FAITH IN GOD
In the first place, the Bible certainly tells us that faith involves a person as its object. We can indeed speak about having faith in an impersonal object, such as a machine, but when we do so I think we are indulging in a sort of personification of that object, or else we are really thinking about the men who made the machine. At any rate, without discussing the correctness or incorrectness of this usage, we can at least say that such a use of the word stops short of the highest significance. In the highest significance of the word — the significance in which alone we are now interested — faith is regarded as being always reposed in persons.
The Persons in whom according to the Bible faith is particularly to be reposed are God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
But — and here we come to the point which we think ought to be emphasized above all others just at the present day — it is impossible to have faith in a person without having knowledge of the person; far from being contrasted with knowledge, faith is founded upon knowledge. That assertion runs counter to the whole trend of contemporary religious teaching; but a little reflection, I think, will show that it is indubitably correct, and that it must be applied specifically to the objects of Christian faith. Let us consider from this point of view first faith in God and second faith in Jesus Christ.
In the classic treatment of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews, there is a verse that goes to the very root of the matter. "He that cometh to God," the author says, "must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."1 Here we find a rejection in advance of all the pragmatist, nonrdoctrinal Christianity of modern times.
In the first place, religion is here made to depend absolutely upon doctrine; the one who comes to God must not only believe in a person, but he must also believe that something is true; faith is here declared to involve acceptance of a proposition. There could be no plainer insistence upon the doctrinal or intellectual basis of faith. It is impossible, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, to have faith in a person without accepting with the mind the facts about the person.
Entirely different is the prevailing attitude in the modern Church; far from recognizing, as the author of Hebrews does, the intellectual basis of faith, many modern preachers set faith in sharp opposition to knowledge. Christian faith, they say, is not assent to a creed, but it is confidence in a person. The Epistle to the Hebrews on the other hand declares that it is impossible to have confidence in a person without assenting to a creed, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." The words, "God is," or "God exists," constitute a creed; they constitute a proposition; and yet they are here placed as necessary to that supposedly non-intellectual thing that is called faith. It would be impossible to find a more complete opposition than that which here appears between the New Testament and the anti-intellectualistk tendency of modern preaching.
But here as elsewhere the Bible is found to be true to the plainest facts of the soul; whereas the modern separation between faith in a person and acceptance of a creed is found to be psychologically false. It is perfectly true, of course, that faith in a person is more than acceptance of a creed, but the Bible is quite right in holding that it always involves acceptance of a creed. Confidence in a person is more than intellectual assent to a series of propositions about the person, but it always involves those propositions, and becomes impossible the moment they are denied. It is quite impossible to trust a person about whom one assents to propositions that make the person untrustworthy, or fails to assent to propositions that make him trustworthy. Assent to certain propositions is not the whole of faith, but it is an absolutely necessary element in faith. So assent to certain propositions about God is not all of faith in God, but it is necessary to faith in God; and Christian faith, in particular, though it is more than assent to a creed, is absolutely impossible without assent to a creed. One cannot trust a God whom one holds with the mind to be either non-existent or untrustworthy.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, therefore, is quite right in maintaining that "he that cometh to God must believe that he is." In order to trust God or to have communion with Him we must at least believe that He exists.
At first sight that might seem to be a mere truism; it might seem to be something that every sane person would be obliged to accept. As a matter of fact, however, even this apparently self-evident proposition is rejected by a great mass of persons in the modern world; and it has been rejected by many persons in, the course of religious history. What the Epistle to the Hebrews accomplishes by enunciating the simple proposition, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is," is the repudiation of that important phenomenon in the history of religion that is known as mysticism.
The true mystic holds that communion with God is an ineffable experience, which is independent of any intellectual propositions whatever. Religion, the mystic holds, in its pure form is independent of the intellect; when it is expressed in an intellectual mold it is cabined and confined; such expression can be nothing more than symbolic '; religious experience itself does not depend upon assent to any kind of creed. In opposition to this mystical attitude the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews insists upon the primacy of the intellect; he bases religion squarely upon truth. He does not, of course, reject that immediate and mysterious contact of the soul with God which is dear to the mystic's heart; for that immediate contact of the soul with God is a vital part of all religion worthy of the name. But he does break down the mystical separation between that experience on the one hand and the knowledge of God on the other; and in doing so he is uttering not a truism but an important truth; he is delivering a salutary blow against anti-intellectual mysticism ancient and modern. There could be, under present conditions, no more timely text; in the presence of this stupendous utterance, so far-reaching yet so simple, the non-doctrinal religion of the present day seems to be but a shallow and ephemeral thing.
