Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and Paul K. Moser. Divine Hiddenness: New Essays.

Bradley, James

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ix + 242 pp. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $22.00--This is an interesting, sophisticated collection of philosophical essays on the hiddenness of God, in the specific sense that God (if such there be) 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 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). 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 "religions" (p. 61) 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.

First, there are the epistemic questions connected with divine hiddenness. In "Seeking but not Believing: Confessions of a Practicing Agnostic," Paul Draper defends an agnosticism that appears to be religious in the large sense of Schellenberg and argues that there is an equal balance of epistemic probabilities on the side of theism and atheism. Jonathan L. Kvanvig's "Divine Hiddenness: What is the Problem?" maintains that the hiddenness of God adds nothing to the epistemic difficulties presented by the larger problem of evil. On the other side, Peter Van Inwagen's "What is the Problem of the Hiddenness of God?" holds that divine hiddenness presents quite distinct problems that have to be considered in their own right. Either way, William J. Wainwright and Michael J. Murray argue that the epistemic difficulties of divine hiddenness can be met by considerations arising out of the nature of freedom. In his "Deus Absconditus," Murray defends the compatibility thesis by way of a carefully considered soul-making theodicy. Wainwright's essay on "Jonathan Edwards and the Hiddenness of God" mobilizes Edwards's account of the evidences of God and significantly revises Edwards's harsh view of nonbelievers on the basis of the value of human freedom.

Second, there is the question as to whether or not divine hiddenness should primarily be treated as an epistemic issue. Laura L. Garcia's "St. John of the Cross and the Necessity of Divine Hiddenness' argues that human relations to God are not primarily cognitive but experiential. Paul K. Moser takes a similar view, and in a powerful essay on "Cognitive Idolatry and Divine Hiding" he defends a "cognitively robust theism" (p. 125) in which human relations to God are understood to be primarily a matter of moral transformation. In a subtly different vein, M. Jamie Ferreira's "A Kierkegaardian View of Divine Hiddenness" employs Aquinas and Kierkegaard to argue both that the absolute difference of God implies divine hiddenness and that, as John Henry Newman held, there are no probabilistic and cumulative degrees of genuine faith in such a God. Nicholas Wolterstorff's striking account of "The Silence of the God Who Speaks" presses that point: he rejects all theodicies and free will defenses as inadequate to the tragedy of evil and holds faith alone to be the proper response to God's silence.

Third, it is noteworthy that all the contributors, except Jacob Joshua Ross in his "The Hiddenness of God: A Puzzle or a Real Problem?", conduct their discussions on the basis of a generally recognizable yet unspecified traditional account of the creator God as omnipotent, loving, personal, and so on. Ross alone among the contributors raises the question as to whether or not the issue of divine hiddenness, among others, requires a revised conception of the creator God. Here he puts his finger on the weakness of much philosophy of religion, particularly as conducted in the analytical tradition: because the history of theology as much as that of philosophy is largely ignored, traditional notions are taken as ahistorical givens. The result is that there is little readiness actually to do philosophical theology and to undertake a fundamental metaphysical re-examination of concepts as ancient and complex as those of omnipotence, love, personality, and their relation. Perhaps the real achievement and significance of this fine collection is that the divisions and debates among its contributors point down that road--which is, after all, the road taken by philosophers like C. S. Peirce (whose concept of "vagueness" should not be overlooked in the present context), as well as theologians like Wolfhart Pannenberg and James P. Mackey.--James Bradley, Memorial University of Newfoundland.