Divine love and nonbelief › Could hiddenness serve a greater good?

Another response allows nonresistant nonbelief but proposes reasons for permitting it. Perhaps delayed revelation could cultivate responsibility, humility, or a more mature relationship later. This directly contests Schellenberg's claim that perfect love necessarily entails constant openness. The objection is not answered merely by repeating that love matters: it asks whether love could reasonably accept a temporary loss of availability for a sufficiently important good.

Schellenberg's answer emphasizes alternatives. An infinitely resourceful God might cultivate these goods within a relationship. A person could retain belief in God's existence while experiencing uncertainty about a decision, discovering moral weaknesses, or losing an earlier feeling of comfort. His distinction is between withdrawal within an available relationship and nonbelief that prevents such relationship. Showing a possible benefit of uncertainty does not yet show a need for the latter. “What Divine Hiddenness Reveals,” section III.

A defender may still think that some goods require the stronger condition, or that our grasp of divine reasons is limited. The argument's deductive ambition makes a coherent counterpossibility relevant. But simply naming an unknown reason does not demonstrate that it is compatible with the proposed conception of perfect love. The reader needs to assess the competing accounts of what love permits. Schellenberg argues for a demanding account; his critics can challenge it without denying the value of relationship.