 There are several versions of the hiddenness argument by now, and no doubt there'll be more in the future. But I'll focus on the original hiddenness argument, the one that I put together when I was at Oxford some 25 years ago. It's probably more than 25 years ago now. And to introduce this argument, I think it'd be good to think about three scenarios. So here's the first scenario. It's one in which God exists and there are no non-believers. That is, God exists and perhaps there are other people too, other persons. God has created finite persons. And if there are, all of them believe that God exists. So that's the first scenario. In that scenario, there's nothing like the hiddenness that's relevant to the hiddenness argument that I want to talk about. The second scenario is one in which God exists and not everybody is a believer. There are some people who believe, some people who don't believe, but all of those don't believe, fail to believe because they're resisting God in some way. Relationship with God, not on the agenda for them, and they have deceived themselves as to the existence of God and now they're doubters or disbelievers because of that self-deception. And so all of the non-belief in the world in the second scenario is resistant, non-belief. In that scenario too, there's nothing like the hiddenness that's relevant to the hiddenness argument because even though God is in a sense hidden from people, it's those people who have hidden God from themselves. It's not as if God has done something intentionally to produce this situation of hiddenness. And now the third scenario is one in which God exists and some people believe in God, some people don't believe in God with the added wrinkle now that all of those who don't believe in God, some are resistant but some are not. Some who fail to believe in God are in that condition because they've had a good hard look at the evidence and it's the evidence that causes their non-belief. It's not any kind of resistance to God or to relationship with God that causes their non-belief. And so they, we would call them non-resistant non-believers. So in that world they are both resistant non-believers and non-resistant non-believers. And now you can take the central claim of the argument as saying something like this that the first two scenarios are possible. If God exists and the third is impossible, okay? Could be that everybody believes or that if some don't believe they're in that condition resistently, that's okay. But if God exists, there will not be any non-resistant non-believers. So you can take that as the first premise of the core argument, the core of the hiddenness argument. The hiddenness argument put most simply would have two premises and a conclusion that would be the first premise of that core argument. So if God exists there are no non-resistant non-believers. The second premise perhaps obviously is going to be, yeah there are, there are non-resistant non-believers from which the conclusion follows there's no God. Okay, so that's the core hiddenness argument. But now of course you're going to want to have some extra premises to support that first premise. Why should we say that if God exists there won't be any non-resistant non-believers? Well there are some other thoughts about the hiddenness or sorry about God more generally the nature of God coming to play at this stage. The first premise, first subsidiary premise, if God exists God is perfectly loving, okay? We're talking about a personal ultimate, the greatest possible personal being. And this sort of a being we would expect among other things to be perfectly loving. So suppose we accept that if God exists God is perfectly loving. Next premise and it's sort of going to go in a chain here. If God exists God is perfectly loving, if God is perfectly loving then God is always open to personal relationship, a conscious reciprocal relationship with finite persons. And the third premise if God is thus open is open to personal relationship with finite persons. Then if anybody fails to believe in God it's resistently. It's not going to be non-resistently. Why is that? Well that's really the nub, the heart of the matter. The connection between openness and the absence of non-resistant non-belief. If God is open in the sense in which I intend, it's a very minimal sense. All I mean is that God isn't closed to this sort of relationship. It's never going to be the case that God does something to prevent people from being able to enter into personal relationship with God, participating in relationship with God. So they might still not participate in relationship with God, but if so it's going to be because what they've done, not because of anything God's done. So that's what's meant by openness. And now think about what's required to be able to participate in a relationship with God just by trying to. It makes the sound as though it might be easy to do this, but it could very well be hard. It could be that you can just by trying in the right way enter into relationship with God, but it might not be pleasant, it might not be easy. But that's what I mean when I'm talking about being in a position of the sort that if God is open to relationship, God will put people in that position. Now to be in that position you have to believe that God exists. It's a very simple idea really to be able to relate personally in this way, to be in a conscious reciprocal relationship with somebody else, it doesn't matter who it is. You have to believe that they exist. And so God would, if God is thus open, make it possible for people to believe that God exists. And again it could be that they fail to believe, but if so it's only going to be if they have arrived at that state themselves through resisting relationship with God in some way. So that's why you get to that main premise of the core argument, if God exists there are no non-resistant non-believers. So that's the core argument, two premises and a conclusion. A number of other premises can be brought into play which jointly entail that first premise. So that's the hiddenness argument. Those are some of the main most important premises.