A Reconciliation of Reason and Revelation

Why did Moses veil his face while talking to the people? Why did he put a veil between the Holy and the Most Holy Place? Why, behind the curtain, and other than a cherub either side, was the throne empty? Why did Moses speak in dark sayings, Jesus in parables, and Paul in a mystery? How does the god of this world blind us to the glorious light of the gospel? And who is the god of this world?

If you wanted to promote a Humanism in the Sixth Century BC, or tried again in the First Century AD, given your audience… what would you do? Is it possible that on this side of the veil, a side we’ve taken to be entirely holy: that in seeing we have not perceived, and in hearing we have not understood?

If Moses allowed the High Priest to enter only once a year as a representative of the whole community reconciled, and the Christians saw their subsequent entering as a single body with its single spirit as its fulfillment, what was it that was keeping them out? What could they not see beforehand? Being on the outside, what did they believe to be within the veil?

Might it be that the entire Bible is crying out—beneath its obligatory and pragmatic bow to the supernatural, from behind its curtain—“Things are not as they seem”? According to the Bible’s own account, things are indeed not as they seem: From beginning to end, God is a god who hides himself; who the prophets and apostles feel they must hide, who only reveals himself fully in the end. The little known fact is that the biblical authors didn’t want to be understood: speaking in parables, dark sayings, and mysteries (i.e., the supernatural), they gave the people what they wanted, and frankly (given their moral state), what they needed. A god was added, Paul explained, “because of transgressions, till the seed should come…”

This was the First Covenant, and an improvement over what was before in that while the many gods held up and made eternal our divisions and strife, its one god personified our reconciliation and concord; and along with its supernatural rewards and punishments, set us on the path.

Paul doesn’t say a god was added, rather: “the Law.” The question is: Was the god, as most everyone believes, separate and eternal apart from the Covenant, or was he (is he) part and parcel to it, and therefore part of its temporary and tutorial aspect—and therefore to be taken away at our maturity? A difficult question to ask for sure (because blasphemous according to the traditional understanding), but given all the secrecy on full display, and the empty throne before us, and what it is that does finally allow us to enter in, perhaps questioning the traditional understanding is exactly what is called for.

The facts are: although the truth was difficult, and the ground not so good, it somehow, relatively quickly, spread throughout and took over the entire empire, and 2000 years later… it’s solution is still up in the air. 2000 years! Perhaps we’ve been doing something wrong all along. Perhaps we’ve believed something wrong. Perhaps in seeing, we have not perceived.