It is not true, then, according to the New Testament, that religion is independent of doctrine or that faith is independent of knowledge; on the contrary, communion with God or faith in God is dependent upon the doctrine of His existence. But it is dependent upon other doctrines in addition to that. "He that cometh to God," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, "must believe, that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." In this latter part of the sentence, we have, expressed in a concrete way, the great truth of the personality of God. God, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, is One who can act- — act in view of a judgment upon those who corne to Him. What we have here, in the second part of this sentence, is a presentation of what the Bible elsewhere calls the "living" God. God not only exists, but is a free Person who can act.
The same truth appears with even greater clearness in the third verse of the same great chapter. "Through faith we understand," says the author, "that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Here we have, expressed with a clearness that leaves nothing to be desired, the doctrine of creation out of. nothing, and that doctrine is said to be received by faith. It is the same doctrine that appears in the first verse of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and that really is presupposed in the Bible from beginning to the end. Yet the prevalent religious tendency in the Church of the present day relegates that doctrine to the realm of the non-essential. "What has religion to do," we are asked, "with the obsolete notion of fiat creation?"
The truth is that in the Epistle to the Hebrews as well as in the rest of the Bible we are living in a world, of thought that is diametrically opposed to the antiintellectualism of the present day. Certain things, according to the Bible, are known about God, and without, these things there can be no faith. To the pragmatist skepticism of the modern religious World, therefore, the Bible is sharply opposed; against the passionate anti-intellectualism of a large part of the modern Church it maintains the primacy of the intellect; it teaches plainly that God has given to man a faculty of reason which is capable of apprehending truth, even truth about God.
That does not mean that we finite creatures can find out God, by our own searching; but it does mean that God has made us capable of receiving the information which He chooses to give/ I cannot evolve an account of China out of my own inner consciousness, but Tarn perfectly capable of understanding the account which comes to me from travellers who have been there themselves. So our reason is certainly insufficient to tell us about God unless He reveals Himself; but it is capable (or would be capable if it were not clouded by sin) of receiving revelation when once it is given.
God's revelation of Himself to man embraces, indeed, only a small part of His being; the area of what we know is infinitesimal compared with the area of what we do not know. But partial knowledge is not necessarily false knowledge; and our knowledge of God on the basis of His revelation of Himself is, we hold, true as far as it goes.
That knowledge of God is regarded by the Bible as involved in faith and as the necessary prerequisite of faith. We can trust God, according to the Bible, because He has revealed Himself as trustworthy. The knowledge that God has graciously given us of Himself is the basis of our confidence in Him; the God of the Bible is One whom it is reasonable to trust.
But that certainly cannot be said of the God who is presented by much of modern speculation; there are ways of thinking about God, widely prevalent today, which will inevitably destroy our confidence in Him.
In the first place there is the widespread pantheism of the day, which brings God into some sort of necessary connection with the world. According to the pantheistic view, not only does the world not exist apart from God, but God does not exist apart from the world; God is either to be identified with the totality of the world-process or else He is to be regarded as connected with the world-process as the soul of man is connected with his body. That way of thinking is very, wide-.
spread and very popular; it is called, by a perversion of a great truth, the "immanence" of God; it runs through a large part of contemporary preaching. Whether explicit or not, whether thoroughgoing or present only in tendency, pantheism colors very largely the religious life of our time. Yet as a matter of fact it will ultimately make religious life impossible; certainly it will make impossible anything that can be called faith. It is really impossible to trust a being that is conceived of merely as the whole of which we are parts; in order to trust God. one must think of God as a transcendent, living Person.
It is true that pantheists represent their view as bringing God near to man. "We will have nothing to do," they say in effect, "with the far-off God of the creeds of the Church; the problem of the union between God and man, with which the older theologians wrestled and as a solution of which they constructed their elaborate doctrine of redemption, is no problem at all for us; tq us God is closer than breathing and nearer than hands, and feet; jHis life pulses through the ¥life of all the world and through the lives of every one of us." Thus pantheism is substituted for theism on the ground that it brings God nearer to men.
In reality, however, it has exactly the opposite effect. Far from bringing God nearer to man, the pantheism of our day really pushes Him very far off; it brings Him physically; near, but at the same time makes Him spiritually remote; it conceives of Him as a sort of blind vital force, but ceases to regard Him as a Person whom a man can love and whom a man can trust. Destroy the free personality of God, and the possibility of fellowship with Him is gone; we cannot love or trust a God of whom we are parts.
