JUNE 10 2020
HAS GOD DISAPPEARED?
Perhaps this time I may be overreaching, because God is the ultimate mystery, but I take Paul, the great apostle, at his word when he wrote, (1 Thessalonians 5:21) “Test everything and retain what is good.”
I am, however, emboldened by Bonhoeffer when he writes, “We must live in a world, and must indeed do so, “etsi deus non daretur”, as if there were no God.”
Years ago, I wrote, Day without End, a book wherein I envision Eternity. Jesus plays a prominent role therein, but somehow God never enters into the picture. I did not do that on purpose: that’s how the story enfolded. It is available on the web at a small charge, or free upon request.
One of my favorite books is The Hidden Face of God, written by Richard Elliott Friedman, a professor of Hebrew at the University of California, San Diego.
I bought it September 12 1998, and have often re-read it.
In The Hidden Face of God, Dr. Friedman traces God’s slow disappearance: “Gradually from Genesis to Ezra and Esther, there is a transition from divine to human responsibility for life on earth. The story begins in Genesis with God in complete control of creation, but by the end humans have arrived at a stage at which, in all apparent ways, they have responsibility for the fate of their world.”
He then describes how Abraham argues with God, while, with Lot fleeing from Sodom God says, “Flee quickly, because I cannot do a thing until you get there (Genesis 19: 22)….Humans are not independent of God here, to be sure, but, let us say, that the human voice in the story is certainly growing louder.”
Jacob struggles with God: it is a story of a man having a fight with divinity! Humans are confronting their creator, and they are increasing their participation in the arena of divine prerogatives.
That is confirmed already in Genesis 3: 22, where it says, referring to eating the fruit, “Here the human has become like us”. Later, Moses is singled out: “Now Moses speaks with God, the way a man speaks to another man”. (Exodus 33: 11).
The most remarkable event takes place with Joshua: He calls out for the sun and moon to pause in the sky – and God complies!
“Have we become of age?”
Both Bonhoeffer and Friedman pose this question, “Like children growing and separating from their parents, is the biblical story about the growing, maturing, and natural separating of humans from their creator and parent?”
Friedman, at the very start his amazing book, page 1 of Chapter 1, writes, “Among God’s last words to Moses, the deity says, ‘I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.’ (Deut. 31: 17, 18; 32:20). By the end of the story God does just that.”
So, is that still the case? Has God left us? It seems to me that this is the case: the current situation tells the story: we simply have to live with the consequences of our actions.
But really, nothing is lost: here’s how Dr. Friedman concludes his book, “There is some likelihood that, as some of the conscious matter of the universe, we are created more in the divine image than we have suspected. There is some likelihood that the universe is the hidden face of God.” (Emphasis in the original).
Other sources confirm this.
Twice in the past week something popped up in my reading (both originating from Dutch sources, sent to me by my brother Drewes in The Hague, a retired engineer) that touched on God’s presence in the universe, confirming the Friedman-Jewish perspective: (1) from a Protestant point of view and (2) from a secular source.
The second instance I found in a dissertation by Dr. C. Stam who wrote, “De Opstanding van de Doden” (The Resurrection of the Dead). (I have translated four books, all published by Eerdmans, Grand Rapids and Cambridge, so I am no stranger in that field.)
Dr. Stam, under the heading of “God makes himself known as Creator”, concludes that, “God has made our world visible as expression of his being, his essence.”
That to me suggests that, to get to know God and to honor him, we must also rely on creation, must honor and love it as a pure expression of His being.
The third source is taken from Civis Mundi, an online Dutch academic magazine. In its latest issue I found a synopsis of a book by Prof. Dr. K. van der Wal. I was struck by three observations, and I translate:
- He first discusses the pre-modern reality and its description of nature in which stories or myths concerning gods, spirits and ancestors are central. These higher powers have fashioned the world and still influence it. J.H Bavinck makes the same point in a book I have translated published as, “Between the Beginning and the End: A Radical Kingdom Vision.”
- Van der Wal quotes Sir Arthur Eddington: “Nature is not only odder than we think, but odder than we can think”.
- He also cites Albert Einstein: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
I believe that these three quotes are religious statements: creation is beyond human understanding. Only a God Creator is behind it all.
Can we
know God by his works?
Can we deduce God’s greatness from his creation? Well, Sir Elliott Gardiner has done the same with Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote a 600 page book on him, solely based on his music. He writes: “Bach had normal flaws and failings, which make him very approachable. But he had this unfathomably brilliant mind and a capacity to hear music and then to deliver music that is beyond the capacity of pretty well any musician before or since.”
Has God disappeared?
Yes and No. We read in the Bible that “God lives in unapproachable light: nobody can see God and nobody has seen God.” (1 Timothy 6:16). Basically, for all practical purposes, yes, God has disappeared, and he is and will remain the grand mystery. But just as Bach’s personality can be deduced from his music, so God’s being is present not only in his creation, but also in his Son, because fortunately, Jesus has become the embodiment of God.
One of the finest instances of revealing language is found in Colossians 1: 15-20:
Christ is the image
of the invisible God, the firstborn of all
creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens
and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions
or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him
and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold
together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will
come to have first place in everything. For it was
the Father’s good
pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in
Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having
made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I
say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Jesus embodies the
perfect humanity. Jesus Christ, God become human, will be physically with us in
THE GARDEN OF EDEN to come.
Has God disappeared? Yes and No. No: He disappeared to prepare us for eternity. Yes: I sincerely believe that today He comes to us both in creation, (that’s why it is holy!), and through the Son who restored Creation, makes eternal life possible.
Today the church must encourage us to pray for the coming of the New Creation, and set an example for this to happen, because our HOPE, our only hope, is Christ who died to regain CREATION for whose coming we must pray without ceasing. John 3: 16.