3-15-23
I read a great article written by Ann Barnhardt, a traditional Catholic blogger, where she provides an answer to the ultimate question of life - "Why is God invisible to us?"
I am going to block quote the full article and provide some commentary (all bolding emphasis will be mine). This question is always on my mind as well.
Q: Ann, how can it be said that God loves us infinitely when He never speaks to us directly or shows Himself to us directly?"
A: Great question, and sadly, one that is inevitably cropping up as the long-prophesied mass apostasy in the Church comes to full stinking flower, and most especially as the scandal of the Bergoglian Antipapacy drives those who refuse to acknowledge that Pope Benedict Ratzinger never validly resigned into raging interior contortions of perverse and luciferian anti-logic, alliance with the satanic-Freemasonic agenda of tearing down the Office of the Vicar of Christ, and hatred of God Himself for “breaking His promises”, or whatever the blasphemous rant of the day is.
Ann first addresses the current issues in the Roman Catholic Church, which are just a microcosm of the current issues in society in general. If you would like to see where society is headed, read about the current Pope's civil war against his own Church that he is supposed to lead. If you thought being an unshotted leper in the covid era is bad, try being a traditional Catholic in the current Church.
Now on to the crux of the question.
The problem, as always, is a failure to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. When people fail to relate to the Triune Godhead and most readily the Second Person of the Godhead, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, incarnate as True God and True Man as He is, as a Divine Person, but rather as a mascot of an institution, a philosophical system, and/or a codex of laws, bad things can and usually do happen.
Poor Jesus. I keep coming back to what my ex-spouse said to me once "he was just a good person with a good marketing team." Sad. I'm actually surprised the ex-spouse conceded that Jesus actually existed as a person in history. That's a start, I guess.
But, Jesus is not just a good person, nor a marketing guru. He is God and walked the earth as God incarnate in a human body as the Son of Man. No other deity that I am aware of, walked the earth in a human body. Jesus walked the earth not just to be a good person and reconfirm the Ten Commandments, but to die on the cross for us to wipe away our sins forever. That was why He came - to die and save us. For more historical information about Jesus, and five objections to Jesus watch this good video:
Ann continues:
When you love someone (and here is where having been in love and/or having children comes in VERY handy, and where narcissists are left totally crippled and unable to comprehend the following) you want to know everything about them. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that in order to love someone or something, one must first APPREHEND the beloved with the intellect. And the more one intellectually apprehends the beloved, the more one loves him/her/it and wants to learn MORE, and thus love becomes a positive feedback loop. This is why we often see elderly people say of their spouse, “I love her more today at age 90 than the day we were married seventy years ago.” The superficial modern mind thinks this a lie – how could somebody love the 90 year old version of their spouse more than the 20 year old version? It is because the spouses have had seventy years to intellectually apprehend each other, and the more they learned, including the ways that their spouse has dealt with the joys and trials of life and old age, the deeper the knowledge of the other, the more they loved the other. The initial rush of love at age twenty, largely focused at the beginning on physical beauty (and that is not an altogether bad thing), becomes more profound, nuanced and full even as the body degrades such that the senescence of aging is more than offset by the ascent of love rooted in the unending process of simply asking the question of the beloved: WHO ARE YOU? TELL ME, SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE.
This paragraph explains the difference between "being in love with someone" and "loving someone." Being "in love" with someone requires only one party - the person who feels good about being in a relationship with the other person. It is usually instantaneous, without knowing anything about each other. It doesn't require time, work, hardship or even a need to really get to know the other person. As long as that other person is there, and that person makes you feel good, you are "in love."
“Loving” someone is quite different and requires both parties. If you love someone, then you love that person as a person and not in only how that person makes you feel. You want to know how that other person feels, who they are, what makes them tick. It requires time, work, hardship and a need to really get to know the other person.
For example, in my life, this distinction between "being in love with someone" and "loving someone" was what led to my failed marriage. It was the failure of both parties to really have a need to get to know the other person and instead a feeling that each party was required to make the other person feel good at all times. Once the "in love" phase disappeared, there was no "loving" phase to replace it.