Thus if we are going to retain faith we must cling with all our hearts to what are called the metaphysical attributes of God — His infinity and omnipotence and creatorhood. The finite God of Mr. H. G. Wells and of some other modern men, for example, seems to us to be almost as destructive of faith as is the impersonal God of the pantheists; He seems to us to be but a curious product of a modern mythology; He is not God but. a god; and in the presence of all such imaginings we for our part are obliged to turn very humbly but very resolutely toward the dread, stupendous wonder of the infinite and say with Augustine: "Thou hast^made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee."
This devotion to the so-called metaphysical attributes of God is unpopular at the present day. There are many who tell us that we ought to cease to be interested in the question how the world was made, or what will be our fate when we pass beyond the grave; but that we can hold to the goodness of God though His creatorhood and His might are gone.
A notable presentation of such a view is found in Dr. McGiffert's book, The God of the Early Christians.2 That book is very provocative and to our mind very erroneous. But it possesses at least one merit that is rare among contemporary religious literature — it is interesting. It is the work of one of the foremost American scholars, who is possessed of a radical, incisive mind, which, if it does not succeed in solving the problem of Christian origins, at least, unlike most contem-
2 Arthur Cushman McGiffert, The Cod of the Early Christians, 1924. Compare for what follows the more extended treatment of the book in The Princeton Theological Review, xxii, 1924, pp. 544-588.
porary minds, detects what the problem is. Such a book, with its learning and its originality, whatever may be its faults, repays careful examination far more than many a five-foot shelf of the ostensibly startling and progressive but really thoroughly conventional religious books which are so popular just now.
Dr. McGiffert himself is an advocate of an "ethical. theism/* which is very far removed indeed from what the word "theism" can properly be held to mean. The question as to how the world came into being is, he holds, a matter of indifference to religion, as is the whole question of the power of God in the physical realm. But we moderns, he says in effect, though we are no longer interested in the power of God, can hold at least to our faith in goodness; and in doing so we can be religious men.
The author is far too good a scholar to suppose that this non-theistic "ethical theism" is taught in the New Testament; certainly, he admits, it was not taught by Jesus. Jesus' doctrine of God, on the contrary, he says, was nothing new; it was simply the Jewish doctrine which He found ready to hand; it laid great stress on the sovereignty of God, the absolute power of the Creator over His creatures, and it laid great stress upon the awful severity of God rather than upon His love. In other words, Dr. McGiffert admits — though his terminology is somewhat different — that Jesus was a "theist" in the usual meaning of that word; the whole sentimental picture of the "liberal Jesus," with His "practical" view of God that was not also theoretical, and With His one-sided emphasis upon the Fatherhood of God as over against His justice, is here brushed resolutely aside. Dr. McGiffert has read the Gospels for himself, and knows full well how unhistorical that picture of Jesus is.
Paul, also, according to Dr. McGiffert, was a theist; he maintained the Jewish view of God which Jesus had taught, though he added to that view the worship of Jesus as a Saviour God. But — and here we come to the really distinctive thesis of the book — the primitive simple-minded Gentile Christians in the early days, unlike Jesus and unlike Paul, were, according to Dr. McGiffert, not monotheists; they took Jesus as their Saviour without being interested in denying the existence of other saviours; in particular they were not interested in the connection between Jesus and a Maker and Ruler of the world.
The interesting thing about this remarkable theory is not found in any likelihood of its truth, for it is not really difficult to refute; but it is found in the connection between the theory and the whole anti-intellectualistic trend of the modern religious world. Dr. McGiffert, as most Modernists have done, has given up any clear belief in theism; he has ceased to base his religion upon a supreme Maker and Ruler of the world: yet he desires to maintain some sort of continuity with the primitive Christian Church. And he does so by the discovery of a primitive non-theistic® Gentile
3 It is hoped that our readers will pardon our use of this hybrid word. "Atheistic" obviously would not do at all. And even "antitheistic" would perhaps be too strong; since Dr. Mc- Giffert does not maintain that these Christians expressly denied theism, but only that they were not interested in it.
Christianity whose religion in important respects was similar to his own. The interesting thing about the book is not the thesis itself so much as the way in which in the propounding of the thesis the author's assumptions are allowed to appear.
