ask who gives: a thought suddenly flashes up like lightning, it comes with necessity, without faltering—I have never had any choice in the matter.

There is an ecstasy so great that the immense strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, during which one's steps now involuntarily rush and anon involuntarily lag. There is the feeling that one is utterly out of hand, with the very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and titillations descending to one's very toes;—there is a depth of happiness in which the most painful and gloomy parts do not act as antitheses to the rest, but are produced and required as necessary shades of colour in such an overflow of light. There is an instinct for rhythmic relations which embraces a whole world of forms (length, the need of a wide-embracing rhythm, is almost the measure of the force of an inspiration, a sort of counterpart to its pressure and tension).

Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity. The involuntary nature of the figures and similes is the most remarkable thing; one loses all perception of what is imagery and metaphor; everything seems to present itself as the readiest, the truest, and simplest means of expression. It actually seems, to use one of Zarathustra's own phrases, as if all things came to one, and offered themselves as similes. ("Here do all things come caressingly to thy discourse and flatter thee, for they would fain ride upon thy back. On every simile thou ridest here unto every truth. Here fly open unto thee all the speech and word shrines of the world, here would all existence become speech, here would all Becoming learn of thee how to speak.")

This is my experience of inspiration. I do not doubt but that I should have to go back thousands of years before I could find another who could say to me: "It is mine also!" — Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Proof of what, exactly?
"People tell a story. I find that story implausible, so I don't believe it."
"You haven't proved that it's not true!"
And I maintain that it's not my job to prove or disprove it. It's somebody else's story. — Vera Mont

Proof of any claims they make. Atheists can, and very often do, engage in debates or arguments, and so end up making claims. Claims for which they bear a burden of proof. But again, obviously if you don't engage in arguments and so don't ever make any claims, burden of proof doesn't apply... But epistemic justification still does. Any intellectual view or position we make, any propositional attitude we adopt, is reasonable to the extent that it is based on good and sufficient reasons... and that includes rejecting or failing to believe a given proposition. Even suspension of judgment must be epistemically justified in order to be reasonable.

Now, if one doesn't care whether ones atheism or agnosticism is reasonable, then no one is going to force them to base their views on good and sufficient evidence or reasons. But mostly people aspire to be reasonable, and atheists in particular. But contrary to the conventional wisdom in some very-online and philosophically-illiterate secular spaces, atheism, even of the lack-theism variety, is just as susceptible to epistemic justification as any other view or position. The good news is that atheism can meet this burden-whether of proof or justification- because the totality of the evidence strongly supports atheism/naturalism and the hypothesis that humans create gods and not the other way around.

No, our ability to reliably roll the cosmic clock backwards stops before we get to the "Big Bang singularity": our models hold up well until about 10^-30 seconds (I forget the exact number, but this is the ballpark we're talking about) after this, but earlier than that we lack both an appropriate theory or model, and are unable to observationally corroborate predictions since we cannot recreate those conditions in our best particle accelerators.

So the singularity falls outside the part of the theory that is empirically corroborated and widely accepted; most, if not all, cosmologists regard the singularity at the hypothetical t=0 as an artifact of classical physics breaking down (this was the moral of the story with Penrose's singularity theorems), not as representing anything physically real. From what I gather, the existence of this singularity just by itself would be sufficient to show that classical physics has ceased to be a good or appropriate model for these conditions (its essentially the physics equivalent of a reductio), but this is even more emphatic because the singularity appears in precisely the conditions where we would already expect classical physics to break down: i.e. once gravitation because significant on the quantum scale, and QM and GR come into serious conflict. So a theory of quantum gravity is probably what we need to adequately model what is happening in these earlier stages of the universe, which is why its significant (imo) that our most promising candidates suggest an eternal past.

But you are right that this (very probably artificial) breakdown in physics represented by the Big Bang singularity would seriously call into question the explanatory value of any proposal containing such an entity. But the BBT, the parts of it that are well corroborated and accepted at any rate, does not contain such a thing. It posits a simple, understandable mechanism for why we see what we see: the universe is expanding and cooling from a hot dense prior state some 13.8 billion years ago, which explains a large body of observations from the recession of galaxies to the CMBR, and more besides.

So the BBT is explanatory in precisely the way that theism is not. That's not even necessarily to say that theism (or divine creation) is untrue... it just isn't explanatory in at least one important sense.

