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| The Hiddenness of God |
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| Studying God |
| The Hiddenness of God |
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| "A God you understood would be less than yourself." Flannery O'Connor, a Catholic American writer from the mid 20th Century, penned these words in a personal letter to a friend, Louise Abbot, as the two of them struggled with the concept of salvation. Her frank words truly expresses the ultimate mystery of God, which is that although God has chosen to reveal Himself to humankind in many ways, this revelation is not in turn, the complete knowledge of God. We have been given genuine knowledge of God, but it is not exhaustive knowledge. The Source of Hiddenness There are aspects or "spaces" of God that humans can't comprehend, or which God has chosen to keep hidden from knowledge. Moving forward with the insight that God is not completely revealed to humankind, one searches for how God is hidden. This hiddenness could thus be understood as coming in two ways, the failure of humans to have the ability to understand and the nature and qualities of God which make Him impossible to understand. Robert McKim, in "The Hiddenness of God", approaches these two sources of God's hiddenness. McKim categorizes the reasons into these two areas: "human defectiveness theories" and "divine transcendence theories." For McKim, human defectiveness theories deal with the basic assumption that humans are too wicked, ignorant, stupid, or in other ways limited to truly comprehend God's ultimate and true being. In these theories, it is because of human inadequacy that God cannot be understood. The second category of theories, divine transcendence theories, are explained as theories which say "that God is not the sort of being who could be understood very well by creatures like us." At the base of the divine transcendence theories is the idea that God, by nature, just can not be understood. These classifications are used to define the type of reasons being given and shed some light on the source of the hiddenness. Although these two categories point to different reasons for hiddenness, they do go hand in hand. When one category is used, the second is usually called upon to further explain or justify it. A combination of these two paths to hiddenness would probably be found in God's true hiddenness, since it is due to God's transcendence that humans can't comprehend God. In Psalm 139, David writes about God's knowledge of David himself. Even this knowledge possessed by God concerning that which David knows better than anything else, himself, is unfathomable to David: O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. [Psalm 139: 1, 2, 6, (NIV) ] David acknowledges that he is not capable of comprehending God's awesome omniscience and omnipresence. It is something which he describes as being above his power of knowing. Artur Weiser, in his commentary on the Psalms, views David's response in the following way: In the face of this disturbing character of the supremacy of God's knowledge and of his constant presence nothing else is left to the psalmist but to express his wonder and confess man's inability to grasp the miracle of God's reality, which is so entirely different from that of man, and accept the contrast between God and man whereby man is entirely known by God, but on his side is not able to grasp God's nature. David is responding to the confrontation he has with his inequality to God. His summation of this is God possesses knowledge "too wonderful for me" (Ps. 139:6). Weiser finds it important to point out that contrasting humanity and God is central to the understanding of God. David's knowledge of God's unknownness comes out of what can be learned by seeing what is unknown is far greater than anything David could approach. David thus fathoms God by learning God is what man is not. Man is unknowing, and God is knowing. David looked at what he knew, and could extrapolate how great and unfathomable God's true knowledge must be, even though he couldn't know it. In this type of hiddenness, humans are allowed to know something about God, e.g. his omniscience, but this divine power and knowledge is something beyond human reason can understand or comprehend. Martin Luther on God, Preached and Hidden Martin Luther, in On the Bondage of the Will, takes up the topic of God's hiddenness as he discusses the free will of humanity . He puts forth the distinction between "God Preached" and "God Hidden" (Rupp, 200). For Luther, God does not reveal himself fully to man. He keeps for himself his inner will. Luther proposes that God offers the way of salvation in his revealed Word. God reveals the law, about which Luther says: "all that the law does, according to Paul, is to make sin known." In addition to this revelation, God also reveals the path to salvation, faith in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is God preached. Luther contends not with the kerygma of the Gospel, but with the desire to know how and why the Holy Spirit may choose to impart faith in one individual, and pass over another unto damnation, which, for Luther, is God hidden. Luther says of this will, humanity can not know of that hidden and awful will of God whereby he ordains by his own counsel which and what sort of persons he wills to be recipients and partakers of his preached and offered mercy. This will is not to be inquired into, but reverently adored, as by far the most awe-inspiring secret of the Divine Majesty, reserved for himself alone and forbidden to us much more religiously than any number of Corycian caverns. Luther contends that it is precisely the inner will of God which he has chosen not to reveal to human beings. This view of the unknown inner will of God fits directly into Luther's view of salvation, where the