The incorrectness of those assumptions becomes evident at many points. Particularly faulty is the separation of "salvation" from theism — a separation which recurs again and again in the book. "That there were philosophical thinkers," the author says, "who were attracted by the monotheism of the Jews and became Christians because of it is undoubtedly true, but they were vastly in the minority, and the Roman world was not won to Christianity by any such theological interest. On the contrary, faith in Christ and in his salvation converted the masses then, as it has converted multitudes in every age since."4 It was therefore! according to the author, a decline— such is the clear implication of the book- — when "Christianity ceased to be a mere religion of salvation — a mere saving cult — and Christ ceased to be a mere saviour;" when He became, instead, the "creator, ruler, and judge of all the earth."
This separation between theism and salvation ignores the simple fact that there can be no salvation without something from which a man is saved. If Christ saves the Christians, from what does He save them? Dr. McGiffert never seems to raise that question. But the answer to it is abundantly plain, and it destroys the entire reconstruction which this book so brilliantly attempts. Is it not abundantly plain that
Christ saves Christians from sin, and from the consequences which it brings at the judgment-seat of God? And is it not plain also that this was just the thing that appealed most strongly to simple people of the first century, as it appeals most strongly to many persons today? The truth is, it is quite impossible to think of Christ as Saviour without thinking of the thing from which He saves; the justice of God is everywhere the presupposition of the Saviourhood of Christ. No doubt modern men, especially in the circles in which Dr. McGiffert moves, have lost the sense of sin and guilt and the fear of God's awful judgment-seat. But with this loss there goes the general abandonment even of the word "salvation," to say nothing of the idea. Without the sense of sin and the fear of hell, there may be the desire for improvement, "uplift," betterment; but desire for "salvation," properly speaking, there cannot be. Modernism does not really "read Christianity in terms of salvation," but reads salvation out of Christianity. It usually gives even the word "salvation" up. JFor salvation presupposes something from which a man is saved; it presupposes the awful wrath of a righteous God; in other words it presupposes just the thing which the non-theistic Modernism of Dr. Mc- Giffert and others is most eager to reject. Very different was the situation in the early days of the Christian Church. Modern men have lost the sense of guilt and the fear of hell, but the early Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles, had not. They accepted Christ 8as Saviour only because He could rescue them from the abyss and bring them into right relation to the Ruler and Judge of all the earth. The Saviourhood of Christ involved, then as always, the majesty and justice of God.
Even more radically at fault is another distinction which is at the very root of Dr. McGiffert's thinking throughout — the distinction, already alluded to, "be^ tween a god of moral and a god of physical power."5 According to this distinction, Dr. McGiffert holds, as we have already seen, that it is or should be matter of indifference to Christians how the world came into being; trje doctrine of creation belongs, he thinks, to a region of metaphysics with which religion need have nothing to do. Similar is really the case with respect to the doctrine of providence; the whole thought of the power, as distinguished from the goodness, of God is, our author evidently thinks, quite separable from religion; we can, he thinks, revere God's goodness with-,out fearing His power or relying upon His protection from physical ills.
Such skepticism may be justified or may not be justified—with that great question we shall not now undertake to deal — but indifferent to religion it certainly is not. Give up the thought of a Maker and Ruler of the world; say, as you must logically say if you accept Dr. McGiffert's view, that "the Great Companion is dead," and you may still maintain something like religious fervor among a few philosophical souls. But the suffering mass of humanity, at any rate, will be lost and hopeless in a hostile w^orld. -And to represent these things as matters of indifference to religion is to close one's eyes to the deepest things of tHe human heart. Is the doctrine of creation really a matter of no religious moment; may the religious man really revere God without asking the question how the world came into being and what it is that upholds it on its way? Is the modern scientist wrong, who, pursuing his researches into nature's laws, comes at length before a curtain that is never lifted and stands in humble awe before a mystery that rebukes all pride? Was Isaiah wrong when he turned his eyes to the starry heavens and said: "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth"? Was Jesus wrong when He bade His disciples trust in Him who Clothed the lilies of the field and said: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom?"
To these questions philosophers may return this answer or that, ' but the answer of the Christian heart at any rate is clear. "Away with all pale abstractions," it cries, "away with all dualism between the God of power and the God of goodness, away with Marcion and his many modern followers, away with those who speak of the goodness of God but deprive Him of His power. As for us Christians, we say still, as we contemplate that green field gleaming in the sun and those dark forests touched with autumn brilliance and that blue vault of heaven above — we say still, despite all, that it is God's world, which He created by the fiat of His will, and that through Christ's grace we are safe forever in the arms of our heavenly Father."
But what have we left when, according to Dr. Mc- Giffert, our heavenly Father is gone? The answer that he gives is plain. "We have goodness left," we are told in effect; "we do not know how the world came to exist, we do not know what will be our fate when we pass through the dark portals of death. But we can find a higher, disinterested worship— far higher, it would seem, than that of Jesus — in the reverence for goodness divested of the vulgar trappings of power."
