There is a difference between the hiddenness of God and the accessibility of God

• the hiddenness of God has been struggled with since ancient times, is often a central theme of the temple prayer texts, the Psalms, and is an assumption that seems to be held by a considerable number of ancient Israelites themselves.

• this is not a new problem. To imagine ancient people as backwards and superstitious to the point of unquestioned belief is anachronistic, wrong headed, and intellectually narcissistic.

• aside from these things the real issue I want to address now is the difference between God’s hiddenness on the one hand, and God’s accessibility on the other hand. God is still locally directly accessible, even while he is in a cosmologically obfuscated arrangement.

The steps or procedure for accessing God are executable in all times and all places, even in the exile. Because of some covenantal promises and the nature of those promises, the accident of certain elements in the procedure May themselves be inaccessible in cosmologically obfuscated orders and schemes.