"The purpose of this book is to outline the principal difficulties that the 'hiddenness' of God poses, and to offer solutions to the question of why God does not incontrovertibly and indubitably reveal His existence to everyone." This concise book introduces the reader to the current debate about the issue of divine hiddenness. The author critically assesses the views of many leading philosophers, and proceeds to offer his own solutions and insights. This is a book that will be of interest not only to the academic, but also to anyone who has ever wondered why God does not simply make his existence known to everyone.

Why does God seem so hidden, obscure, and silent? Why doesn't he make himself known in a more explicit way to those who dispute his existence? This line of questioning presents a perplexing conundrum for Christian theologians. On the one hand, Christians affirm that God's revelation of himself is sufficient, but, on the other hand, it appears that some genuine seekers remain unconvinced of his existence. In recent decades, philosopher J. L. Schellenberg has proposed an argument for atheism that attempts to exploit this apparent contradiction. This book offers a new take by approaching the conversation using a Trinitarian theological lens. The character of Trinitarian love shapes the way God communicates in pursuit of relationships. Namely, God desires spiritually oriented, communal divine-human relationships, and this endeavor necessarily entails hiddenness. This work proposes five spiritual criteria that an individual must meet to be open to having a relationship with the triune God, and these are the criteria that atheists have failed to consider. Articulating these five is exactly what is needed to resolve the vexing theological puzzle of divine hiddenness.

In many places and times, and for many people, God's existence has been rather less than a clear fact. According to the hiddenness argument, this is actually a reason to suppose that it is not a fact at all. The hiddenness argument is a new argument for atheism that has come to prominence in philosophy over the past two decades. J. L. Schellenberg first developed the argument in 1993, and this book offers a short and vigorous statement of its central claims and ideas. Logically sharp but so clear that anyone can understand, the book addresses little-discussed issues such as why it took so long for hiddenness reasoning to emerge in philosophy, and how the hiddenness problem is distinct from the problem of evil. It concludes with the fascinating thought that retiring the last of the personal gods might leave us nearer the beginning of religion than the end. Though an atheist, Schellenberg writes sensitively and with a nuanced insider's grasp of the religious life. Pertinent aspects of his experience as a believer and as a nonbeliever, and of his own engagement with hiddenness issues, are included. Set in this personal context, and against an authoritative background on relevant logical, conceptual, and historical matters, The Hiddenness Argument's careful but provocative reasoning makes crystal clear just what this new argument is and why it matters.

A distinguished group of philosophers of religion explore the question of divine hiddenness.

In this book, Eric E. Hall takes up the question of the meaning of a vigorously used concept in the liberal west: authenticity and the pursuit of personal originality. By uncovering this idea's uses within three deepening contexts - the ethical, the ontological, and the theological - the author unfolds authenticity's origins and implications. To the degree that authenticity seeks in all contexts freedom from social horizons, the conclusion renders attempts to embody this ideal secularly impossible. The goal requires a total transcendence that only the divine could fulfill. Human authenticity thus emerges in creatively imitating God's self-sacrificial expression on the cross, which both transcends and revalues the horizons of this world.

A fascinating, philosophical approach to the concept of divine revelation, exploring the implications this theory may have for generating a new concept of religious truth.

Since the late 1980s the theme of God's self-revelation has been treated only briefly in Christian theology, at times simply ignored, and often confused with biblical inspiration. Revelation: Towards a Christian Theology of God's Self-Revelation lays out its basic characteristics, and beginsby distinguishing between revelation in the primary sense (a living encounter with God's self-disclosure) and in the secondary sense (statements of faith derived from that encounter, or "propositional" revelation). It considers revelation as transforming and informing, as being "sacramental" ormediated through words and deeds, as communicated through an endless variety of means and mediators, as related to but distinct from biblical inspiration and truth, and as reaching those of "other" faiths or of no faith at all.Gerald O'Collins skilfully distinguishes between past (or "foundational") revelation, present (or "dependent") revelation, and future (or "eschatological") revelation. He expounds with ecumenical sensitivity the complex relationship between tradition and scripture. O'Collins moves into controversialareas by insisting that the divine self- revelation takes place only when received by human faith and that "outside revelation there is no salvation (extra revelationem nulla salus)". This volume offers a coherent account of God's self-revelation, which can serve as a basis for all that follows intheology and for dialogue with those who follow "other" living faiths or none at all. O'Collins extends and enriches what he has proposed in earlier books and articles about the characteristics of God's self-revelation.

Oswald Bayer is one of the most important contemporary interpreters of Martin Luther and confessional Lutheran theologians. As a Luther scholar, Bayer has identified the precise reformational turning point in Luther's life and theology, which is also the central point for a truly Lutheran theology: the promise of a forgiving and justifying God preached in Jesus Christ. As a Lutheran theologian, Bayer stresses that this promise of God is the ultimate subject matter of all theology, and that all other theological topics have the justifying promise of God as their basis and boundary. Hanging by a Promise investigates how Bayer addresses Luther's topic of the hidden God--a God of wrath who accomplishes everything--from the standpoint of the justifying promise of God. Luther's doctrine of the hidden God has been taken up, discussed, and interpreted by many in the modern Protestant theological tradition. Yet, Bayer addresses it in a way in which others before him have not. Going beyond interpretation and evaluation, Bayer actually makes use of Luther's hidden God in his own theology. For Bayer, the hidden God is the counterpoint to God's gracious promise given in the preached Christ, a counterpoint that brings serious tension into the very heart of theology.

One of the most pressing issues in the doctrine of the atonement today is the question of the unity and diversity of the work of Christ. What are we to make of the diversity within the biblical witness and the history of doctrine when it comes to explanations of the meaning and significance of Jesus' death and resurrection? Without a grasp of the unity of his work, our understanding and use of the diversity runs the risk of becoming haphazard and disordered. Proposals regarding the unity of Christ's work today tend to focus on the metaphorical nature of language, the role of culture, and various possible conceptual schemes, rarely reflecting on unity and diversity proper to the being God. To fill this gap, Johnson draws on Karl Barth's integrated account of the doctrines of God and reconciliation, harnessing the resources contained within the doctrines of the Trinity and divine perfections to energize a properly theological account of the unity and diversity of the atonement.

“[Collected] essays spanning five decades, imposing structure on a set of reflections from one of the most visionary and expansive living theologians.” —Journal of the American Academy of Religion In the second volume of his two-volume collection of essays from the 1980s to 2018, renowned Catholic theologian David Tracy gathers profiles of significant theologians, philosophers, and religious thinkers. These essays, he suggests, can be thought of in terms of Walt Whitman’s “filaments,” which are thrown out from the speaking self to others—ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary—in order to be caught elsewhere. Filaments arranges its subjects in rough chronological order, from choices in ancient theology, such as Augustine, through the likes of William of St. Thierry in the medieval period and Martin Luther and Michelangelo in the early modern, and, finally, to modern and contemporary thinkers, including Bernard Lonergan, Paul Tillich, Simone Weil, Karl Rahner, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Iris Murdoch. Taken together, these essays can be understood as a partial initiation into a history of Christian theology defined by Tracy’s key virtues of plurality and ambiguity. Marked by surprising insights and connections, Filaments brings the work of one of North America’s most important religious thinkers once again to the forefront. “To read [Filaments] is to be educated and enriched by a remarkable breadth of inquiry and depth of analysis . . . Tracy’s passion for theological conversation is . . . fueled by a desire for justice and peace, but also by wonder at the unending love and creativity of God.” —Critical Theology