It sounds noble at first. But consider it for a moment, and its glory turns into ashes and leaves us in despair. What is meant by a goodness that has no physical power? Is not "goodness" in itself the merest abstraction?.Is it not altogether without meaning except as belonging to a person? And does not the very notion of a person involve the power to act? Goodness altogether divorced from power is therefore no goodness at all. And if it were goodness, it would still mean nothing to us — included as we are in this physical universe, which is capable apparently of destroying us in its relentless march. The truth is that overmuch abstraction has here destroyed even that which is intended to be conserved. Make God good only and not powerful, and both God and goodness have really been destroyed.,
Feeling, even if not fully understanding, this objection, feeling that goodness is a mere empty abstraction unless it inheres in good persons, many modern men have, tried to give their reverence for goodness some sort of subsistence by symbolizing this "ethical" (and most clearly antitheistic) "theism" in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. They "read Christianity only in terms of salvation" and take the man Jesus as their only God. But who is this Jesus whom they make the embodiment of the goodness that they revere? He is certainly not the Jesus of the New Testament; for that Jesus insisted upon everything that these modern men reject. But he is not even the Jesus of modern reconstruction; for even that Jesus, as Dr. McGiffert has shown with devastating clearness, maintained the theism which these modern men are rejecting with such contempt. The truth is that it is impossible for such men to hold to Jesus even as the supreme man, even as the supreme embodiment of that abstract goodness which Modernism is endeavoring to revere. For the real Jesus placed at the very centre, not merely of His thinking but of His life, the heavenly Father, Maker and Ruler of the world.
Is, then, the antitheistic Modernism of our day, reading Christianity solely in terms of salvation and taking the man Jesus as its only God, to relinquish all thought of continuity with the early glories of the Christian Church? Here Dr. McGiffert comes with a suggestion of hope. He abandons, indeed, the former answers to the question; he destroys without pity the complacency of those who have supposed that the early history of Christianity on naturalistic principles is all perfectly settled and plain; he throws the historical problem again into a state of flux. Hence we welcome his brilliant and thought-provoking book. Such books, we believe, by their very radicalism, by their endeavor after ever new hypotheses, by the exhibition which they afford of the failure of all naturalistic reconstructions— especially their own — may ultimately lead to an abandonment of the whole weary effort, and a return to the simple grounding of Christian history upon a supernatural act of God. Meanwhile, however, Dr. McGiffert comes to the Modernist Church with a word of cheer. The continuity with primitive Christianity, he says in effect, does not need to be given up even by an antitheistic, non-theological Christianity which at first sight seems very non-primitive indeed.
It would be a great mistake, we think, to ignore this practical reference of the book. It is no doubt largely unconscious; Dr. McGiffert writes no doubt with the most earnest effort after scientific objectivity. But no historian can be altogether without presuppositions; and the presupposition of the present author is that an antitheistic Christianity is the most natural thing in the world. Accordingly, as many notable historians have done, he finds what he expects to find. Baur, on the basis of his Hegelian philosophy, with its "thesis, antithesis, synthesis," expected to find a conflict in the apostolic age with a gradual compromise and settlement. And so he found that phenomenon surely enough — in defiance of the facts, but in agreement with his philosophy. Similarly, Dr. McGiffert, on the basis of his pragmatist skepticism, expects to find somewhere in the early Church a type of. religious life similar to his own.
Why is it that despite our author's own admission of the precariousness of many of his arguments he yet
"cannot resist the conclusion that there was such a primitive Christianity" as that which he has just described?8 The answer is plain. It is because he is seeking a precursor in early Christianity for the non-theistic Modernism which he himself supports. Others have found precursors for it in the New Testament — even in Paul. But Dr. McGiffert is far too good a scholar to be satisfied with any such solution as that. Still others have found it in Jesus, and so have raised the cry, "Back to Christ." But Dr. McGiffert has read the Gospels for himself, and knows full well how false is that appeal of the popular Modernist preachers to the words of the one whom they call "Master." Rejecting these obviously false appeals, the author is obliged to find what he seeks in the non-literary, inarticulate, and indeed unattested, piety of the early Gentile Christians. "There," he says in effect to his fellow-Modernists, "is our religion at last; there is to be found the spiritual ancestry of a religion that reads Christianity exclusively in terms of salvation and will have nothing to do with 'fiat creation' or the divine justice or heaven or hell or the living and holy God." And so for the cry of the older Liberalism: "Back to Christ" — upon which Dr. McGiffert has put, we trust, a final quietus — there is now apparently to be substituted the cry: "Back to the non-theistic Gentile Christians who read Christianity only in terms of salvation and were not interested in theology or in God." But if that really is to be the cry, the outlook is very dark. It is a sad thing if the continuity of Christianity can be saved only by an appeal to the non-theistic Gentile Christians. For those non-theistic Gentile Christians never really existed
The truth is that the antitheistic or non-theistic religion of the present day— popularized hy many preachers and undergirded by scholars such as the author of the brilliant book of which we have just been speaking— the truth is that this non-theistic religion, which, at least in one of its most characteristic forms, takes the man Jesus of naturalistic reconstruction as its.only God, will have to stand at last upon its own feet. With the historic Christian Church, at any rate, it plainly has little to do. For the Christian Church can never relinquish belief in the heavenly Father whom Jesus taught His disciples to love.
