Within philosophy of religion, there is substantial discussion of (various versions of) the problem of divine hiddenness for theism. Atheists tend to argue that the existence of God would have been more obvious (i.e. more evidence, less reasonable non-theism, etc.) if theism were true, for instance, because a loving God would want all people to know that God exists. These discussions are certainly important. It seems to me, however, that there are also reverse problems of divine hiddenness, that is, problems of divine hiddenness for atheism. And these problems have not yet received sufficient attention.

We can express the reverse divine hiddeness problem with the following question: Why if atheism is true, is God’s non-existence not more obvious? We can, after all, imagine versions of reality in which there is much less evidence for theism and much more reasonable non-theism. Consider for instance the world in which human beings are uniformly, or at least generally, doxastic and experiential naturalists, i.e. they don’t believe in God, gods, angels, spirits or any other supernatural beings, nor do they have experiences of such beings. Then evidence for God’s existence from the consensus gentium and from religious experience would have been entirely absent, or at least much less forceful, than it is in our world.

Similar points can be made about human moral and aesthetic belief, experience and/or knowlegde. Conceivably, all people could have been doxastic and experiential nihilists. In such a world, moral and axiological arguments for God would probably not have arisen or had much force. And consider also versions of reality where the evidence for God from cosmology is weaker. We can imagine eternal universes, for example. So why, on atheism, don’t we live in a version of reality that is less conducive to theism? This is something that requires an explanation from atheists. Yes, we can imagine more stars in the night sky guiding us to God, but why is the night not darker?