CAN GOD BE HIDDEN AND EVIDENT AT THE SAME TIME? SOME KIERKEGAARDIAN REFLECTIONS

J.L. Schellenberg has argued that a loving God would make his reality evident to all who want to have a relation with God, but that God seems hidden to many such people. One response to this claim, suggested by Kierkegaard, is that God's reality is not really hidden to anyone except those who blind themselves to God's reality. This might seem to imply that all atheism is culpable, but it does not, since some of Kierkegaard's claims imply that those who may think of themselves as atheists may actually have an awareness of God's reality. This does not, however, imply that having a propositional understanding of God is unimportant; "thin theism" may have little or no value, but the kind of understanding of God that comes from knowing God as God does have great worth.