At the root, then, of faith in God, as taught in the Bible, is simply theism: the belief, namely, that the universe was created and is now upheld by a personal Being upon whom it is dependent but who is not dependent upon it. God is, indeed, according to this Christian view, immanent in the world, but He is also personally distinct from the world, and from the finite creatures that He has made. The transcendence of God — what the Bible calls the "holiness" of God — is at the foundation of Christian faith. The Christian trusts God because God has been pleased to reveal Himself as one whom it is reasonable to trust; faith in God is based on knowledge.
Certainly that knowledge does not remove our feel-,ing of wonder in the presence of God; but should rather deepen it till it leads to a boundless awe. Some things have been revealed to us about God, and they are by far the greatest things that have ever entered the mind of man; but how limited they are compared to the boundless mystery of the unknown! If a man's knowledge of God removes His sense of wonder in the presence of the Infinite One, he shows thereby that He has hardly begun to have any true knowledge at all.
Yet partial knowledge is not necessarily false; and the partial knowledge that we have of God, though it leaves vast mysteries unexplored, is yet sufficient as a basis f or> faith. If such a God be for us, the Christian can say, who can be against us? Such a God is One whom a man can trust.
At this point it may be well to pause for a few moments at the text from the eighth chapter of Romans, which we have just quoted. "If God be for us," says Paul, "who can be against us?"7
These words constitute a veritable battle cry of faith; they might have served as the motto for countless heroic deeds. Trusting in the God of Israel, men fought mighty battles and won glorious victories; the Lord of hosts is a powerful ally,
Jonathan thought so, when he and his armourbearer made that foolhardy attempt upon a garrison of the Philistines. "There is no restraint to the Lord," he said, "to save by many or by few." David thought so, with his five smooth stones from the brook and his great boasting adversary. "Thou comest to me," he said, "with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel." Elisha thought so, when he and his servant were shut up in Dothan. The Syrians had sought to take his life; he had revealed their plans to the king of Israel; and at last they had caught him fair. When the servant of the prophet arose in the morning, the city was all surrounded hy the Syrian hosts. "Alas, my master," he said, "how shall we do?" But the prophet was not dismayed. "Open his eyes," he said, "that he may see." And the Lord opened his eyes, and behold the hills were covered not only by the Syrian armies, but also by the fiery horses and chariots of God's protecting care. The apostles thought that God was a powerful ally, when they testified in the council of the Jews: "We must obey God rather than men." Luther thought so on that memorable day when he stood before kings and princes, and said — -in substance even if not in word — "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me! Amen."
In these great moments of history the hand of God was revealed. But, alas, the thing is not always so plain. Many prophets as true as Elisha have been surrounded by the armies of the aliens, and no fiery horses and chariots have put in an appearance; five smooth stones from the brook, even when slung bravely in the name of the Lord of hosts, are not always able to cope with modern artillery; many men of God as bold as Peter, as sturdy as good Luther, have testified faithfully to the truth, and, being unprotected by the favor of the people or by wise Gamaliels or by friendly Electors of Saxony, have gone to the stake for their pains. Nor does it always seem to be true that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Persecution sometimes seems to be crowned with a tragic success. As when pure religion by the use of physical weapons was largely stamped out of Italy and Spain and France, so often the blood of the martyrs seems to be shed in vain. What is true, moreover, in the large arena of history is also true in our workaday lives. Sometimes, in times of great spiritual crisis, the hand of God is revealed; there has been a signal answer to prayer; deliverance has come in wondrous ways when expected least. But at other times prayer just as earnest seems to go unanswered, and faith seems set at naught.
