The Silence of God between Alienation and Resonance

Abstract

Alienation is more than a symptom of our times. It has become an increasingly articulated feature of the contemporary collective ethos. The paradigm of alienation seems to be a cyclical occurrence, a reiteration of the oppressive spleen of the early last century, but much more oppressive and much more globalized. Analyzed from multiple perspectives (psychological, social, artistic, literary, etc.), alienation remains a negative category, which is why it must have a cause. Depending on the lens through which the cause of alienation is viewed, inevitably limited answers can be offered, as the human structure is too complex to be contained in one area of analysis. Almost completely ignored, although, as we shall see, this is where the lifeline might come from, the theological perspective can diagnose the phenomenon of alienation with greater precision and offer a sustainable variant of what we call resonance. The Hebrew Bible offers some conclusive passages on alienation, seen as estrangement, a split from God. This comes both from man, through disobedience to God’s law, but especially from God, through the installation of a communication embargo. The silence of God is the most drastic consequence of man’s estrangement from God, a consequence that will bring about a state of alienation. The present study aims to identify and analyze the situations in which God’s silence produces alienation, as well as a biblical perspective on the antidote called resonance.