Holy Spirit is the only driving force of faith, completely apart from anything done by the human being. It then becomes important for Luther to explain who is chosen and for what reason. He does this not by laying out the criterion by which believers are chosen, but by saying that this is precisely the line which God has drawn between God hidden and God preached. Luther writes, "For here [the inner will of God] the saying truly applies, 'Things above us are no business of ours.'" C.S. Lewis, a prominent British theologian of the mid 20th Century, also approaches the issue of justice as it deals with the unknown qualities of salvation . He writes in his book, Mere Christianity: Indeed, if we found that we could fully understand [God's gift of salvation], that very fact would show it was not what it professed to be-the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightning. For Lewis, salvation, and God, are inconceivable, and are not of this world. In the Bible, God has revealed to humanity many things concerning Himself and salvation, but ultimately, Lewis views them as something outside of the understood realm, or hidden. Lewis doesn't question how to find or understand these things, but instead, like Luther, concedes to God the true knowledge and wisdom, and relies on faith. Revelation 19 sheds a final ray of light onto God's salvation and justice: Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. Hallelujah! For our Lord God almighty reigns. [Revelation 19:1,2,6] Job and David Encounter God's Justice In the prose introduction to the powerful and compelling poetry of the Book of Job, Job is introduced as being "blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."(Job 1:1b) At the request of the devil, and under God's hand, Job is subjected to extreme trial and tribulation. This trial leads to an extended poetic discourse between Job and three friends, Elihu, and eventually God himself. Job is in search of a true understanding of God. Throughout his trials, he looks for an answer to the question why. He is searching for the causitive agent of his dilemma. Robert Gordis contends, in The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job, that in his speeches, Job concedes God's supreme power, and Job's true questions are pointed toward the righteousness of God. In Job 9:4, Job attests to God's strength: "His wisdom is profound, his power is vast." Job's doubt lies in a deeper question of justice. Important to the arguments which surround Job's suffering is the theological understanding of justice by Job's contemporaries. Eerdmans' Handbook to the Bible summarizes the theological standpoint from which Job's three friends were arguing as one of a quite simple basis. The three friends' understanding of God's justice was that "prosperity was God's reward for good living, calamity his judgment on the sin of the individual." This theology had probably held true in most of their experiences, thus it was developed and held not as a general rule, but was instead taken to be God's ultimate justice and will, thus demoting the power and justice of God to something simple enough for young children. Job pleads with God, begging to know the cause of his misery. Job does not see justice being done in his eyes. Job's pleading with God culminates with Job accusing God of being wrong. Job cries, "If indeed you [the three friends] would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me, then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me." (Job 19:5-6, emphasis added) In his struggle, Job decides that since God is not complying with Job's own personal view of justice, then God must be wrong. God then steps into the fray, in a whirlwind, and speaks to Job and his three friends. God declares that it is not for Job to question his justice. God harshly reprimands Job's doubt, "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?" (Job 40:8) It is at this point that Job encounters the unknown God. God implies that His will is in complete control, and not only that, but His justice goes along with it inseparably. God doesn't strive to explain this inner force or intent, but does reveal its existence. God doesn't say that there is no justice, but instead puts forth his own justice as unquestionable. Although the contemporary view of God's justice didn't fit Job's situation, since Job was an upstanding man and didn't appear to deserve the hardships he encountered, God implies that his justice was still done. Even in His revelation of Himself to Job, God leaves part of Himself hidden. God talks not of the reasons for Job's suffering, and, therefore, does not directly answer the questions which Job put to him. God instead tells Job of his complete and ultimate power, and of his unquestionable will. So, even in God's revelation to Job, God is still hidden. David also deals with the hidden justice of God. In Psalm 139:19, David seeks what he views as justice. David comes to God, asking, "If only you would slay the wicked, O God!" David goes to God's throne, requesting what he views as justice, but instead of expecting God to simply comply with his request, even though it seems just in his own eyes, David simply concludes the psalm by asking God to "lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:24) David is able to surrender judgment to God. He ultimately doesn't ask why or if, but verse 24 simply reiterates his earlier point (in 139:6) that God's knowledge is higher than man's and that he will leave justice up to God in good faith. Two pillars of the Old Testament, David and Job, both deal with the issue of God's hiddenness. Job deals with it through his inquiry into the true nature of God's justice, and his questioning of his own situation. David, on the other hand, simply proclaims God's justice through his song of Psalm 139. Martin Luther deals with God's will and actions in much the same