Scoff not at sincerity, that is His face

I pointed to the sun-torn sky and said, That is what God looks like; and then I felt a little silly, since theologically I wasn't sure that made sense; but then my niece is ten, so maybe it doesn't matter.

Solzhenitsyn said in an interview that the seed of faith once planted in youth would always remain; but here implied also, what of those with barren childhoods? One with cataracts throughout their youth will not regain their vision even when these are later removed; by then their other senses will have colonised the area typically allotted to their eyes. This has troubling implications for the sensus divinitatis in our atheistic age. My niece knows nothing of Him, and at this point how does one even begin? Particularly for one such as her so surrounded by This World, all those that scoff.

Blumenberg might disagree with Solzhenitsyn, elsewhere also no doubt but more specifically here: for him there are ‘absolute metaphors’—ideas which are rooted in the very grounds of existence. For God is foremost the word we use to answer fundamental questions; here He stands in for the inexpressible mystery that confronts us. And so, though This World acts always as a veil, if we could only clear away all the clutter—then might we see once more? Hence perhaps the need for a new militant apophacy: “All is perishing but His face.”