Abstract

This is an interesting, sophisticated collection of philosophical essays on the hiddenness of God, in the specific sense that God has not made his existence sufficiently clear. The question addressed is whether or not such hiddenness is compatible with the existence of a creator God. The incompatibility thesis is argued by J. L. Schellenberg in his well-known work, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. He claims there that if there were a perfectly loving creator God, such a God would ensure that there are no inculpable nonbelievers. As there are, no such God exists. In the present collection, Schellenberg contributes “What the Hiddenness of God Reveals: A Collaborative Discussion,” which is a complex, subtle reconsideration of the issues in dialogue form that introduces a notion of the “religious” that is wider and looser than that connected with theism. By contrast, all the other contributors defend some form of the compatibility thesis against Schellenberg. The basic outlines of the debate are laid out in the excellent Introduction by the editors, and the ensuing essays consider a number of fundamental issues.