Ann continues on to describe real love:
This same dynamic should happen with well-raised children. While new parents often report “falling in love at first sight” with their newborn children, this dynamic of pining to know WHO THIS LITTLE PERSON IS, longing to see them grow into adults, longing to learn their character and personality, and thus the horrible and unnatural pain when parents outlive their children and that process of learning WHO THE CHILD IS is interrupted, all points to the universal dynamic of loving."
OK, Napoleon, I'm getting bored. What does all this love talk have to do with God not directly talking to us?
Here Ann finally gets to the point:
Given this, when we love God we are called to consciously ask exactly the same questions of Him that we would ask of our spouse or child or any object of our love: WHO ARE YOU? This is what I am talking about when I use the phrase co-opted by Protestants in the 20th century – “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”. You can’t love Him, at least not very much, if it never occurs to you to sit down and think about WHO HE IS. If you do this, all kinds of questions will be answered. And one of those questions is: Why doesn’t He just appear and speak directly to us?"
The reason why God does not generally manifest Himself (the technical term for God manifesting Himself is “THEOPHANY”) is because there can never, ever, ever be any COERCION where love is involved. Coercion instantly eliminates love. Where coercion is present, love is absent. If God were to manifest Himself to us directly, we would not have the full freedom to CHOOSE to love Him. We would be so frightened, dazzled, awestruck, completely overloaded in every sense that there would be no choice. And where there is no CHOICE, there is no LOVE.
This brings in the "free will" aspect of God's relationship to us. We have every right to reject God, Jesus or both, which we often do when God/Jesus doesn't make us feel good anymore. We are no longer "in love" and haven't learned "to love" God/Jesus. Once we do the latter, via our own free will, and choose to really get to know God and Jesus, then we truly “loving” God and Jesus.
This is what happened with the fall of one-third of the angels. God created all of the angelic beings, and before any were given the Beatific Vision Itself (the true nature of God), they were given knowledge of God and of Creation, and the choice to serve, or not serve. Lucifer, enraged that he would not be the vector by which the Second Person of the Trinity incarnated as man (yes, Lucifer wanted the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary), declared that he would not serve, and that he would rather rule in hell than be subjugated to Mary as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven. And he took one third of the angels with him. Had Lucifer and the angels been given the Beatific Vision from the moment of their creation, they would have had no choice, because it is not possible for any creature to turn away from the Beatific Vision once inside It. No choice means, essentially, coercion. And coercion means the absence of love. And so we run up against an example of the Law of Non-contradiction, which God Himself is bound to by His own existential nature.
The nature of Lucifer, his role on earth, and the chaos/destruction he orchestrates is opposite to Jesus. Yes, Lucifer/satan exists and unlike God/Jesus' free will relationship with mankind, satan wants mankind's will to be controlled by his, hence coercion as a basis for all evil.
Ann continues:
Now to humanity. To you and me and everyone else. Imagine, in whatever crippling way possible, what it is like to be God, interacting with us. Imagine the position He is in. He loves us infinitely. But He is Himself… Infinite. Infinite Power. Infinite Beauty. Infinite Justice. Infinite Rationality. Infinite Love. He made and sustains the entire universe for us to exist in so that we may love Him, but BY DEFINITION we cannot be coerced into loving Him in any way. But He is Infinite.
Now just stop and THINK about this. Imagine if you were presented with an amoeba, and you loved this amoeba with all your being, and you wanted the amoeba to love you, but you CANNOT COERCE the amoeba in ANY WAY. You provide everything for the amoeba, but the amoeba can never directly see you doing it, because then the amoeba would be coerced. The only way the amoeba can love you is by coming to the realization that you not only exist, but that you also love the amoeba, by its own freely-chosen intellectual apprehension of the fact. This example is spectacularly flawed in nearly every sense, obviously, not the least of which is the fact that the existential gulf between God and Man is infinite, whereas the existential gulf between a man and an amoeba is finite and somewhat graspable.
