Pensees: The God Who Hides

The God Who Hides

“We can understand nothing of God’s works unless we accept the principle that he wished to blind some and enlighten others” (Blaise Pascal).

Years ago I was shocked by this statement, but the truth of it hooked me and I could not free myself from it. I would slowly yield to the Doctrines of Grace. My first Systematic Theology book was an orange paperback French translation of Charles Finney’s systematic theology. Fortunately, a missionary co-worker of my father’s at the time gave me his six volume set of Matthew Henry because he “it was too basic” for him.

Pascal was French, of course. So was Calvin. But it was not any francophile tendency of mine that compelled me to read what they said. I knew they were heretics. Bad people. Just more indisputable evidence that France was a needy country. Finney was good because he wanted people to get saved and that is what I desired. So I read Finney in French. I ignored Pascal and Calvin even though I knew their mother tongue and should have given them a fair hearing.

Instead I climbed up to my study in the attic over the garage to read and pray. I was only 16 and did not have much for a library. Dad had helped me make a makeshift study in the attic that I could access through a trapdoor from the garage, and I spent hours in isolation reading Watchman Nee, Finney, Henry and my Bible. I spent hours in prayer.

It was my own prayers that began to enlighten me. I kept praying to God to open the eyes of my unbelieving friends. The more I prayed the more I lost faith in my friends’ ability to see. I began to pray as if I were praying for a miracle. Indeed, I was praying for a miracle. I was asking God to show Himself.

Finney was exciting, but Henry said, “Even the word of God oftentimes proves a means of hardening sinners.” And Isaiah said, “Truly, you are a God who hides yourself” (Isaiah 45:15). God said to His preacher, “blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes” (Isaiah 6:10). And try as I did, I could not rub “He hardens whomever He wills” (Romans 9:18) out of my Bible. God hides Himself from some people. I was coming to the realization of Pascal’s maxim even before I read it.

But I was still shocked. I had begun reading Calvin and Pascal in order to understand France better. Pascal was one of the greatest thinkers France ever produced, the contemporary of Descartes, another bad Frenchman. Pascal was a Jansenist. Simply put, he bought into much of Calvin’s soteriology, but rejected his ecclesiology. Pascal would never leave the Church of Rome even though the Church of Rome would condemn most of the Jansenist views. Even though Pascal never seemed to grasp Calvin’s doctrine of assurance, I think we will see Blaise Pascal in heaven.

Pascal’s arguments about the depravity of man were so cogent, so persuasive, so picturesque. So easy to understand. Thus, his famous quote:

What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe! Who will unravel this tangle?

Or consider this picture:

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under a sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

You don’t have to be a genius to understand great thinkers. The only greatness of man was that he knew he was wretched, said Pascal. A tree does not know it is wretched.

Little by little I began to understand reality. Reality is that man is too depraved to want anything good for himself. Too wretched. “There is none that doeth good, no not one” and “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11-12) even though God Alone is good according to Jesus (Mark 10:18).

I remember almost physically shaking under the realization that I was just beginning to understand the significance of grace. I had been drawn all my life toward a Good God. It is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance, and I had been increasingly turning to God from sin as the Lord had been giving me light. Silly me. I thought it was because I loved God.

A Good God, drawing me to Himself, placed me with Christian parents. A Good God, drawing me to Himself, put me under the hearing of the Good News; a Good God drew me to the attic room. A Good God, drawing me to Himself, opens the eyes of my heart little by little. More and more. And though sometimes I see trees as men walking, I can still see! He is healing me. He is opening my eyes!

I never started to start understanding amazing salvation until I acknowledged the truth of Pascal’s statement:

“We can understand nothing of God’s works unless we accept the principle that he wished to blind some and enlighten others” (Blaise Pascal).

I have been in Rome and watched penitents climb stone stairs on their knees. I have been in Cathedrals and have looked with pitying heart on the weeping supplicants before the Virgin Mary. I have listened to the beautiful music of Mass. (Mozart’s Mass in C Minor is one of my favorites.) I have marveled at the beauty and pathos of human expressions in music, worship, art, and architecture to a Hidden God.

And then I am ashamed. When I see, I still sin. When I have tasted that He is good, I still return to the vomit. I am not better than the penitent on the stone stairs. I am not more godly than the elderly woman who tearfully lights the candles. I am not more earnest in my prayers than the Muslim on his mat. My sin is not more odious to me than it appears to the confessor in the confessional. I am not better.

I am worse.

But I see. And there is no explanation for that but grace.