I have been thinking about Divine Hiddenness and how I have become thankful for it.
There is this idea that if we presented with enough evidence, acceptance of the purported truth would follow. It is all about evidence and almost always empirical evidence. Add enough straw to the camel’s back and wham! acceptance follows. We like to think of ourselves as truth-seekers willing to accept uncomfortable truths. I like to think that about myself, but in reality, my accepting of uncomfortable truths has mostly been grudging and painful in shedding false premises or just not wanting to accept life-changing truths. Conforming to reality often requires self-reflection when I would rather just skip ahead to acceptance. I think of most learning as unlearning what you previously thought.
There are various stories of Betrand Russell being asked if, after dying and facing God, how would he justify his failing to believe? “I’d say, ‘Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!’”
This is an example of blaming the evidence without looking at our own motives. The stories told in the Pentateuch give us plenty of examples where divine hiddenness was not to blame for their lack of trust and effective unbelief. They sent Moses as their representative and were not willing to meet God face-to-face. Moses unnerved them, coming back glowing and thus having to wear a veil before them. The number of prophets who experience God working through them miraculously and then trying to rely on their own effort or falling into despair.
I think of the Nobel winning medical doctor, Alexis Carrel, who witnessed two miracles at Lourdes. He could not believe them as miraculous, and it would be a long road for his conversion to the Catholic Church. It was a friendship with a Seminary Rector, that led him to a dialogue with a Trappist monk. There are plenty of other stories where the seeming miraculous has entered people’s lives, but did not change them in the long term, as far as we know.
I think of the Transfiguration when Jesus more fully reveals himself to Peter, John, and James. Peter’s reaction was not edifying and it would not be long before he would deny he even knew Jesus. Yet, surely Jesus was revealing himself to strengthen them. We often forget that Jesus is strengthening us with grace, but the effects are not as immediate as we would want.
What if Jesus had not returned to the Father on the day of Ascension and remained with us in his glorified body to the present time and beyond? That we had a constant reminder of the incarnation that would be hard to deny. That Jesus could have gone to the Jesus Seminar and say, “No, I actually said that bit.” His existence would be hard to deny, but likely many of us would be up to such a denial. Empirical evidence is not the same as belief and faith. Our free will leaves room for doubt. Love is not forcibly created with evidence, but requires a relationship that deepens.
I am tempted to complain about my dry prayer life. That while being faithful to prayer and meditation, I only feel Ezekiel’s dry bones. As if the portal to the dark night of the soul is an even darker path. I should instead be thankful for my reified intellectual faith, which has not wavered since my conversion. When I was young, I aspired to be stoic, so I can only blame myself. Yet I know God is working in me despite my brokenness. I know I would be as insensible as Peter if I saw what he saw. So in that I am thankful for divine hiddenness.
Mostly, I am thankful for divine hiddenness, because this was his will for us.
Resources
Why Doesn’t God Show His Face?: Making Sense of Divine Hiddenness – Karlo Broussard I bought this audio a couple of years ago and have listened to it twice. Very good from the philosophical level.
The Problem of Divine Hiddenness | Is There Non-Resistant Non-Belief Belief? w/ Dr. Stephen Napier I found this episode of Pat Flynn’s “Philosophy for the People” especially good on an aspect of this.
