Divine Hiddenness, by Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser
If God exists, then why hasn't he made his existence sufficiently clear? The philosopher J. L. Schellenberg asked this question and concluded that God does not exist (Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason, 1993). If there were a perfectly loving God, this God would see to it that everyone capable and desirous of a personal relationship with him had the evidence to believe that he exists. But since there are such people who simply cannot on rational grounds
believe that God exists, there cannot be a perfectly loving God.
The essays in this book respond to Schellenberg's argument, drawing on Maimonides, St. John of the Cross, Jonathan Edwards, Søren Kierkegaard and various biblical writers. They do so from a range of perspectives, including Jewish, Christian, atheist and agnostic ones.
Three essays agree with the way Schellenberg presupposes God and how we can know God--though they arrive at different conclusions. Michael Murray contends that God has refrained from making himself self-evident precisely in order to give creatures freedom in their task of "soul-making." Jonathan Kvanvig argues that the evidence for God's hiddenness is merely subjective and does not count as substantive evidence for God's nonexistence. Paul Draper contends that ambiguous evidence about God's existence leads to agnosticism--not atheism or theism--and asks what kind of religious behavior is appropriate for agnostics.
