Theodore M. Drange

Theodore M. Drange is an American analytic philosopher and emeritus professor of philosophy at West Virginia University, where he taught for several decades. Trained in analytic philosophy with a doctorate from Cornell University, his earlier work focused on philosophy of language and conceptual analysis before he turned increasingly to philosophy of religion and atheology. Drange is best known for developing the 'argument from nonbelief' (ANB), an evidential argument distinct from but related to J. L. Schellenberg's divine hiddenness argument: he contends that the widespread existence of reasonable nonbelief is incompatible with the Christian God's alleged desire that all humans come to believe salvific truths. His monograph Nonbelief and Evil (1998) systematizes this argument alongside a parallel formulation of the problem of evil, presenting both as defeaters specifically of evangelical Christian theism rather than of generic theism. Drange has also engaged in published debates with Christian apologists including William Lane Craig and Kalam-style theists, and contributed essays on the incoherence of divine attributes. Critics such as Jeffery Jay Lowder and theist respondents including David Reiter have questioned whether his target conception of God is sufficiently representative, and whether ANB succeeds against modified versions of Christian theism that accept a permissive divine purpose for nonbelief. Drange remains an influential figure within secular philosophy of religion and the Internet Infidels community.