way as David, and ultimately, as Job. Luther concludes about God's justice: He [God] is God, and for his will there is no cause or reason that can be laid down as a rule or measure for it, since there is nothing equal or superior to it, but it is itself the rule of all things. Luther begins by setting up the basis for his argument, that God "is God". Luther's understanding of God as Creator of all things, and omnipotent Lord of all of His creation then leads him to the conclusion that God's will is by definition, just, since God is the standard by which justice is ultimately measured. To measure God's will against some higher standard would be to dethrone God and place some higher measure above Him. It is with this in mind that Luther declares that God's will is the ultimate justice, and this leads him to declare at the outset, "He is God". Why a Hidden God? Although God's hiddenness is, by definition, hidden, reasons can still be proposed for the purposes behind hiddenness. Robert McKim discusses what he calls "appropriateness theories," which attempt to explain the appropriateness of God hiding himself. McKim quotes Marilyn McCord Adams as saying that God's hiddenness "is � part of God's deliberate design, since it is necessary to make possible the relationships He wants with us and for which we were created." A central theme of Adams' and McKim's theory is that there needs to be uncertainty in God if there can be true faith or trust. Without the possibility of doubt, there can be no faith. At the true basis of faith, as defined in Hebrews 11:1 , is that faith is the certainty of something that is not completely verified or known in the physical world. It is thus proposed that there can not be faith in the existence of something held in hand, because the existence is easily verifiable and demonstrable in the physical realm. McKim proposes that a central part of trust is relinquishing control. This concept of self-abandonment is only applicable if God's inner will is hidden. In theory, if God was completely known, there would be no doubt as to his actions or judgments, and therefore, no trust would ever be necessary, because trust would be replaced with tangible certainty. If someone says, "I will clap my hands", and this is what she want to do, that person knows that she will clap her hands. There is certainty there that is above faith. The actions can be foreknown without doubt. How much greater certainty could there be in God's will if it were completely known. There would be no faith or trust necessary, for God would be known completely, and all doubt would be removed. It can then be concluded from these arguments, that God hides himself from humanity because it is in this hiddenness the relationship he desires with man is met. Conclusion Both Job and the psalmist refer to knowledge of God's will as something "too wonderful for me" . This sheds a very bright ray of light into understanding the incomprehensible. God does not give the knowledge of His inner will, but He does not leave those of faith in doubt as to the nature of this unknown. Job and David demonstrate the wonderfulness of God: that the unknown can be left up to God in complete certainty. This is the important focus of God's hiddenness. God's inner will is not revealed to humans, but God does reveal that He is far superior to anything humanity can comprehend, and that God is just , and His will is immutably perfect , so in faith, believers can leave the unknown up to God. God's will is hidden from human eyes and human understanding, but God declares, through Paul, that this is not the way it shall always be. In 1Corinthians 13:12, Paul writes, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Paul acknowledges that humans do not have a complete understanding of God, or themselves. Paul proclaims that he possesses knowledge that is "but a poor reflection". Just as David pondered in Psalm 139, Paul knows that he is fully known by God, but that he, in turn, does not know God fully. Even as Paul writes this in confidence, he proclaims that this situation will some day be rectified. Some day humans will be changed. Paul proclaims the glory of the resurrection and the completion of knowledge in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53: �we will all be changed-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When Christ comes again , all things will be changed. Humans will be human no more. God will remove from those He redeems the perishable and mortal, and replace it with the imperishable and immortal. Paul proclaims that in this change, God will also impart the knowledge of the hidden things when he says "then I shall know fully" (1 Cor. 13:12). In On the Bondage of the Will, Luther implores his readers not to inquire into God's inner judgments. Luther finds God's hiddenness a fundamental part of God, and implores believers, in faith, "to adore these mysteries." Flannery O'Connor also deals with this issue of God's will and salvation. She writes concerning God's unknown will which governs salvation, Whatever you do anyway, remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn't be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself. In her clear voice, Flannery O'Connor puts forth the concept of God's awesomeness. God's salvation is not brought about, through human effort or knowing, but, like Luther says, by a transcendent God who moves by his unknown and immutable will to save. In studying God's hiddenness, we approach the majesty and glory of God the almighty. We are not finally left blind to who God is, but are drawn to the awesome and loving God and are called to discover more each day.. |
| Even in the face of seeming injustice, both Job and the writer of Psalm 139 are found declaring God "too wonderful for me." Here we look at hiddenness as a key to understanding faith, and as a key to understanding God. |