In Catholic thought there is what is called vincible ignorance. Here is a definition:
Lack of knowledge for which a person is morally responsible. It is culpable ignorance because it could be cleared up if the person used sufficient diligence. One is said to be simply (but culpably) ignorant if one fails to make enough effort to learn what should be known; guilt then depends on one's lack of effort to clear up the ignorance.
For present purposes, it suffices to say that 'God' refers to the supreme being of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that an atheist is one who denies the existence of God.
I hold that there is vincible ignorance on various matters. But I deny that atheists qua atheists are vincibly ignorant. Whether or not God exists, one is not morally culpable for denying the existence of God.* Nor do I think one is morally culpable if one doubts the existence of God.
If God exists, and one is an atheist, then one is ignorant of God, but it does not follow that one is culpably ignorant. This commits me to saying that the atheist is invincibly ignorant of God. He is invincibly ignorant of God because God cannot be known to exist. If I cannot know that such-and-such, then I cannot be morally culpable for not knowing it. If I ought to X, then I am capable of X-ing. And so, by contraposition, if I am not capable of X-ing, then I am not morally obliged to X, whence it follows that I am not morally culpable for not X-ing.
If the atheist is invincibly ignorant of God, then so is the theist, whence it follows that I am not morally praiseworthy for being a theist.
This puts me at odds with St. Paul, at least on one interpretation of what he is saying at Romans 1: 18-20.
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*Why not? Because it is not clear that God exists. There are powerful albeit uncompelling arguments against the existence of God, chiefly, arguments from natural and moral evil, and, while there is plenty of evidence of the existence of God, the evidence does not entail the existence of God. Will you tell me that the evidence renders the existence of God more probable than not? I will respond by asking what probability has to do with it. Either God exists or he does not. If he does, then he is a necessary being. If he does not, then he is impossible. I will demand of you that you attach sense to the claim that such a being -- one that is either necessary or impossible-- can have its probability raised or lowered by evidence. This is a huge and controversial topic. No more can be said about it now.
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