Freedom and the Hiddenness of God

one

How can the will be free?

We’ve been meditating on the power of the soul that we call the will, the power that chooses, and ultimately the will is supposed to choose the Supreme Good – God. But in that case, why does God seem to hide himself?

Well first, the will is the faculty that always pursues what we perceive to be good. The will could no more choose not to pursue a good then ears could choose to hear something that wasn’t a sound. But if we always choose some apparent good, if that’s a necessary feature of our wills, then how can we be free?

When we say the will always chooses the good, we mean it always chooses something which appears to be fulfilling and attractive in some way.

We don’t mean that the will necessarily chooses the moral good – i.e., the good which is conducive to our perfect and permanent happiness through union with God in Heaven.

On the contrary, we often sin by making inferior goods (sex, esteem, food, drink, rest) primary. We “prefer the creature to the Creator.” And when we live that way, we not only thwart our own happiness, but our enjoyment of those created goods, which were designed to help us reach perfect fulfillment, will become corrupted as well.

But how can it be that our wills, which are designed to choose the good, can pursue a lesser, created, unsatisfying good at the expense of the supreme perfect Good which offers eternal happiness?

How can we do that?

two

The Pros and Cons of every choice.

The fact is that in this life we experience every particular good as having something attractive about it, and something unattractive. There are pros and cons that go with every alternative we face in life.

The practical result is that we’re free to choose to pursue one good or another, even if we know that our choice is immoral, i.e., damages our capacity for ultimate happiness and the perfect good.

This aspect of human life has an enormously important implication: it explains why God hides Himself. Because, of course, He is the perfect good, and if He were to show Himself to us in His full glory, He would be infinitely attractive. Nothing else could compete. We’d have to will Him.

So, to preserve our freedom, He hides the full glory of His goodness.

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The Overwhelming Goodness of God

In Heaven we retain our free will, but because we see the perfect goodness and beauty of God, we won’t choose something less than him. That is why he hides himself while we are on earth, so we can choose him freely, for the love of him.

Even the angels, before they made their choice for or against God, weren’t able to see Him as He really is. God’s goodness is too overwhelming. It captivates, overpowers the created will, like a beautiful woman captivates the attention of an admiring man.

In fact, imagine a woman, the most beautiful woman in the world, who is so stunningly beautiful, every man falls hopelessly in love with her at first sight. Imagine this woman resolved only to date men on an online dating service where she didn’t post her picture, and would only correspond with her suitors by email. Of course, that means her profile would get passed over in favor of other girls. But it also means that when a man finally proposed to her, she would know he loved her freely, and not just because he was hypnotized or mesmerized by her beauty.

So too, God hides Himself. And when He does that, we are free to choose some lesser good, a good that’s more present-feeling, more familiar, more a known quantity. But it also means that if we do choose Him, it’s because we love Him freely, and not simply because His glory makes it impossible to see anything else.

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God’s Humility for the sake of Our Freedom

God acts as though He’s just one alternative among many. Choosing to pursue God, in this life, often feels very similar to choosing to pursue other finite goods: it’s sometimes pleasant, and sometimes unpleasant. There are pros and cons, and sometimes enjoying lesser goods now has an immediate, concrete appeal that enjoying God later doesn’t, which is what makes us free to decide either way.

But think of how happy that man will be, who has decided to marry the unseen woman because he knows how good she is and then when he meets her on his wedding day, he discovers that she’s also the most beautiful woman in the world.

That will be our rapture when we behold God and begin to enjoy that beauty it will take an eternity to appreciate, and what satisfaction it will be to know we chose Him freely, before this wonderfully overpowering vision.

And that it was all possible because the God of Heaven and Earth was humble enough to give us the gift of hiding Himself, for a little while, while we made up our minds as to whether we wanted to love Him or not.

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Now is our time to choose the hidden beauty.

And how do we choose him when we can’t see him first?

Through daily meditation, where we make the choice to spend time with the God we can’t see or hear or experience. And we choose to receive the hidden God in the Eucharist that just looks like ordinary bread. And we choose the hidden God when He comes to us carrying His cross in our suffering. When we choose to accept our suffering, we choose the Christ who comes to us on the Cross and we choose the hidden God when he comes to us in the distressing disguise of a difficult spouse, a difficult child, a difficult person. We choose the hidden God when he comes to us in the distressing disguise of the poor, of the elderly parent, and we choose the hidden God by obedience to his teaching even when we can’t understand or see it, we still choose to be faithful to His teaching that comes to us through His Church. And we choose the hidden god by faithfulness to our ordinary duties that are not glorious because it’s His will.

And most importantly, to see God’s generosity behind everything. To say, “This is You, Lord, behind it all, when I can’t see it. And thank you, Lord.”

This life is the time to choose the hidden beauty.