12 - The invisible Christian God in Christian art

Summary

To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol? – A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and cast for it silver chains. As a gift one chooses mulberry wood – wood that will not rot – then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple.

Isaiah 40:18-20

Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.

Isaiah 45:15

These texts from Isaiah do not say that God is indiscernible, only that God is incomparable to anything in the known, material world. God is also beyond human view; according to John 1:18, no one has ever seen the Divine One. This hidden deity, immortal and dwelling in unapproachable light, is made known by the Eternal Logos, the First Born of Creation and the invisible God's image or eikon. God's hiddenness safeguards God's incomprehensibility, for seeing is a mode of perceiving. As Augustine long ago explained, we say “I see,” and mean “I understand.” Thus, God's absolute un-seeability signifies God's unknowability and maintains the distance (intellectual and physical) between Creator and creation. The bodily eye cannot glimpse God; the mind's eye cannot fathom the divine nature. Nevertheless, even as humans recognize the folly – even the danger – of their desire, they wish to see God. Denied the unobtainable, they have no basis even for speculating about the deity's appearance. As the Isaiah text above says: “to whom will you liken God?”