"The Parable of the Invisible Gardener" by John Wisdom,

John Wisdom was a leading British philosopher considered to be an ordinary language philosopher, a philosopher of mind and a metaphysician.

He was influenced by G.E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Sigmund Freud, and in turn explained and extended their work.

Wisdom was for most of his career at Trinity College, Cambridge, and became Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University. Near the end of his career he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1950 to 1951.
His famous "Parable of the Invisible Gardener" is a profound dialectic on the existence or absence of God.

Major Writings
Interpretation and Analysis, (1931)
Other Minds, (1952)
Philosophy & PsychoAnalysis, (1953)
Paradox and Discovery, (1965)
Proof and Explanation (The Virginia Lectures 1957), (1991)
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The Parable of the Invisible Gardener is a tale told by John Wisdom. It is often used to illustrate the perceived differences between assertions based on faith and assertions based on scientific evidence, and the problems associated with unfalsifiable beliefs. The tale runs as follows:
"Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, 'It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.' The other disagrees and an argument ensues. They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer remains unconvinced, and insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The sceptic doesn't agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all."

"Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis" by John Wisdom,1953

..
Philosophical questions are verbal in the sense that
they turn upon unconventional uses of language ;
but they are not merely verbal for,in virtue of their oddity,
in the process of justifying their use,
one's attention is called to matters obscured by conventional language.
.
Metaphysical paradoxes and platitudes function as penetrating suggestions as to how language might be used to reveal what is hidden by the actual use of language.
.
In philosophical analysis penumbral facts
-matters to which certain conversational sentences call attention-
are compared to non-penumbral facts
-matters to which the penumbral are presumably reducible-
in order to determine whether the switch from one kind of statement to another is advisable and illuminating.
.
The goal of philosophy is the clarification of the structure of facts.
.
Philosophers do not uncover new facts,
but they show us old facts in a new way.
..