Father Payne suddenly said to me once in a loud voice, after a long
silence--we were walking together--"Writers, preachers, moralists,
sentimentalists, are much to blame for not explaining more what they mean
by loving God--perhaps they do not know! Love is so large a word, and
covers so great a range of feelings. What sort of love are we to give
God--the love of the lover, or the son, or the daughter, or the friend, or
the patriot, or the dog? Is it to be passion, or admiration, or reverence,
or fidelity, or pity? All of these enter into love."
"What do you think yourself?" I said.
"How am I to tell?" said Father Payne. "I am in many minds about it--it
cannot be passion, because, whatever one may say, something of physical
satisfaction is mingled with that. It cannot be a dumb fidelity--that is
irrational. It cannot be an equal friendship, because there is no equality
possible. It cannot be that of the child for the mother, because the mind
is hardly concerned in that. Can one indeed love the Unknown? Again, it
cannot be all receiving and no giving. We must have something to give God
which He desires to have and which we can withhold. To say that the answer
is, 'My son, give Me thy heart,' begs the question, because the one thing
certain about love is that we _cannot_ give it to whom we will--it
must be evoked; and even if it is wanted, we cannot always give it. We may
respect and reverence a person very much, but, as Charlotte Brontë said,
'our veins may run ice whenever we are near him.'
"And then, too, can we love any one who knows us perfectly, through and
through? Is it not of the essence of love to be blind? Is it possible for
us to feel that we are worthy of the love of anyone who really knows us?
"And then, too, if disaster and suffering and cruel usage and terror come
from God, without reference to the sensitiveness of the soul and body on
which they fall, can we possibly love the Power which behaves so? What
child could love a father who might at any time strike him? I cannot
believe that God wants an unquestioning and fatuous trust, and still less
the sort of deference we pay to one who may do us a mischief if we do not
cringe before him. All that is utterly unworthy of the mind and soul."
"Is it not possible to believe," I said, "that all experience may be good
for us, however harsh it seems?"
"No rational man can think that," said Father Payne. "Suffering is not good
for people if it is severe and protracted. I have seen many natures go
utterly to pieces under it."
"What do you believe, then?" I said.
"Of course the only obvious explanation," said Father Payne, "is that
suffering, misery, evil, disaster, disease do not come from God at all;
that He is the giver of health and joy and light and happiness; that He
gives us all He can, and spares us all He can; but that there is a great
enemy in the world, whom He cannot instantly conquer; that He is doing all
He can to shield us, and to repair the harm that befalls us--that we can
make common cause with Him, and pity Him for His thwarted plans, His
endless disappointments, His innumerable failures, His grievous sufferings.
It would be easy to love God if He were like that--yet who dares to say it
or to teach it? It is the dreadful doctrine of His Omnipotence that ruins
everything. I cannot hold any communication with Omnipotence--it is a
consuming fire; but if I could know that God was strong and patient and
diligent, but not all-powerful or all-knowing, then I could commune with
Him. If, when some evil mishap overtakes me, I could say to Him, 'Come,
help me, console me, show me how to mend this, give me all the comfort you
can,' then I could turn to Him in love and trust, so long as I could feel
that He did not wish the disaster to happen to me but could not ward it
off, and was as miserable as myself that it had happened. Not _so_
miserable, of course, because He has waited so long, suffered so much, and
can discern so bright and distant a hope. Then, too, I might feel that
death was perhaps our escape from many kinds of evil, and that I should be
clasped to His heart for awhile, even though He sent me out again to fight
His battles. That would evoke all my love and energy and courage, because I
could feel that I could give Him my help; but if He is Almighty, and could
have avoided all the sorrow and pain, then I am simply bewildered and
frightened, because I can predicate nothing about Him."
"Is not that the idea which Christianity aims at?" I said.
"Yes," he said; "the suffering Saviour, who can resist evil and amend it,
but cannot instantly subdue it; but, even so, it seems to set up two Gods
for one. The mind cannot really _identify_ the Saviour with the
Almighty Designer of the Universe. But the thought of the Saviour
_does_ interpret the sense of God's failure and suffering, does bring
it all nearer to the heart. But if there is Omnipotence behind, it all
falls to the ground again--at least it does for me. I cannot pray to
Omnipotence and Omniscience, because it is useless to do so. The limited
and the unlimited cannot join hands. I must, if I am to believe in God,
believe in Him as a warrior arriving on a scene of disorder, and trying to
make all well. He must not have permitted the disorder to grow up, and then
try to subdue it. It must be there first. It is a battle obviously--but it
must be a real battle against a real foe, not a sham fight between hosts
created by God. In that case, 'to think of oneself as an instrument of
God's designs is a privilege one shares with the devil,' as someone said. I
will not believe that He is so little in earnest as that. No, He is the
great invader, who desires to turn darkness to light, rage to peace, misery
to happiness. Then, and only then, can I enlist under His banner, fight for
Him, honour Him, worship Him, compassionate Him, and even love Him; but if
He is in any way responsible for evil, by design or by neglect, then I am
lost indeed!"