I received a question not long ago related to God from the perspective of the unsaved. The question alludes to “Divine Hiddenness,” which is a term to describe why it is some people seem incapable of believing in God. The argument goes that God would want to reveal Himself to us, but since some do not know Him it must mean that He either doesn’t exist or is hiding Himself. The question was this…
Hey Matthew, I was watching your Wednesday night Exposé class (on the early church) and something you mentioned made me wonder your opinion on “Divine Hiddeness.”
My answer was this:
Is God hidden to the point where some who look cannot find Him? No. Seek and you shall find, the Master says (Matthew 7). But the Bible does put caveats to that. You must “diligently” seek Him if you want to be “rewarded” (Hebrews 11).
Is God hidden to the point where some who aren’t looking will never stumble upon Him? I think that’s reasonable to an extent. Some will die having never known God (2 Thessalonians 1).
Then again, the heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19). And in the case of seeing God in a more literal way, to see Jesus is to see the Father (John 14). And to see a Christian is to see Jesus (Galatians 2:20).
So I think I would reject the notion that God has hidden Himself and made it so that He CAN’T be found unless someone is actively wanting to find Him. I think the evidence of God is too abundant in the universe for someone not to “see” it. If He is unseen it’s because some have refused to start looking, like a flat earther refusing to see the reality of the earth being spherical.
Divine Hiddenness seems like a wrong-headed explanation to an obvious reality: The reality is there are lost people in the world. The explanation does not have anything to do with the nature of God, but rather with the nature of sin: Sin separates us from God. Sin also has a way to keep us distracted with pleasure and short-term delights, preventing us looking for a life of self-sacrifice and servitude, or at least from seeing the value in it. It’s not DIVINE hiddenness that we need to worry about; it’s HUMAN hiddenness. After all, what happened after Adam and Eve sinned? God went looking for them and THEY hid from HIM (Genesis 3:8). The bright side to that, however, is if we are the ones hiding from God because of our sin, then it’s a wonderful thing to know that Jesus has died to take our sins away. We have no more need to hide.
~Matthew
PS: Don’t forget that, at the end of the month, we will enjoy our Family Day weekend Gospel Meeting with Barry Grider. Be here on Friday evening, September 26th, at 7pm, as well as Saturday evening, September 27th, at 7pm to hear two excellent lessons from God’s Word, both in the lead-up to our big Family Day Sunday on September 28th.