We cannot address the problem of God’s hiddenness and apparent absence in and from creation without reflecting on how the Christian tradition deals with the more encompassing notion of revelation or divine self-disclosure. Generally, revelation signifies a moment of illumination when we apprehend reality more clearly than by reason alone. Yet, this idea raises more questions than it satisfies.
For one, revelation, as generally understood, is personal. Theologically, it is the occasional disclosure of a perception of divine truth through the experience of a single individual, like a prophet or seer, but this disclosure is not accessible to everyone.
Then, there is the question about their origins. Deep-seated in popular culture is the notion that such experiences are “from above” or from an otherworldly source. By contrast, critical reason asks, “How do we know?” while neurobiology might say that illuminations are nothing more than effects in brain cells when they connect the dots in new ways. Even if believers hold to a divine origin, they cannot avoid the problem that such knowledge is thoroughly conditioned by our neuronal tissue, which may, in the minds of many, demean the value of revelation.
Another important question relates to God’s revelation in history. For instance, how reasonable is it today for the Judeo-Christian tradition to assert that God revealed himself to a single individual, Abraham, at a specific moment in cosmic history and later to his offspring, the people of Israel?
These questions highlight that the notion of revelation, although on the surface a rather simple concept, is not easily dealt with in our time.
The biblical verb form (Hebr. gàlā and Grk. apocalyptō) means to unveil something hidden, make obscure things clear, bring hidden things to light, show signs, speak words, and cause the person addressed to see, hear, understand, and know. In the New Testament, the meaning is exclusively theological.
Moreover, biblical texts assume that if humans are to know God, God must take the initiative and disclose himself. This self-disclosure must overcome the condition of the human mind, which is so prepossessed with its own ideas that its natural powers are inadequate to search out and understand God. On the other hand, at the heart of the
biblical notion of revelation lies a personal correspondence because what is revealed in an encounter with the Mystery of God is perceived as an encounter not with a philosophical abstraction but with a personal presence of boundless compassion and love so that what is revealed is to be received with gratitude and responded to in trust. Such an experience takes us beyond what we call “subjective” in the ordinary sense, and since faith comes from reflection on how we personally respond, our response and correspondence determine what is known as “biblical truth” to be distinguished from any other kind of truth.
While ‘revelation’ always has two focal points that confront us with God’s person and purpose, “the communication of the mystery of God to the world” (Karl Rahner) influences the world in various ways at every phase of its coming-to-be, not just at the human level as propositional understanding, nor within the confines of the biblical world alone. In this vein, John Haught wrote, “Revelation is a constant, ongoing outpouring of God’s creative and formative love into the world.” As theology merges this notion with the biblical theme of creation, we can say that God’s self-communication begins and continues with creation. As I have argued in Cosmos and Revelation (2021) and elsewhere, this merger opens the way a scientific apprehension of creation can serve as a datum for theological reflection.
Yet, despite the magnificence of God’s creation, his self-disclosure is not total but seems to remain within human limits based on the argument that no human person could bear its full weight. This raises an important question for us because when we, as creatures, speak of revelation (and even claim to possess a capacity to resonate with it), we must also confess that when it comes to knowledge of the Divine, we do not stand on our own ground. After all, neither our natural insights nor philosophy or science can say anything definitive about God or revelation, not even whether there is such a phenomenon. At the same time, from our earliest beginnings, we have oriented our gaze upward, hoping to comprehend the
mystery that addresses us.
Even when we engage in some form of natural theology, we cannot assert with certainty
that knowledge of God will follow. All we can do is say what God is not. Where, then, shall
God’s revelation be sought? Isn’t nature, as creation, a primary manifestation of God’s action? Therefore, it should be possible to deduce that there can be no form of existence that does not point to God and no space where God is not present.
So, we may say that God’s presence is unmistakable but undefinable. Hence, it can only be analogically understood because of the great distance between the transcendent God and the natural world. The Bible, too, alerts us to the fact that God actively hides himself from
his human creation. What, then, shall we make of the problem of God’s hiddenness?
In the parable of “The King and the Maiden,” the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard poetically explains that if God appeared in divine form, it would be more than humans
could handle. So, when the king wants to express his love to the maiden, he approaches her not in royal splendour, out of concern that it might overwhelm her and that she might respond from motives other than true love. Instead, he approaches her at her level,
dressed in a servant’s cloak, revealing the true nature of his intentions as well as respecting her as a person and acknowledging the equality of true love.
Sensitive to Kierkegaard’s insight, one theologian has perceptively commented that divine revelation must necessarily contain an ambiguity. On the one hand, it must be readily accessible; on the other, it must also be easily resistible. Only in this way can it ensure that faith remains grounded in a personal encounter while engaging the believer’s conscious participation: “God would make knowledge of himself widely available for those who wish to have it, but God would not wish to force such knowledge on those who do not wish to know God.
However, the New Testament and the Christian confession claim to uncover the secret and solve the problem of God's hiddenness: Jesus’ identity is unequivocally defined as “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:5). This proclamation echoes Jesus' teachings, who declared, as recorded in John 14:9, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” This revelation of Jesus as the visible manifestation of the invisible God is the Cornerstone of Christian faith.
While Paul affirms—and what the church believes—that “in him, the fullness of deity dwelled bodily” (Col 1:19), the church in this age remains set on the footing of faith and the yet-to-be-fulfilled yearning for a deeper experience of God’s glory.
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