God Hidden and Revealed: The interpretation of Luthers deus absconditus and its significance for religious thought
by John Dillenberger
Category: Religion

Excerpt from God Hidden and Revealed: The Interpretation of Luther's Deus Absconditus and Its Significance for Religious Thought In a conversation with William Adams Brown shortly before his death, he said to me: "We have lost the first person of the trinity in contemporary Protestantism and only the second person is left." This statement was surprising, since it came from the lips of one of the leading representatives of the theological school which was largely responsible for the situation he described. The fact to which he pointed was the loss of a feeling for the divine majesty, for the infinite and terrifying character of God's mystery, for the divine holiness which transcends everything intellectual and moral. The problem of the hidden God is the focus around which the divinity of the divine has been rediscover in our time. This makes Professor Dillenberger's book extremely important. By showing the diverse ways in which modern theologians understood and used Luther's notion of the hidden God, this book discloses the struggle for a new understanding and the two main ways in which the concept is conceived. Sometimes God is understood as hidden behind his revelation in Christ, as abysmal, ineffable, as the "naked God" before whom no man can stand. Included is the God of the mystery of predestination and of the eternal destiny of man. There is, however, another understanding of the hiddenness of God. The paradox of the cross and the working of God according to the law of contrast, make him hidden and leave him open only for faith. Power in weakness, glory in suffering, life in death show how hidden he is. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.