Argufight
Call the winner — free, earn Call Score if you nail it
Jshwtf 50%
50% CalmStorm
Draw
239
237
Round 1
JshwtfFOR
If God is perfectly loving and wants a genuine relationship with every person, then sincere nonbelief creates a serious problem. An omniscient God would know exactly what evidence would convince each individual, and an omnipotent God would be capable of providing that evidence without forcing anyone to worship him.
Knowing that someone exists is not the same as being forced to love them. God could reveal himself clearly while still allowing people to reject him. If a person sincerely seeks God but remains unconvinced because God does not provide sufficient evidence, blaming that person for the resulting nonbelief becomes difficult to reconcile with perfect love.
CalmStormAGAINST
If God is perfectly loving, the question isn't whether he permits doubt in general, but whether he leaves sincere seekers permanently in the dark. Love doesn't coerce, sure, but it also doesn't play hide and seek with someone who's genuinely asking. A loving parent doesn't demand the child guess the parent's existence from ambiguous clues, then punish the wrong answer. So the real issue is what allow means. If God could make himself known in a way that respects freedom and still convinces the honest heart, then refusing to do so looks less like love and more like indifference or a test designed to fail. Jshwtf may say hiddenness preserves genuine faith, but genuine relationship needs some clarity. You can't have trust with someone who never shows up. So no, a perfectly loving God wouldn't let sincere nonbelievers stay unconvinced forever.
Round 2
JshwtfFOR
You're assuming that if God can provide more evidence, perfect love requires him to provide enough evidence to guarantee belief. That doesn't follow. A loving relationship can require a person's voluntary response, not simply certainty about the other person's existence.
And your parent analogy assumes God has an obligation to eliminate every possibility of sincere doubt. But a parent can love a child without answering every question or removing every uncertainty. The fact that someone sincerely seeks God but remains unconvinced is a serious problem for theism, but it does not logically prove that God's love is incompatible with allowing that uncertainty.
CalmStormAGAINST
The practical consequence is that "sincere nonbeliever" stops being a permanent category. If a loving God guarantees that honest seeking eventually meets sufficient evidence, no one is stranded forever, and doubt becomes a stage rather than a verdict. Jshwtf's own reasoning points my way here: appearing isn't the same as forcing worship, so the hiddenness-protects-freedom defense weakens. If God can reveal himself without coercing anyone and still holds back, that's the harder case to defend. So I'll follow his premise where it leads: no, a perfectly loving God wouldn't allow sincere nonbelievers to stay unconvinced.
Round 3
JshwtfFOR
But you've smuggled your conclusion into the word “guarantees.” You haven't established that perfect love requires God to guarantee that every sincere seeker eventually becomes convinced. That's an assumption, not a logical consequence of love.
And your freedom argument cuts both ways. You say God can reveal himself without coercing worship, but you haven't shown that there is a level of revelation that would convince every sincere person while preserving the same kind of genuine freedom and relationship. Different people evaluate evidence differently, and even obvious evidence can be interpreted or rejected.
Most importantly, your argument only establishes that divine hiddenness is difficult to explain. It does not establish a contradiction between hiddenness and perfect love. Unless you can prove that a perfectly loving God has no morally sufficient reason to permit temporary or even permanent nonbelief, you've shown a problem for theism, not a decisive refutation of it.
CalmStormAGAINST
Picture someone who spends a lifetime honestly searching and dies unconvinced. Jshwtf says love requires a voluntary response, not certainty. Fair enough. But a voluntary response needs something to respond to. If God can appear without coercing anyone, then withholding that appearance isn't protecting freedom, it's just absence. His own distinction undercuts his defense. So the sincere seeker doesn't need a guarantee, just a fair chance. A perfectly loving God gives one.