In The Hiddenness Argument, J.L. Schellenberg provides a brief and accessible yet forceful explanation for his unique argument against the existence of a perfectly loving God. Schellenberg is the progenitor of the divine hiddenness argument (vii) that first appeared in his 1993 book: Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Ever since its publication, there have been a variety of arguments that have emerged under the umbrella of hiddenness arguments (vii, 16). Unlike the standard philosophical arguments against a theistic God—such as the incoherence of God, and the problem of evil, which has undergone a shift in relatively recent years, from the logical problem of evil to the ‘probabilistic problem of evil,’—the hiddenness argument (henceforward THA) is a novel argument. Schellenberg suggests that part of his inspiration came from the works of John Hick and Terence Penelhum who illustrated that the world is “religiously ambiguous,” i.e., leaving it open to both theistic and nontheistic interpretations (36-37).

It should be noted that Schellenberg’s purpose is not to refute a deistic type of God (18), since such a God would not be the God of theism. Rather, he seeks to demonstrate that a perfectly loving God “who is open to a personal relationship with any finite person” (38) does not exist. Thus, a being who is perfectly loving is tied to other ultimate attributes such as omniscience and omnipotence. Schellenberg is attempting to refute a personal theistic God, one that has an infinitely profound interest in having a personal relationship with finite persons. Schellenberg also denies God as being ultimate as a “personal ultimism” (20), in the following senses: metaphysical, axiological and soteriological (20-21). THA, according to Schellenberg, is

Nonetheless, Schellenberg argues that one can believe in an ‘ultimism’ of sorts without reference to God (e.g., the historical Buddha—Siddartha Guatama), and can remain an atheist of sorts but not necessarily a naturalist (x, 21).

It is important to note that, over the years, Schellenberg has shifted his position on nonbelief from “inculpable or blameless nonbelief” to “nonresistant nonbelief” (17). Further into the book, he admits that a focus on “culpability” and “inculpability” was a mistake (55). This was done as a means of strengthening the forcefulness of THA since nonbelief can be conceivably culpable in a number of ways (55).

Schellenberg summarizes his argument in the following way:

1. 1. If a perfectly loving God exists, then there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person.

2. 2. If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.

3. 3. If a perfectly loving God exists, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists (from 1 and 2).

4. 4. Some finite persons are or have been nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.

5. 5. No perfectly loving God exists (from 3 and 4).

6. 6. If no perfectly loving God exists, then God does not exist.

7. 7. God does not exist (from 5 and 6) (103).

The argument is valid, but is it sound? Schellenberg argues in Chapter 8 against various misinterpretations, objections, and counter-arguments. In his section on counter-arguments, he fails to acknowledge the various arguments that provide a cumulative case in favour of theism (112-113). It is unrealistic to think that the cosmological argument, for instance, can deductively bring one to the God of Christian theism—it is not intended to do so.

Some of the following issues arise from this formulation of THA. Does nonresistant nonbelief really exist? Would just one moment in a finite person’s life of nonresistant nonbelief entail that God is not perfectly loving? Is it not possible for God to permit nonresistant nonbelief for a greater unknown good? It seems certainly possible. Another important question would be what constitutes a person for Schellenberg. I would assume beings capable of moral deliberation and action including possession of a high degree of self-consciousness—a definition with which he would agree, according to his own explanations (40, 50). However, this might be something veiled to the hunter-gatherer societies (or other ‘precursors’ to human persons throughout evolutionary history) in what Schellenberg labels a “pre-doubt” era (77-78, 106), since they may not encompass what is truly meant by ‘persons’ in any meaningful theistic worldview. This is important since Schellenberg invites us to reflect upon God analogously (or by extrapolation) in comparison to ourselves (21).

Even though Schellenberg is an atheist, he is acutely aware of the overestimation of metaphysical naturalism (121) and is sympathetic to religion (x). He wishes to have an open dialogue where the polarization can be lessened and openness to dialogue with the ‘other’ may be widened.

Interestingly, Schellenberg’s conclusion involves what he calls a “new agnosticism,” which reveals an admirable but peculiar optimism in the future of humanity (122-123). Somehow he neatly escapes the nihilistic implications of the nonexistence of a personal God. One wonders what this future might entail: the singularity, transhumanism and/or a collective consciousness evolving into a God who perhaps retroactively creates the multiverse. Nevertheless, this is an important work for both academic philosophers and theologians who typically do not engage in the philosophy of religion or in natural theology. Although, I remain sceptical over the soundness of THA and this brief treatise of it, this is an important contribution to the philosophy of religion and a-theological argumentation.