Divine Hiddenness and the Concept of God

Abstract

In contemporary debates, the problem of divine hiddenness can be numbered among the most prominent atheistic arguments. In this essay, I focus on a widely discussed version of this argument, i.e., the one developed by John Schellenberg (1959-). He bases the version at stake on a concept of God as an omnipotent, morally perfect, and ontologically perfect being. I argue that the way he develops his argument is simply inconsistent with each of these concepts. As a result, Schellenberg’s version of the divine hiddenness argument proves to be implausible.