In our perplexity we. are sometimes tempted to think of our God very much as He was thought of on one occasion by the enemies of Israel. "Their gods/' they said with reference to Israel, "are gods of the hills.... but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they:"8 So our God, we are sometimes tempted to say, can help us in some of the circumstances of life; but at other times, whether by the lack of the power or by the lack of the will— it makes little practical difference — at other times He fails. Religion, we say, will help sometimes; but there are troubles in which some far more definite assistance is required; our God is a God of the hills, but beware, O Christian, of the plain.
Such doubts, in the text to which we have referred, are all brushed grandly aside. "If God be for us," says Paul, "who can be against us?" The challenge, in the Apostle's mind, can receive no answer; if God be for us, none can be against us — none in hill or dale, in cloud or sunshine, in life or death, among things present or things to come.
Such a faith is magnificent; it is heroic; it fires the imagination and stirs the will. What a glorious thing it is, to be sure, when a strong man stands with God against the world! But mere magnificence is not enough, and a lurking doubt remains. The belief of Paul is magnificent, but is it founded upon sober truth? Is God, as we know Him, really sufficient not merely for some, but for all, of our needs?
The answer to that question obviously depends upon what you think of God. If God be merely the tribal divinity of a people of the hills, as He was thought to be by those enemies mentioned in the twentieth chapter of the First Book of Kings, then certainly we cannot expect Him to fight for us in the plain. Of course the polytheism of those Syrians is gone for good; it may almost evoke a smile. But other errors, though more refined, are equally fatal to the comfort of the text. There are ways of thinking about God, widely prevalent today, which make Him of even less value than a local divinity of the Israelitish hills.
Some of these ways of thinking have already been mentioned. There is, for example, the common view which identifies God with the totality of the world. That view goes by different names, and most commonly by no name at all. It may best be called pantheism. But we ought not to be confused by a technical term; whatever may be thought of the name, the thing itself is. not confined to the philosophers. It is sometimes called the "new theology;" it is sometimes called (quite falsely) the doctrine of divine "immanence." But itis, at any rate, a mistake to think that it affects only the classroom; on the contrary, it affects the plain man as well as the scholar, and not only the pulpit but the pew. In the religious life of our day it is almost dominant; few of us can altogether escape its influence. Certainly it is nothing new; far from being the "new revelation" which it is sometimes represented as being, it is really as old as the hills; for millenniums it has been in the world dulling the moral sense and blighting the religious life of man. But it has never been more powerful than it is today.
We find ourselves in this world in the midst of a mighty process. It manifests itself in the wonders of the starry heavens, and in the equal wonders that the microscope has revealed. It is seen in the revolving seasons, and in the achievements of the human mind. In the presence of it, we stand in awe; we are impressed by our own littleness; we are but infinitesimal parts of a mighty whole. And to that whole, to that mighty, all-embracing world-process, which we moderns have learned with a new clearness to regard as one, the pantheist applies the dread name of God. God is thus no longer thought of as an artificer apart from his machine; He is thought of as naught but the universe itself, conceived of not in its individual manifestations, but as a mighty whole.
Who does not appreciate the appeal of such a view? It has stimulated some of the profoundest thinking and inspired some of the grandest poetry of the race.
But it contains.no comfort whatever for oppressed and burdened souls. If God be but another name for the totality of things, then when we possess Him we possess nothing that we did not have before. There is then no appeal from the world to Him; when the world treats us ill, there is no help for us, for we have already had our "God." "If God be for us, who can be against us?": — these words were spoken by no pantheist, but by one who could appeal from nature to nature's God.
That appeal is possible only if God is a free and holy Person, eternally sovereign over all that He has made. True, He is immanent dn the world; He is no far-off deity separate from His works. There is an important truth in pantheism; the Christian too can say, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being," and "Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." God is present in the world; not a single thing that happens is independent of Him. But that does not mean that He is identical with the world or limited by it; because the world is dependent upon Him, it does not follow that He is dependent upon the world. He is present in the world not because He is identical with it, but because He is Master of it; the universe is pervaded and enveloped by the mystery of His will. These things have been hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed urito -babes. It is simplicity that is here profound; the stupendous wonder of God's works, the boundless complexity of His universe, should never be allowed to conceal the simple fact that He is a Person; that simple fact, the child's possession of every trusting soul, is the greatest mystery of all. Jesus taught, indeed, the immanence of God; He saw God's hand in the sprouting of the seed; not a sparrow, He said, could fall to the ground without God. That might have been said hy the philosophers. But Jesus did not put it merely in that form; what He said was, "One of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." And when He said that, the long searchings of philosophy were over, and He whom men had dimly felt for, the personal, living God, was revealed.
