Why is God hidden? How might God be pointed out? In this timely study, Chad Engelland provides an original and compelling account of why God the creator is naturally hidden and how God can be intended. Drawing on phenomenology, philosophy of language, and medieval thought, he explores these questions, arguing that if the God in question is the ultimate source of all things, then hiddenness is necessary. Only a creature, rather than the creator, can appear directly in experience. Nonetheless, God the creator can be named as the ultimate source of all through a deferred ostension, which is a way of establishing the reference to a hidden cause through some manifest effect. Moreover, the deferred ostension can be clarified not only through the phenomenology of absent authors, which is a special case of the problem of other minds, but also via the fulfillment of desire in giving thanks for all.

‘This work provides an original and provocative response to the problem of divine hiddenness. The author argues that divine hiddenness, rather than being an insuperable problem, is a necessary consequence of God's status as the creator of everything finite. Drawing from a wide range of authors, including Kierkegaard, the author attempts to show that this hidden God can nonetheless be known and identified from his works. This is a book that makes an important contribution to natural theology.'

Stephen Evans - Emeritus University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Baylor University

‘Recent discussions of divine hiddenness have been conducted almost exclusively from within the analytic tradition. Engelland expands the dialogue to include neglected insights from phenomenology, drawing on a variety of historical and contemporary figures to shed light on this difficult problem. His work deserves a wide readership both among philosophers of religion and scholars of phenomenology.'

Travis Dumsday - Associate Professor of Philosophy, Concordia University of Edmonton

‘Engelland offers a wide-ranging approach to divine hiddenness that draws from Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, and, with aid from phenomenology, takes exception to Feuerbach and Nietzsche, among other critics of theism. He contends that in using language of experience clarified by phenomenology, inquirers can fix the reference to God as the creator. Readers conversant with phenomenology will find much to consider here in relation to divine hiddenness.'

Paul K. Moser - Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago

‘Chad Engelland's Divine Hiddenness gives us a fresh phenomenological view of why God must be hidden from us: He is our Creator, available to us only by way of deferred ostension. This study helps to re-set and re-launch our understanding of how God manifests Himself to us.'

Kevin Hart - Jo Rae Wright University Distinguished Professor in the School of Divinity, Duke University

‘Chad Engelland's Divine Hiddenness offers both an exacting account of the theological turn in phenomenology and a deepening of it. At the same time, like Edith Stein, he argues forcibly that one should not rule out the articulation of a metaphysics beyond the assumed terms of phenomenological reduction. Such a metaphysics concerning the givenness of being is closely allied to the givenness of grace and our openness to revelation.  This is an important work.'

C. J. C. Pickstock - Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge

‘The Nicene Creed says that God created all things, visible and invisible. Engelland argues that such a Creator must in some way be hidden from us and develops this conclusion so as to suggest how it can be properly appreciated. The result is an original contribution to philosophy of religion and the history of philosophical theology.'

Brian Davies - Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University

‘Chad Engelland takes an existential question, ‘Why is God hidden from me?,' and gives it a precise philosophical formulation, which he proceeds to explore with great rigor and ingenuity: ‘How would God appear if God were God, that is, if God were the ultimate origin of all?' He demonstrates an exceptional knack for reinterpreting texts and themes from the ancient and medieval traditions into forms accessible to contemporary philosophers, whether they work in the phenomenological or analytic mode. This memorable book is so carefully written it would also be an excellent text for the classroom!'

D. C. Schindler - Professor of Metaphysics and Anthropology, The John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America

‘A joyful must-read for all yearning for an original contribution to the debate or curious about how implicit phenomenologists like Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas chat with Shakespeare. Although the world's source presumably must be hidden from experience as its source, it is also disclosed to reason in its hiddenness here.'

Veronika Weidner - Associate Professor for Fundamental Theology, Philosophical-Theological College Brixen, Italy