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Isaiah 45: God's "I am," Israel's "You Are"
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Balentine, Samuel E. |
| Copyright Year | 1994 |
| Abstract | The locus classicus of the expression Deus absconditus, "the hidden God," is Isaiah 45:15: "Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior" (NRSV). At least since the time of the Reformation, this verse has been adapted in both Jewish and Christian communities for a variety of theological assertions about God's hiddenness. B. Pascal observed that God is always Deus absconditus, hence the proposition set forth in his Pensees: "any religion which does not affirm that God is hidden is not true."' M. Buber suggests that the Old Testament assertion of God as a self-concealing God invites people of faith to reflect positively on the apparent "eclipse of God" in the modern world.2 In familiar fashion, K. Miskotte sees in Isa. 45:15 a positive rejoinder to an overly tragic nihilism. To declare the hiddenness of God, he argues, is to offer a confession of faith in the God who surrounds us with the "presence of an absence."3 For S. Terrien God's "presence-in-absence," or as he so elegantly puts it, God's "elusive presence," is the central theological assertion of both Old and New Testaments.' And to this list, we would be remiss if we . did not add the name of K. Barth, for clearly his assertion that all true knowledge of God begins with the knowledge of God's hiddenness, remains an influential argument in contemporary theological discourse. 5 . |
| Starting Page | 103 |
| Ending Page | 120 |
| Page Count | 18 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 16 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://brill.com/previewpdf/journals/hbth/16/1/article-p103_6.xml |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1163/187122094X00060 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
