Why am I afraid of Him?

God is asking. He has been asking since the beginning. In the garden. On the road beside the Jordan. In the boat on the lake at Galilee. He turns, He calls, He invites. And the human response, across every generation and every Testament, follows a pattern that is by now familiar. We do not answer. We deflect. We hide.

In the previous paper we asked why we do not answer. The answer, we found, was older than any of us. It begins with a man in a garden who cannot bear to be seen. But there is something beneath the not answering that we have not yet reached. There is a reason the hiding runs so deep. The reason is fear. Not reverence. Not awe. Something older, and more painful than either.

"I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." (Genesis 3:10, Douay-Rheims)

These are the first words spoken by a human being to God after the fall. Not repentance. Not explanation. Not apology. The first word is fear, and the second word is hiding. They arrive together, inseparable.

If you have ever wondered about this passage, or felt that something more is happening here than is first seen, this paper is written for you. It is short. Clear. And grounded in Scripture as received in the Catholic tradition.

Format: Digital PDF, 7 pages, approx 2000 words

Language: English

Author: M.F. Robb

Published by thephilippapers.com

A Cathedral of The Fourth production.