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To all without faith, or the inner eye to see Him, He is a Deus absconditus, “a God who hides himself.” In one of his letters to Mademoiselle de Roannez, he dwells upon this idea, which also continually recurs in his Thoughts:— “If God continually revealed Himself to man, faith would have no value; we could not help believing. If He did not reveal Himself, there could be no such thing as faith.
We know that many of the greatest men the world ever saw, while phrasing their relation to the "deus absconditus" in various ways, were utterly free from that penitential, supplicatory abjectness which is the mark of Asian salvationism.
Domine, ante te omne desiderium meum; et gemitus meus a te non est absconditus. Lord, all my desire is before Thee: and my groaning is not hidden from Thee. Ps. xxxvii. 10.
Could it boast of commanding a direct view of the Deity, without veil or mystery, it would be to attack that religion to say, 'that there is nothing seen in the world which displays Him with such clear evidence. But since it rather asserts that man is involved in darkness, far from God, who is hidden from human knowledge, insomuch as to give Himself the name in scripture of 'Deus absconditus, what advantage can the enemies of religion derive when, neglecting, as they profess to do, the science of truth, they complain that the truth is not made apparent to them?"
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