If, then, there is to be an appeal from nature to nature's God, if there is to be real faith, God must be thought of as a God who can work wonders; not as.another name for the totality of existing things, but as a free and living Person. Think of Him otherwise, and you remain forever bound in the prison-house of the world.
But another form of error is equally fatal. It is a homelier, less pretentious form of error, but it is equally destructive of a faith like the faith of Paul. We have insisted that God is free, that He can govern the course of nature in accordance with His will; and it is an important, truth indeed. But many men make of it the only truth, and in doing so they make shipwreck of their faith. They think of God only as one who can direct the course of nature for their benefit; they value Him only for the things that He can give.
We are subject to many pressing needs, and we are too much inclined to value God, not for His own sake, but only because He can satisfy those needs. There is the need of food and clothing, for ourselves and for our loved ones, and we value God because He can answer the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread." There is the need of companionship; we shrink from loneliness; we would be surrounded by those who love us and those whom we can love. And we value God as one who can satisfy that need by giving us family and friends. There is the need of inspiring labor; we would be delivered from an aimless life; we desire opportunities for noble and unselfish service of our fellowmen. And we value God as one who by His ordering of our lives can set before us an open door.
These are lofty desires. But there is one desire that is loftier still. It is the desire for God Himself. That desire, too often, we forget. We value God solely for the things that He can do; we make of Him a mere means to an ulterior end. And God refuses to be treated so; such a religion always fails in the hour of need. If we have regarded religion merely as a means of getting things — even lofty and unselfish things — then when the things that have been gotten are destroyed, our faith will fail. When loved ones are taken away, when disappointment comes and failure, when noble ambitions are set at naught, then we turri away from God; we have tried religion, we say, we have tried prayer, and it has failed. Of course it has failed! God is not content to be an instrument in our hand or a servant at our beck and call. He is not content to minister to the worldly nee.ds of those who care not a bit for Him. The text in the eighth chapter of Romans does not mean that religion provides a certain formula for obtaining worldly benefits — even the highest and most ennobling and most unselfish of worldly benefits. "If God be for us, who can be against us?"—, that does not mean that faith in God will bring us everything that we desire. What it does mean is that if we possess God, then we can meet with equanimity the loss of all besides. Has it never dawned upon us that God is valuable for His own sake, that just as personal communion is the highest thing that we know on earth, so personal communion with God is the sublimest height of all? If we value God for His own sake, then the loss of other things will draw us all the closer to Him; we shall then have recourse to Him in time of trouble as to the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. I do not mean that the Christian need expect always to be poor and sick and lonely and to seek his comfort only in a mystic experience with His God. This universe is God's 'world; its blessings are showered upon His creatures even now; and in His own good time, when the period of its groaning and travailing is over, He will fashion it as a habitation of glory/ But what I do mean is that if here and now we have the one inestimable gift of God's presence and favor, then all the rest can wait till God's good time.
If, then, communion with God is the one great possession, worth more than all the rest besides, how shall we attain unto it — how shall we come to know God?
Many men, as has already been observed, are telling us that we should not seek to know Him at all; theology, we are told, is the death of religion. We do not know God, then — such seems to be the logical implication of this view: — but simply feel Him. In its consistent form such a view is mysticism; religion is reduced to a state of the soul in which the mind and the will are in abeyance. Whatever may be thought of such a religion, I cannot see that it possesses any moral quality at all; pure feeling is non-moral, and so is religion that is not founded upon theology. What makes our love for a true friend, for example, such an ennobling thing is the recognition by our mind of the character of our friend. Human affection, so beautiful in its apparent simplicity, really depends upon a treasured host of observations of the actions of our friend. So it is also in the case of our relation to God. It is because we know certain things about Him, it is because we know that He is mighty and holy and loving, that our communion with Him obtains its peculiar quality. The devout man cannot be indifferent to doctrine, in the sense in which many modern preachers would have us be indifferent, any more than he can listen with equanimity to misrepresentations of an earthly friend. Our faith in God, despite all that is said, is indissolubly connected with what we think of Him. The devout man may indeed well do without a complete systematization of his knowledge— though if he be really devout he will desire just as complete a systematization as he can possibly obtain — but some knowledge he certainly must have.
How then may we attain to this knowledge of God that is so necessary to faith; how may we become acquainted with Him? We may do so, I think, in the old, old ways; I have no entirely new ways to suggest.