And here Ann answers why God is invisible:
This is why God, generally, does not directly manifest Himself to people. Because there can be absolutely no coercion. This is why we don’t hear His literal voice, but rather experience what can only be described as “the gentle whisper, the small, still voice” in prayer. This is why the Divine Providence operates in such a way that it is possible for people to mistake it for “luck” or “random chance”. This is why the Real Physical, Substantial Eucharistic Presence of God is said to be “behind the veil of friendship”, and why Christ forgives our sins in the confessional through a human proxy – His priest. It is odd to consider, but isn’t it actually easier for us to make a good confession knowing that the man on the other side of the grate isn’t the Infinite Creator and Sustainer of the Universe Himself directly manifesting Himself, but rather a proxy vector through which the Infinite Creator and Sustainer of the Universe operates so that we can not die of fright while confessing our sins? Having a heart attack or being otherwise paralyzed with fear or sensory overload tends to markedly reduce the quality of one’s Confession and/or one’s Sacramental Communion. Markedly.
Ann makes a good point here. Although God will never coerce us to choose Him and His infinite love for us, He will nudge. It's a question of whether we choose to hear or heed the nudges. We can call such nudges "coincidences," "gut feelings," "karma," or just dismiss them outright. Or we can see and heed God's voice in such things. It's our choice completely. The only thing I know is that heeding God's nudges is ALWAYS better for us than if we ignore them. God NEVER misleads us or nudges us to a worse place in our lives. That is the role of satan.
There have been examples of Divine Manifestations, Theophanies, to human beings who actually did see and converse with God. I’m thinking of Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Siena, who were both mystically espoused to Our Lord, and who conversed with Him, I am also thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas to whom Our Lord spoke by animating a Crucifix that St. Thomas was praying before. What these Theophanies have in common is the fact that the people to whom Our Lord manifested Himself already loved Him so much that they were not coerced by His appearance. They had reached the third and highest state of Christian perfection, the Unitive Way. They were not coerced by Our Lord’s appearance to them any more than a loving wife would be coerced when her beloved husband walked through the door.
So do we have to be a saint to have God talk to us directly? I don't think so, but it probably helps! I know there are times when I surely would like God to come on down and give a good direct talking to all of us. But then I remember that God already did that, when Jesus walked the earth. We didn't listen then, we surely won't listen now.
That probably explains why God doesn't directly talk to the majority of us, but will appear to those saints who love Him the most. He knows most of us wouldn't listen anyways, and so He appears directly to those who will listen.
Ann continues:
Another aspect to contemplate is the infinite power and control required for Infinite Love to hold Himself back from lavishing us with His directly manifested love. Again, this is where the experience of having been in romantic love somewhat helps, even if the love was unrequited, and where narcissists are crippled out of the chute. The feeling of wanting to GIVE love to another, the longing ache of, “Please, please, just let me love you, please accept what I so desperately want to lavish you with….” Note the precision here in what we are talking about: the desire that the beloved person PERMITS US to love THEM. That is the antecedent to the love being reciprocated. It isn’t “Love me first, and then I will love you.” No, true, healthy love BEGINS with the donation, and hopefully develops into a freely-chosen reciprocity."
The "in love" versus "loving" paradigm again. I only feel "in love" with you when you make me feel good. While true "loving" is loving that person for that person even if he/she doesn't always make you feel good.
Now consider God. He looks at every one of us without exception with that, “Please, please just let Me love you, please accept what I so desperately want to lavish you with…” and it is INFINITE. So while there exists this infinite outpouring of love, He HAS to hold back and constrain Himself in order to never, ever coerce us. Just sit in stillness and think about the two infinities in play, swirling around you every moment of your existence: God’s infinite love for you AND God’s infinite restraint in holding back so that you might, MIGHT love Him back in full freedom."
God must be exasperated with us. I would be. But then we are not Infinite. † “For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. † (Isaiah 55:8-9)” I do know that although God has never directly talked to me, I have heard Him whisper to me † "I was always here" † when I finally accepted that God existed. Those four words struck me to my soul and I could feel just a wee bit of what God must feel everyday looking at mankind and wishing they would just turn and see Him.
