From Satan’s Wager to Eve’s Gambit to Our Leap: An Anselmian Reply to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness

Travis Dumsday

doi:10.18290/rf21693-5

Travis Dumsday University of Edmonton, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3374-0323

Keywords: Agnosticism, angels, Anselm, atheism, Bible, demons, devil, doubt, God, hiddenness, Satan, theism

Abstract

While St. Anselm does not supply us with an explicit discussion of the problem of divine hiddenness (PDH) as it is typically conceived today—namely, as an argument for atheism—he is keenly aware of the existential difficulty posed by our seeming lack of access to God. Moreover, he provides the ingredients for an interesting and heretofore neglected approach to the PDH, one rooted in multiple Christian narratives about lapses from knowledge-infused states of grace, both angelic and human. The goal of this paper is to draw out that Anselmian approach explicitly, and to provide at least a rudimentary assessment of it.

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