The Big Bang is understood to be the origin of this universe at least, it is also causa sui, meaning that we must take it as such since, it it were caused, we have no way of knowing what the cause could have been. Even if we did know, it would only move the problem one step back, because then we would need to explain what caused the cause of the BB. — Janus

This isn't accurate; the part of the Big Bang model that is empirically corroborated and widely accepted posits an expanding and cooling universe from a hot dense prior state. That's it. What, if anything, preceded this remains an open question: past-eternal extensions to Big Bang cosmology are perfectly consistent with observation. They may even be preferred to past-finite cosmological models; our most promising candidate theories of quantum gravity (loop quantum gravity/cosmology and string/M-theory) posit a past-eternal or cyclical universe, as does Penrose's conformal cyclical model (for which Penrose has claimed observational corroboration in the CMB data), and many varieties of inflation (which most cosmologists accept, despite the lack of testable predictions).

And in any case, I never said that theism fails to be explanatory because it posits a brute fact or posits an absolute beginning to causal chains- I said that it fails to be explanatory because God is not a well-understood mechanism or entity, but rather an unknown that is as much in need of explanation as whatever God is being invoked to explain (if not more). It cannot credibly be claimed that this is also true of the BBT, because whereas theism posits an unknown, the BBT posits a simple and understandable mechanism: an expanding and cooling universe. So, theism is kicking the explanatory can down the road, BB cosmology is not. As I said already, the BBT is a useful contrast to theism in this respect, since it is explanatory in precisely the manner theism is not.

Nobody is authorized or empowered to lay that burden on me. My beliefs and unbeliefs are subjective and autonomous; I owe nobody a justification for them. Actions are - or may be - a different matter. — Vera Mont

Burden of proof is a social convention governing debates/arguments, so yes, in a sense, they are. But if you don't care whether people listen or engage with you, then there's nothing stopping you from not abiding by this social convention. As with any other social convention; you don't have to wipe your shoes or wash your hands, but if you don't, people probably won't invite you over for dinner anymore.

And of course, if you never engage in arguments or debates then you aren't making any claims, and therefore not incurring a burden of proof. But if you are engaging in arguments/debates, and are making claims, then you bear a burden of proof to support those claims if called upon to do so, no less than anyone else; contrary to the common canard, burden of proof doesn't distinguish between positive and negative claims, or theistic or atheistic; any claim you make incurs a burden of proof.

Epistemic justification is a bit different, but in some ways analogous- our views and positions are only reasonable to the extent that they are based on good and sufficient reasons. If you don't care whether your views are reasonable or not, one can believe whatever baseless nonsense one wants. But most atheists want their views to be reasonable (and most people in general, I imagine), which means that atheism, like any other view or position, must be based on good and sufficient reasons or evidence.

As I've said a number of times, I think talking about the existence of concepts in minds is an untenable reification. So I'm humoring other commenters with such language. The better way to put it is that what exists are various oral/literary/etc traditions- stories, songs, and so forth.

But the point holds regardless of terminology; Santa Claus doesn't exist, Santa Claus is fictional. What does exist are stories, songs, language- or, the concept of Santa Claus... not Santa Claus.

By the same criterion, the Big Bang hypothesis is not explanatory either. Both it and the God hypothesis posit creation ex nihilo, and we cannot understand how something could come from nothing. — Janus

I don't see how that follows- in fact the Big Bang model offers a good contrast here, because unlike theism, the Big Bang model is actually explanatory, in that it analyzes something we don't understand- the CMBR, the distribution and velocity of galaxies/galaxy clusters, the relative abundances of elements, etc- in terms of a very simple mechanism: a universe that is expanding and cooling, from a hot dense prior state.

And as it happens, the part of the Big Bang model that has been observationally corroborated and is widely accepted doesn't contain any creation ex nihilo, no absolute beginning or origin of the universe- only a hot dense prior state some 13.8 billion years ago. Extending the model further back than that takes us into energy densities we cannot test empirically, and into a regime where we fully expect classical models (like GR and the BBT) to break down and cease to be good or accurate models of reality. Talking about the BBT positing a beginning or origin of the universe is a bit of sloppiness on the part of science journalists and communicators that has greatly mislead the public and harmed scientific literacy in general.

Is that what we mean when we say Santa Claus exists? That the concept of Santa Claus exists? If that is what we mean, why don't we just say that instead?

