Monday, July 26, 2010

the hidden god


Does it sometimes seem to you as if God is hidden? Well, you're not alone. Many people, including some of the greatest theologians in history, have struggled with this question. The Latin phrase is "deus absconditus".
Martin Luther speaks of this hiddenness of God in his Heidelberg Disputation of 1518. He says that God is hidden in suffering and in the cross, and can only be known through the proclamation of the crucified Christ. As fallen creatures we can't really understand or comprehend the hidden God, but we can know and believe in the revealed God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. 
So yes, God has in a sense hidden Himself from our sight. But He has done so in order to be found where and when He desires to be found, though the church's proclamation of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.

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