Many people are perplexed that God (if such there be) does not make His existence more evident. For many of them, the hiddenness of God puts their faith to the test. Others, however, claim that God's hiddenness is the basis of an argument against His existence. While this claim is no newcomer to religious reflection, it has been the focus of renewed debate since the early 1990s.

Two preliminary observations are in order. First, the God in question is the God of traditional theism, a personal God who is unsurpassably good. Second, the hiddenness of God is an inapt term to use in an argument for the conclusion that there is no God since God is hidden only if there is a God; the term inculpable nonbelief is better. At a first approximation, the argument is that there are people who, through no fault...