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In this paper I develop a new recipe for solving the problem of religious disagreement suggested by the injunction to cultivate intellectual humility conjoined with awareness of human immaturity in deep time. The ingredients brought to the table include such things as noticing the full breadth and texture of the religious propositional field, observing the previously hidden areas of agreement this exposes, making a differential judgment of importance in relation to religious propositions, applying the concept of a position, and finding a better home for an emphasis on detailed beliefs than contexts of inquiry can provide. Special attention is given to the modesty of the proposal, which asks relatively little of religious practitioners while reconceiving this area of discussion.

In this brief reply I argue that criticisms of the hiddenness argument recently published in this journal by Imran Aijaz and Markus Weidler are without force. As will be shown, their critique of my conceptual version of the argument misses the mark by missing crucial distinctions. Their critique of my analogical version of the argument misunderstands that argument and also misapplies the work of W. H. Vanstone. And their critique of my view that belief is necessary for a certain kind of relationship with God overlooks both some central features of that kind of relationship and some good reasons for not accepting acceptance or anything similarly nonbelieving as a substitute for belief in this context.

This paper criticizes the assumption,omnipresent in contemporary philosophy ofreligion, that a perfectly good and loving Godwould wish to confer on (at least some) finitepersons free will. An alternative mode ofDivine-human relationship is introduced andshown to be as conducive to the realization ofvalue as one involving free will.Certain implications of this result are thenrevealed, to wit, that the theist’s free willdefence against the problem of evil isunsuccessful, and what is more, that free will,if it exists, provides positive support foratheism.