And "Santa Claus exists" and "Santa Claus exists at the North Pole" are distinct, but not in any way that changes things wrt his alleged existence (not so far as I can tell, at any rate). Both express a false proposition, because Santa Claus is fictional, and doesn't exist at the North Pole or anywhere else. All that exists are stories, words, beliefs, language- the "concept" of Santa Claus, not Santa Claus.

Right; that was precisely my point- there is no such thing as THE "formal" or technical definition of existence in philosophy (so this isn't a failure on your part- no one has been able to establish an uncontroversial technical usage for "exists" in philosophy, including the greatest minds in the history of philosophy, let alone philosophy grunts like you or me).

Return to Forever- 500 Miles High

:up:

It often seems to me that some atheists use the lack-theism definition as a way of getting out of having to meet their burden of proof and/or epistemic justification. Usually in connection with other associated canards, such as knowledge/belief requiring certainty (as you mention), not being able to prove a negative, and so on.

And I can see the upside for a more inclusive definition of atheism in a social sense (strength in numbers, essentially)... but that doesn't mean this is a more useful definition for doing philosophy, where it is usually advisable to be able to distinguish between unthinking lack of belief, reflective disbelief, and reflective suspension of judgment.

God is conceived as being that to which all roads lead, and at which all roads end, so unlike other.less absolute, explanations, such as aliens, or computer simulations, it is not "kicking the explanatory can further down the road".Of course if one doesn't accept such a God then it won't be seen as any kind of explanation. — Janus

Its not even a question of whether one accepts that God exists or not; even supposing we do accept that God exists, if only purely for the sake of argument, theism is still not explanatory in at least one important sense i.e. analyzing something we don't understand in terms that we do understand. Which is a pretty important part of what explanations are supposed to do.

And so "God did X" absolutely is kicking the explanatory can down the road since God doing something isn't explanatory, and is merely substituting one unknown for another. Just like positing wizards or advanced aliens with inscrutable motives. This isn't to say that theism could never be explanatory, but for theism to be explanatory then we need to be able to claim to understand God and the precise means by which he accomplishes the things he's purported to have accomplished.

I'm not sure "arbitrary" is the right word- what I said was that the same question you raised with regard to naturalistic morality applies to theistic morality as well; that is, questioning whether this particular set of moral norms/judgments are really true or right. So, susceptible to something like Moore's Open Question argument, I suppose.

I wasn't asking for an explanation of the difference between technical and colloquial usage in general, I was asking what exactly you think is THE formal definition of "exists" in philosophy. A rhetorical question, since there isn't one (existence in philosophy having been understood as everything from "being perceived" to "being the value of a bound variable", and plenty more in between)

And in any case, as I previously pointed out, the issue here isn't equivocation between technical and colloquial senses, the problem is conflating Santa Claus with the "concept" of Santa Claus. At most we can say that the concept of Santa Claus exists (if you don't mind the untenable language about concepts existing "in" minds), not that Santa Claus exists (because he doesn't- he is fictional). Supposing that "Santa Claus doesn't exist" is false because the concept of Santa Claus exists is about as naked a non-sequitur as one can imagine.

I also found it laughable, your hectoring people about not being acquainted with the relevant data when you clearly are guilty of same; I'm glad you agree. It sounds you're looking exclusively at sources or studies that support your pre-determined conclusion here (or else are engaging in pot/kettle shenanigans by accusing me of being disingenous).

In any case, the fact that subjects of NDE's/OBEs have never been able to provide corroborating evidence that would only be accessible if the experience was veridical- as in the AWARE study (which you apparently need to re-read), which reported a negative result on this particular feature of their study- is probably the strongest empirical argument against NDEs, since it is something we would strongly expect on the supposition that the experiences are real (and so its absence constitutes strong contrary evidence). Then again, citing empirical evidence against such a philosophically dubious proposition is probably giving this topic more credit than it really deserves; NDEs belong in the same category as astral projection, demonic possession, and other forms of squishy spiritualist mumbo-jumbo.

Polyphia feat/ Steve Vai- Ego Death :fire:

Certainly, if morality is natural and adaptive and not God-given then moral norms/judgments don't have the sort of grand cosmic seal-of-approval they otherwise would. And people might find that unsatisfying. But being unsatisfying is not the same thing as being untrue, and your original concern was how morality could survive in a physical design-free world: evolution provides a means for that. This being unsatisfying is another matter.

