Is It Rational to Reject God?

According to the free will theodicy of hell, the damned agent freely chooses to suffer in hell, or equivalently, to reject God. Against this view, Thomas Talbott argues that it is impossible for the agent to freely reject God because doing so is not rational. The aim of this essay is to critically respond to Talbott’s argument that it is not rational to reject God, rather than offering a full defense of the free will theodicy of hell itself. Drawing on recent work on rationality, I argue that not only does Talbott’s argument commit the fallacy of equivocation, but its two premises are also indefensible. I also explain what the reasons are for rejecting God: when the agent’s happiness consists of an incoherent combination of attitudes, it is both structurally and substantively rational for her to reject God.