Ann continues:
But what of hell? Our Lord’s warnings of hell, which is the state of being permanently outside the Beatific Vision, never to see God, are because most people very freely choose it. Most people freely choose their own sins, their own pride, over God. Of all of the Dogmas of the One True Faith, the one that is the most visible, the most obvious, the most undeniable is the Dogma of Original Sin. Human beings have a TENDENCY toward sin, and have to fight this tendency all day every day. We see this and know this about ourselves (to deny it is a textbook trait of Diabolical Narcissism, a MASSIVE red flag), and we do see it in others every single day. This isn’t a threat, it is an objective fact. Some people fall so far into their own sin, pride and narcissism that they actively declare war on God, declare Him to be evil, and some even become literal admirers of lucifer for having rebelled against God who “didn’t care enough about me to ever directly manifest Himself to me.” But it is precisely in this fight against concupisence that our free choice to accept God’s infinite love for us takes on heft and meaning – to put it mildly. We aren’t pawns on a chess board. We are sovereign beings who can freely choose to be loved and love in return the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, Infinite Good, Infinite Beauty, Infinite Power and Infinite Love Himself. But that freedom MUST include the freedom to say, “No.” And sadly, so very, very sadly, most people ultimately do choose to say “No.” But for the ones who do choose to know, love and serve God in this world, “That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.”
We simply cannot even begin to understand how GOOD the Beatific Vision is. We cannot comprehend just what God wants to lavish upon us. The horror of the damned will be going to their Particular Judgment and being shown, realizing just how much they were and are loved, and just how much they FREELY REJECTED – to see that they freely rejected INFINITE LOVE. This is the torment of hell. KNOWING what you rejected. KNOWING the enormity of your mistake. For the Baptized this torment is magnified. To know that YOU HAD IT, but that you freely chose your sins and thus freely chose to reject God and His Infinite Love, to reject the eternal and ever-new bliss of the Beatific Vision. It is a very strange thing indeed to hate God because He DOES NOT coerce us.
This is the basis of why most people do not believe in God or Jesus, or if they do, why most people ignore that belief during their lives. We hate God because He never talks to us directly. Sometimes I feel that way. But that is usually during a spell when I am not listening or I am distracted with some earthly issue, which blocks out all the Lord's nudges. Because God does not directly talk to us, it does not mean that He doesn't love us. In fact it is the complete opposite. He does not directly talk to us because in His infinite love for us, He does not want to coerce our love for Him back. And our hate/indifference/nonbelief in God because of God’s invisibility does not snub God out of existence. God is infinite and continues, and we will meet Him after our death.
Newsflash! We don't go "poof!" when we die.
Ann concludes with:
Love can never be coerced. God is waiting for you to turn to Him and freely fall in love with Him, because He has been in love with you since before the Creation of the Universe. If you stop and think about just how much He has to hold Himself back with us, it can only make you love Him even more.
This last paragraph is where I differ from Ann's perspective. We should never "fall in love" with God, since that would mean we would love God only when He makes us feel good. We need to "love" God, which means getting to know Him by prayer, charity, the sacraments, and loving other people. Additionally, God has not been "in love" with us before the Creation, He has "loved" us from the start. God knows everything about us, and loves us still. This is why when asked what the greatest Commandment was, Jesus replied: † “and thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” † (Mark 12:30-31).
Yes, God is an invisible God to us. But an invisible God is needed for mankind’s free will (no coercion) and true love to exist. An invisible God is also needed for faith, belief, hope and charity. An invisible God is needed for us to live the life we choose and not make excuses at the last judgment for our freely-chosen actions. All is copacetic with an invisible God. Just remember that an invisible God is not an absent God, but an invincible God. The Lord is always there for us, even unto the ends of the earth. All we need to do is freely chose Him and his infinite love.
Oh this is magnificent and moving. Your best one yet💜💜
I always enjoy reading you and your sister's writings, especially about God and his son Jesus Christ who paid the price for our sins if we accept that path of discipleship. It's not an easy path because we have to give up on our willfulness to go astray when temptation is on our doorstep. Plus I tend to get lazy about walking on the narrow path sometimes with various worldly distractions. Thank you both for the encouraging words.