Divine Hiddenness: New Essays

Rating:
Summary: Absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence
Review: It's obviously a paramount truth if God exists. This truth, most atheists and agnostics contend, could somehow be made more evident than it already is if indeed God does exist. Thus, to some degree, God is keeping his existence hidden, bringing to mind Bertrand Russell's famous remark upon being asked what he'd tell God if he discovered his existence after death: "Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence." The essays contained in this book deal with this problem.

One reply is that the proposition "God cannot be detected with the five senses, therefore it's unlikely he exists" is self-refuting, since the proposition cannot itself be detected with the five senses. Propositions are abstract entities with no physical location in space, not the physical marks on paper that express them. The sentence-token "God cannot be detected with the five senses, therefore it's unlikely he exists" can be written in Chinese, Russian, German and other languages that "express" the same proposition as the one written in English. So this form of crude empiricism fails to satisfy the very foundation the claims rests on. Another reply is that God has made his existence sufficiently clear for those seeking him with an open heart and mind, yet sufficiently vague for those seeking to reject him. So God's apparent reluctance to make himself visible is just God not being coercive.

Rating:
Summary: Too one-sided
Review: There is some really good material in this book, but the selections are profoundly one-sided. There is only one atheist article in the entire book. There is also one from an agnostic, but he is as critical of the atheist position as the theists are. Even were I a theist, this one-sidedness would certainly detract from the book's value as an even-handed treatment of a controversial issue. Additionally, I found it odd that nothing from Ted Drange was included in the book, particularly since his work is often criticized by theists in the book (one article is even devoted almost entirely to criticizing Drange). This book is a must have, however, if you are really interested in divine silence, as there are many articles from extremely important thinkers contained in the book.