WATTS Baptism and the Hiddenness of God 275
case, as Jenson suggests, that if the locus of God's hiddenness is precisely
his history with us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then a proper consid-
eration of God's hiddenness will have to be related to his triunity. Once
again we must remember that the concept of hiddenness is not a reference
to our epistemic incapacity or God's ontological distance from us. It is
rather 'the moral problematic of God's providence which resists our
insight'.^16 It is God's historical involvement with us as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit which is the true locus of God's hiddenness. We thus have to
consider the hidden activity of God three times, taking each person of the
Trinity in turn in their particular roles within the moral agency of the one
God.
Ill
Following the lead of Orthodox theology, Jenson argues that the one ulti-
mate reality is the fatherhood of the Father. There is no reality behind this,
no way of questioning back behind the Father. This is not the same as
saying that the ultimate fact is God who happens then to become the
Father of Israel and of Jesus. He is the God who brought Israel out of
Egypt, the Father who raised the Son from the dead. The Father is the one
ultimate reality. If we seek to offer reasons as to why something occurs, if
we keep working back we will finally come to the fact of the Father, and
'the fact of the Father has no reason'.^17 This means that although we may
usefully construct theodicies, they must remain penultimate. The mere fact
of the Father sets a limit to theodicy: his ways are unsearchable. This is the
first aspect of God's hiddenness.
When we come to the Son we are on more familiar ground. We see in
the face of the crucified Christ none other than the Logos taken human
flesh. Here is the Suffering Servant, scorned, mocked and executed, in
whom the Father knows himself: a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief, 'the real God, even and primally for himself, has the face of the Suf-
fering Servant'.^18 In our humanity we turn away from this image of God;we prefer to turn to God for relief from pain and construct an image of the
- Jenson, 'The Hidden and Triune God,' p. 9, where he follows Luther and also
offers scriptural support (e.g. Rom. 11.28-36). - Jenson, 'The Hidden and Triune God,' p. 10. Here he closely follows John
Zizioulas in his Being and Communion (Crestwood: St Vladimir's Seminary Press,
1985). - Jenson, 'The Hidden and Triune God,' p. 11.