Divine Hiddenness: Epilogue

I just posted this in a comment, but I want to place stronger focus on it. There is a spiritual principle that must be brought out into the open. The Divine Hiddenness argument asks, "Where's the evidence whereby we can know for sure there is a God?" That is the wrong question.

God is not looking for that sort of belief. Scripture says the demons believe, and shudder. Such belief is an aspect of faith; but those who have been taking up the Divine Hiddenness argument against theism here are focusing almost entirely on a very limited aspect of belief: mere intellectual assent. Faith is much more than that, and God is looking for more than that.

God is looking for a personal relationship in which we give him loving worship, and he gives us life, joy, holiness, and much more. A scenario in which God demonstrated himself through highly consistent answers to healing prayers would be far more likely to lead to (intellectual) belief for self-centered reasons. We would love the healing and not God. Or the praying persons would love the power, which is even more twisted.

So if it depended on seeing God at work in the world through miracles, then I suppose that would be inadequate evidence to prove that there is a God, at least in the Western world. (It is apparently not always so in many other parts of the world.)

But Christians follow Christ because we see the beauty, wisdom, and power of the Person. We see it in Scripture, we see it demonstrated in the lives of other Christians. We see, in contrast, our own need for rescue from ourselves, and we see how he provides that through the Cross and through his mercy. We see that a purely naturalistic account of the world is not just incoherent, but also empty and devoid of ultimate truth. We taste reality in Christ; supported (for some persons who happen to have studied it) by knowledge that there is historical support for it, and (for others) by philosophical reflection. But we are not drawn to the history or philosophy, we are drawn to the tangible truth of Christ. And, to give glory to God, we are drawn by Christ. We see God taking the initiative toward us, and we receive that initiative for the gift that it is.

What follows here is crucial. I'm not sure it's original with me; I probably read it in C.S. Lewis somewhere. But it's the nub of the whole thing.

If you suppose you can come to God through your rationality, you are wrong. You must come to him through humility and through Christ. Once you come to him, though, you find that it is a thoroughly rational thing you have done.

Part of a Series:
Divine Hiddenness

1. Divine Hiddenness
2. Direction-Setting
3. The Demand for a Sign
4. Course Correction
5. Deus Absconditus
6. Starting Over
7. Epilogue

Postscript:

Further resources on this topic are available at Christian Cadre and Apollos.ws.

Posted: Wed - May 9, 2007 at 06:58 AM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Divine Hiddenness: Epilogue

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson