the appearance of people incapable of relating to God. As a result of spiritual and social developments, it is said, we have reached the stage where a kind of person has developed in whom there is no longer any starting point for the knowledge of God. Whether that be true or not, we would have to admit that our distance from God—the obscurity and the dubiousness surrounding him today—is greater than ever before; indeed, that even we who are trying to be believers often feel as if the reality of God