nudus), as Luther put it. The naked God is God as sheer timeless abstraction, as the bare idea of the almighty, the immutable judge of all things. In either case—as hiddenness or nakedness—it is the reality of alienation, of absence from us, that comes to expression. God is hidden to fallen creatures who will not have him as a God of mercy. By the same token, God is timeless and immutable abstraction, the deus nudus, to those who will not have God clothed in the concrete event—a sheer terrifying