Its also worth noting, though, that God/theism doesn't actually solve the problem of whether (and which) moral norms or judgments are *really* moral or correct- even if God exists and has handed down moral guidelines (via divine revelation/inspiration -> scripture, presumably), one could still ask whether these guidelines are right or correct. So even theism doesn't solve this issue, this is a more generic problem that is going to apply to most if not all moral systems as far as I can tell.

What does "'exist' in a formal sense" even mean here? Are you referring to existential quantification in formal logic? Or do you mean "exists" as a technical term in ontology (as if there were only one sense of the term as used by philosophers over the centuries)?

Rather, I think the problem is that you're conflating Santa Claus with "concept-of-Santa-Claus". Leaving aside the (not inconsiderable) problems with talking about the existence of concepts in minds, Santa Claus and the concept-of-Santa-Claus are not the same thing. If if there is no jolly old man living at the North Pole making yearly deliveries to children on xmas, then Santa Claus does not exist: "Santa Claus exists" is true if there is such a jolly old man living at the NP, and false if there isn't. And there isn't. So even on your preferred terminology, only "the concept-of-Santa-Claus exists" is true: "Santa Claus exists" is still false... because Santa Claus is fictional, and not-existing is what makes someone/something fictional.

Another sign what you're defending is on the wrong track: if "Santa Claus exists" is true in virtue of the existence of the concept of Santa Claus, then any question of the form "does X exist" must always be answered in the affirmative: in order to ask whether some X exists, we must first have a concept of X. And if the existence of the concept of X entails the existence of X (as in "the concept-of-Santa-Claus exists, therefore Santa Claus exists"), then us being able to ask whether X exists at all means the concept of X exists and thus that X does too. But that's a bad result- some things exist and some things do not, and any analysis that implies that everything of which we can name or conceptualize exists, regardless of whether it actually does exist or not, then all the worse for your analysis.

Just because something survives doesn't mean it is adaptive but nevertheless by that standard religion has been more popular than atheism and has encouraged mandatory procreation has condemned other forms of sex and given people motivation to carry on against the odds so it could also be described as favourable and adaptive. — Andrew4Handel

That's correct. And that's not why anyone thinks morality is adaptive. People who think morality was adaptive/evolved generally do so because it is potentially advantageous in the relevant evolutionary sense (i.e. increases reproductive fitness), and because non-human animals (including/especially primates) exhibit various stages of moral behaviors (e.g. mutual cooperation/reciprocal altruism), among other reasons. Further reading, if interested:

https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0167-7
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origins-of-human-morality/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

(And as it happens, many people also think that religion is adaptive as well, and very possibly is connected to the evolution of morality)

But it would the naturalistic fallacy to say something was good just because it occurred in nature — Andrew4Handel

Indeed. But no one said that something was good just because it occurred in nature. You said that you can't imagine morality surviving in a purely physical design-free world, and I pointed out a mechanism by which morality could exist in a purely physical, design-free world: evolution.

I am saying we just need to believe the world makes sense and then ask why it makes sense and has laws and coherency. — Andrew4Handel

Sure, but I'm focusing on a very specific question here: is theism explanatory? Does invoking God actually explain anything?

And since explanations by their very nature analyze and account for things we don't know or understand in terms of things we do, in order to say that theism is explanatory, we have to claim to know and understand what God is and how he works. But no theist is going to agree to that, being beyond human comprehension is a pretty basic presupposition for virtually all extent theistic traditions. But that means theism isn't explanatory (and so, for instance, cannot explain "why the word makes sense"). It might be comforting, beneficial, or even true (though I highly doubt it), but not explanatory.

One thing In do believe is that morality cannot survive in a purely physical, design free world where we are just an another animal. — Andrew4Handel

Unless morality is adaptive. Which is exactly what many scholars think is the case. So not only can morality survive in a "purely physical, design free world", its entirely possible, even probable, that the reason morality exists at all is because it helped contribute to survival.

Exactly. Aliens with vastly superior technology and inscrutable motives are explanatory in precisely the same way that God/theism is explanatory. Which is to say, they are not. Either/both is always and necessarily going to be just as (if not more) poorly understood as whatever they're being invoked to explain in any given instance.

We are trying to understand ourselves in the process of that we explore our character in different ways and our limitations and capacities.

Religions have inspired art works and architecture and social systems. People have raised the question of what would existed if religion and beliefs in gods didn't exist.

as I said in a previous post

Science does seem to have to take the position that reality makes sense, is coherent, has laws and responds to human reason.
— Andrew4Handel

We are trying to explain the world under a set of beliefs an assumptions. Some things are explained like the human body and its mechanisms as having a purpose. We don't just accept chaos we believe for some reason in some kind of underlying order.

