Similarly, Kahane (2012) claims it is not a “useful solution…to our problem” for the theist to claim that “if we can even conceive of [a world without God], what we must conceive is an empty void, containing no value” (p. 38). I agree with Kahane that the theist’s retreat to the null world hypothesis does little to aid in answering the axiological question. If we follow Davis and Franks’s semantics, and God exists necessarily (as they think), then all claims about what the world would be like if God did not exist are false. Even some theists might resist this null world retreat. Consider pragmatic reasoning about God’s existence again. Pascal’s counterpossible reasoning about whether he ought to believe that God exists includes causal reasoning about what belief that God exists (and belief that God does not exist) would entail in a godless world. The null world retreat threatens more than just the axiological question: it threatens any pragmatic reasoning about belief/acceptance of God’s existence. One might object here that Pascal’s Wager, and pragmatic arguments for the rationality of belief that God exists generally, are aimed at the agnostic, not the necessitarian theist or atheist. However, the necessitarian theist and necessitarian atheist can still trace through the argument. On the theist’s null world retreat, the following are both false:

- 7. If God does not exist, then S stands to lose nothing by believing that God exists.
- 8. If God does not exist, then S stands to gain nothing (or very little) by not believing that God exists.

Thus, even some theists might resist the null world retreat—especially those sympathetic to practical arguments for God’s existence.

### 3. Cognitive decoupling in imagination and pretense

We need a new response to the quietist. I argue that we may find a solution by examining the nature of human counterfactual reasoning and pretense combined with a three-valued logic. Developmental psychologist Allan Leslie (1987) asks “how is it possible for a child to think about a banana as if it were a telephone, a lump of plastic as if it were alive, or an empty dish as if it contained soap?” (p. 412). Children can represent an object as what it is while simultaneously representing it as having incompatible properties. Furthermore, this does not lead to any contradictions in their thinking. How is this possible? Leslie posits the existence of a ‘decoupling mechanism.’ On his account, children representing a banana as a phone possess a primary representation of the world and a copy of the primary representation, which is “in effect not [a] representation of the world but [a] representation of [a] representation” (p. 417). Children use the metarepresentation to engage in pretend play. It is because the metarepresentation is not generated by the world, but is generated from a representation of the world, that children are able to treat it as pretend and avoid becoming confused as to what is real. He also points out that the existence and use of the metarepresentation leaves the primary representation intact, and so the primary representation “is free to continue exerting whatever influence it would have on ongoing processes” (p. 417). This is why a child wielding a whiffle-ball-bat as a sword can represent the bat as a sword, but simultaneously recognize that swinging it into a friend will not actually cut them. The child must suppress the primary representation of the bat, which includes that the bat is yellow, made of plastic, etc. Nichols and Stich (2003) improve on Leslie’s account and argue that we need a new kind of mental state called ‘supposing’ in order to account for pretense, which cannot be reduced to belief and desire. ‘Supposing’ is similar to a number of other proposed belief-like states such as