Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

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The Hiddenness Series returns. Richard Swinburne's responsibility argument aims to show it's good for God to stay hidden. That way we can investigate God's existence together. Assisting others in this endeavor, says Swinburne, is a very good deed—one we should be thankful to have the opportunity to do. In this video I discuss Swinburne's argument, Schellenberg's response, and Travis Dumsday's reformulation. I then share some of my own objections to the responsibility argument. Most importantly, I explain how it fails to undercut Schellenberg's hiddenness argument.

00:00 - Opening comments
00:57 - Swinburne's responsibility argument
02:26 - Schellenberg's reply
05:15 - Dumsday's development
06:53 - Responding to Dumsday
09:20 - Bootstrapping the value of finding God in a religiously ambiguous world
10:19 - Would discovering God require God to hide?
10:42 - The accomodation strategy expanded
11:38 - Resistant Nonbelievers allow cooperative discovery and responsibility.
13:08 - Closing comments / Exit