What reasons would we have believe reality was rational, law driven and explicable prior to religion? — Andrew4Handel

This is all fine and good... but nowhere in this post is an answer to my question, of how theism is explanatory given that explanations account for things we don't know or understand in terms of things we do. Do we know and understand God, and know and understand precisely how God accomplishes things (e.g. creating the world, answering prayers, causing miracles, and so forth)?

Or is it not the case that, according to theists, God's nature and means wholly exceed human comprehension?

Does it, though? In what sense is theism explanatory at all, keeping in mind that the purpose of an explanation is to analyze or account for something we don't know or understand in terms of something we do know and understand? Is God something we know and understand, such that saying "God did X" adds to our understanding of how/why X occurs? Or is it simply kicking the explanatory can down the road?

I did cite the one that I remembered (the ketamine one) without having to poke around on Google- Jansen 2001. I know I've read that researchers have found certain of the distinctive elements of NDEs (tunnel of light, etc) in other situations as well, but I don't remember the details and I'd have to look around for the citations.

(To be clear, I'm saying that the fact that the distinctive elements of NDEs can be generated in non-near death situations further undermines the idea that NDEs represent veridical experiences/evidence for consciousness in the absence of brain function or for an immortal soul- don't mistake me for arguing for any of this squishy spiritualist nonsense)

Moreover, studies have reproduced the distinctive effects/components of NDEs in other situations (i.e. situations where the subject is not near death), for instance by administering certain kinds of hallucinogens such as ketamine (as in Jansen 2001).

Just for background, the Stanford page on Divine Hiddenness includes a couple of arguments for what the OP has termed "P1", from the person traditionally credited with formulating the divine hiddenness argument as we now recognize it-

More than anyone else, Schellenberg has shaped the contemporary debate over arguments from nonbelief. The main argument from his 1993 book can be stated as follows:

(1) There are people who are capable of relating personally to God but who, through no fault of their own, fail to believe.
(2) If there is a personal God who is unsurpassably great, then there are no such people.
(3) So, there is no such God (from 1 and 2).
For the defense of premise (2), Schellenberg’s reasoning provides the following subargument:

(2a) If there is a personal God who is unsurpassably great, then there is a personal God who is unsurpassably loving.
(2b) If there is a personal God who is unsurpassably loving, then for any human person H and any time t, if H is at t capable of relating personally to God, H has it within H’s power at t to do so (i.e., will do so, just by choosing), unless H is culpably in a contrary position at t.
(2c) For any human person H and any time t, H has it within H’s power at t to relate personally to God only if H at t believes that God exists.
(2d) So, if there is a personal God who is unsurpassably great, then for any human person H and any time t, if H is at t capable of relating personally to God, H at t believes that God exists, unless H is culpably in a contrary position at t (from 2a through 2c).
(2d) is tantamount to premise (2) of the main argument.

In his post-1993 writings, Schellenberg clarifies that he means his claims about God, love, and relationship to be necessary truths. Moreover, the main argument of his 2007a replaces talk of “culpability” with talk of “resistance”. (“I now see this focus on culpability and inculpability as a mistake”; 2015a: 54.) And he emphasizes “meaningful conscious relationship”. Finally, his 2015a and 2015b focus on the “openness” of “a perfectly loving God” to “positively meaningful” and “reciprocal conscious relationship”. Thus, the latest version of the argument (slightly condensed):

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, then God perfectly loves such finite persons as there may be.
(5) Necessarily, if God perfectly loves such finite persons as there may be, then, for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a positively meaningful and reciprocal conscious relationship with S at t.
(6) Necessarily, if for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a positively meaningful and reciprocal conscious relationship with S at t, then, for any capable finite person S and time t, it is not the case that S is at t nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
(7) There is at least one capable finite person S and time t such that S is or was at t nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
(8) So, it is not the case that God exists. (from 4 through 7)

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-hiddenness/

So, maybe not a slam dunk, but a plausible enough idea (imo). I don't think many people would say that by itself the argument from divine hiddenness constitutes conclusive disproof of the existence of God or anything like that, but I would argue that it adds to the cumulative case for atheism, since the existence of non-resistant non-believers (not to mention the strong correlation between geographical location and cultural situation with particular religious belief) is better and more naturally explained by atheism/naturalism than by theism.