How Does God Make Himself Known? A Conversation with Henri Blocher

Introduction

In this new episode of the podcast of the Tabernacle church (Paris 18th arrondissement), Pastor Benjamin Short welcomes theologian Henri Blocher to discuss a question many people ask: who is God, and how can we truly know him? Henri Blocher reminds us that if God exists, he is the first and the last, the ultimate reality. Knowing him changes everything: it drives false gods out of our lives and frees the true meaning of our existence.

Outline of the Interview

1. Why seek to know who God is?

• By definition, God is the first and the last, the ultimate reality, the reference point.
• Not seeking to situate oneself in relation to this ultimate reference point would be "simply foolish."
• The real question is not only "does he exist?" but "is he personal?" If he is personal, he can speak, hear, and make himself known.

2. How does God make himself known?

• If God is personal, he makes himself known. A person is characterized by this freedom to reveal themselves.
• This is technically called revelation: an unveiling.
• God has already revealed himself in creation: his wisdom, his beauty, his goodness, his generosity, his power.
• He also reveals himself by directing the affairs of the world, giving a mysterious unity to history.
• But the supreme, most precise means is speech. God chose to speak to us in our own language.

3. What is the place of the Bible?

• The Bible is precisely the word that God spoke, through his messengers, over roughly fifteen centuries.
• The word "Bible" comes from a Greek plural (biblia): it is a library.
• God spoke through messengers he entrusted with his word, and sometimes directly from heaven.
• The Bible contains the words he wanted recorded for the duration of all history.

4. Understanding the Trinity : to what extent?

• We must first agree on the word "understand." In theological language, it suggests mastery of the subject, but God is incomprehensible in that strong sense.
• Saint Augustine, the great North African thinker, said: "If you have understood, it is not God."
• We receive a certain intelligence of what is revealed to us, without ever mastering the subject.
• The Trinity is not three gods, certainly not. It is first of all one God, the one God, creator and eternal.
• John Calvin said, in his sixteenth-century language, that it is not "three marmousets" (the carved figurines on cathedrals).
• The Christian faith affirms that in God there is both unity and a mysterious differentiation: the richness of a true plurality.
• It is because God is one that the world has unity; and it is because there is real differentiation within him that the diversity of the world is not a mere illusion.

5. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the history of salvation

• God is one, the source of all authority, the good itself: "No one is good but One," Jesus said.
• This same God, sovereign and free, was able to unite himself to humanity without confusion, in the person of Yeshua (Jesus).
• In Jesus, he is the historic victor over evil and death.
• As the Holy Spirit, he is the invisible presence who touches the heart, comforts, and applies the benefits of Jesus's work.

6. God the creator, sovereign, and savior

• God is the absolute; we are relative, existing only through relationship with him.
• He did not want to remain alone and created the world as a partner, with the human being to represent creation.
• Being creator, he is also sovereign, the one who directs history.
• He allowed, in what Blocher calls an "opaque mystery," humanity to go astray, turning away from him through ingratitude and pride.
• He intervened to save humanity from this fatal alienation, by uniting himself to it in Jesus.

7. Is God the same in all religions?

• The Bible attests that there is in every human being an irrepressible sense of God, established by creation itself (cf. Acts 17).
• In a sense, all religions express this groping search for God.
• But if we ask whether it is the same God being proposed, the answer is no: there are very marked differences in the attributes and actions ascribed to God.
• The sense of God deep within man often falls back onto elements of the world that he falsely deifies: these are false gods.

8. Why does God sometimes remain mysterious or distant?

• Isaiah 55:8: God says, "My ways are not your ways." His elevation is part of his supreme nature.
• What can we claim, we who have disobeyed him and "spat in the face" of the one who showered us with his blessings?
• His revelation brings us immense happiness; but he does not let himself be manipulated.
• Wanting him to show himself more when he has already given so much is presumption.

9. What knowing God changes in our lives

• False gods are driven from the scene: financial success, unrestrained pleasure, even nobler causes cease to be the ultimate horizon.
• The meaning of life reveals itself differently, starting from the first and the last.
• He frees us from the burden of guilt, and sets us free to love him, and to love what he places on our path.

What God Expects from You Today

Henri Blocher sums it up simply: God expects you to turn away from your wrong paths, to trust him, and to receive the gift he offers you in his generosity. Discovering who God is, is not an intellectual acrobatics: it is letting go of the idols that promised you meaning, and welcoming the one who alone can free you from the weight of guilt and teach you to love.

Key Takeaways

• God is personal: he can make himself known, and he has, through creation, through Providence, and above all through his word.
• The Bible is that word, transmitted through messengers over fifteen centuries, recorded for all of history.
• The Trinity affirms one God, whose unity and manifold richness ground both the unity and the diversity of the world.
• In Jesus, God united himself to humanity to save it; through the Holy Spirit, he applies this work to your heart today.
• Knowing God drives out false gods and frees the true meaning of life: loving God and loving what he places on your path.

Personal Application

• Where are you in your search for God: mere intellectual curiosity, or a true thirst to meet him?
• What are the false gods (success, pleasure, a noble cause) that currently occupy the center of your life and need to be displaced?
• What place does the Bible hold in your daily life, if God is truly speaking to you through it?
• Do you receive God's revelation as a joy, or are you still demanding that he "prove" himself further?
• What would a week look like, freed from the burden of guilt and made free to love?

Verses Cited

• Isaiah 55:8 · "My ways are not your ways."
• Acts 17 · Paul's speech to the Athenians about the God they grope for.

Further reading

• What Is Christian Discipleship?
• What Is Christian Service?
• What Is Biblical Hermeneutics?

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we truly "understand" God?

No, not in the strong sense of the word. As Saint Augustine said, "if you have understood, it is not God." We receive a genuine intelligence of what God reveals, suited to our condition as creatures, but we can never master the subject nor hold it entirely in our hands.

How can we picture the Trinity without falling into three gods?

We must first dispel the image of three figurines on a stage, what Calvin called "three marmousets." The Trinity is one God, unique and eternal, in whom the Christian faith recognizes a mysterious differentiation: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The language is analogical, never literal.

Is God the same in all religions?

The human search for God is universal: a sense of God is inscribed in everyone's heart. But the God proposed by different religions is not the same: the attributes, actions, and character ascribed to him diverge radically. According to the Bible, this sense of God is often redirected onto elements of the world that then become false gods.