Belief and Trust
DAILY READINGS
We have tried to explain our faith in the personal God, and to see the
transfiguring influence of that faith on life. But is belief in God
always such a blessing as we have pictured? Rather faith, like every
other experience of man, has its caricatures and burlesques. Many men
are prevented from appreciation of faith in God, with its inestimable
blessings, because they have so continually seen faith's perversions.
The fact is that belief in God may be an utterly negligible matter in
a man's experience or may even become a positively pernicious
influence. Let us, in the daily readings, consider some of the
_familiar travesties on faith_.
Fourth Week, First Day
=Praise ye Jehovah.
Praise Jehovah, O my soul.
While I live will I praise Jehovah:
I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being,
Put not your trust in princes,
Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in Jehovah his God.=
=--Psalm 146:1-5.=
No one can mistake the note of reality in this psalmist's experience
of God. But every one of us knows people who, if asked whether they
believed in God, would readily assent, yet to whom faith makes no such
difference in life as this psalm expresses. Their faith is nothing but
an opinion about God, lightly held, a formal consent that what church
or family tradition says must be correct. They have what Luther used
to call "the charcoal burner's faith." A man of that occupation, when
asked what he believed, said, "What Holy Church believes"; but,
questioned further, he could not tell what it was that Holy Church did
believe. So formal, vitally unpossessed, and practically unreal is
much of our religious opinion that passes for faith. Dean Swift was a
churchman of high rank, and yet his biographer is compelled to say of
him: "He clung to the doctrines of his church, not because he could
give abstract reasons for his belief, but simply because the church
happened to be his." Vital religious faith is a very different thing
from such dry conventionality. A man may assent to the contents of a
college catalogue and yet never have experience of college life; he
may agree that a menu is dietetically correct and yet never grow
strong from the food; and he may believe in every creed in Christendom
and not know what faith in God really means. Opinions about God are a
roadway to God, but the end of the journey is a personal fellowship
that transfigures life; and to seize opinions as though they were the
object of faith is, to use Tagore's figure, "like a man who tries to
reach his destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road."
_O Thou great Father of us all, we rejoice that at last we know Thee.
All our soul within us is glad because we need no longer cringe
before Thee as slaves of holy fear, seeking to appease Thine anger by
sacrifice and self-inflicted pain, but may come like little children,
trustful and happy, to the God of love. Thou art the only true
Father, and all the tender beauty of our human loves is the reflected
radiance of Thy loving kindness, like the moonlight from the
sunlight, and testifies to the eternal passion that kindled it._
_Grant us growth of spiritual vision, that with the passing years we
may enter into the fulness of this our faith. Since Thou art our
Father, may we not hide our sins from Thee, but overcome them by the
stern comfort of Thy presence. By this knowledge uphold us in our
sorrows and make us patient even amid the unsolved mysteries of the
years. Reveal to us the larger goodness and love that speak through
the unbending laws of Thy world. Through this faith make us the
willing equals of all Thy other children._
_As Thou art ever pouring out Thy life in sacrificial father-love,
may we accept the eternal law of the cross and give ourselves to
Thee and to all men. We praise Thee for Jesus Christ, whose life has
revealed to us this faith and law, and we rejoice that he has become
the first-born among many brethren. Grant that in us, too, the faith
in Thy fatherhood may shine through all our life with such persuasive
beauty that some who still creep in the dusk of fear may stand erect
as free sons of God, and that others who now through unbelief are
living as orphans in an empty world may stretch out their hands to
the great Father of their spirits and find Thee near. Amen._--Walter
Rauschenbusch.
Fourth Week, Second Day
Faith is travestied in many lives not so much by the substitution of
opinion for experience, as by making religion consist in certain
devout practices, such as church-going. Ceremonialism, instead of
being an aid in making God real, takes the place of fellowship with
God. How scathing were the attacks of the prophets on this distortion
of religion!
=Hear the word of Jehovah, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law
of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. What unto me is the multitude of
your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the
burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not
in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come
to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample
my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination
unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies--I cannot
away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your
appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am
weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will
hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not
hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put
away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the
fatherless, plead for the widow.--Isa. 1:10-17.=
Many young people, watching conventional observances in religious
worship and perceiving no real life active there, come to the
conclusion that religious faith is a decent and negligible formality.
So William Scott Palmer, tracing his progress from agnosticism to
Christianity, describes the religion of his boyhood: "Religion as a
personal matter, religion as a life, did not exist for me or for my
family. The border-land of my native village went to church at eleven
o'clock on fine Sundays, and I went in and with it. There were unlucky
Sundays when the Litany was said, and the service prolonged by its
unmeaning length; the lucky Sundays were wet ones that cleared up
later.... I did not know that there was any vital meaning in
religion." And even Sir Wilfred Grenfell, whose work in Labrador is
one of this generation's outstanding triumphs of Christian faith, says
of his young manhood: "The ordinary exponents of the Christian faith
had never succeeded in interesting me in any way, or even in making me
believe that they were more than professionally concerned themselves.
Religion appeared to be a profession, exceedingly conventional, and
most unattractive in my estimation--the very last I should have
thought of selecting." No travesty on faith is more deadly in its
effects than this substitution of conventional observance for life.
_O Jesus, we thy ministers bow before Thee to confess the common sins
of our calling. Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that we love
Thee and that our hearts' desire is to serve Thee in faithfulness;
and yet, like Peter, we have so often failed Thee in the hour of Thy
need. If ever we have loved our own leadership and power when we
sought to lead our people to Thee, we pray Thee to forgive. If we
have been engrossed in narrow duties and little questions, when the
vast needs of humanity called aloud for prophetic vision and
apostolic sympathy, we pray Thee to forgive. If in our loyalty to the
Church of the past we have distrusted Thy living voice and have
suffered Thee to pass from our door unheard, we pray Thee to forgive.
If ever we have been more concerned for the strong and the rich than
for the shepherdless throngs of the people for whom Thy soul grieved,
we pray Thee to forgive._
_O Master, amidst our failures we cast ourselves upon Thee in
humility and contrition. We need new light and a new message. We need
the ancient spirit of prophecy and the leaping fire and joy of a new
conviction, and Thou alone canst give it. Inspire the ministry of Thy
Church with dauntless courage to face the vast needs of the future.
Free us from all entanglements that have hushed our voice and bound
our action. Grant us grace to look upon the veiled sins of the rich
and the coarse vices of the poor through Thine eyes. Give us Thine
inflexible sternness against sin, and Thine inexhaustible compassion
for the frailty and tragedy of those who do the sin. Make us faithful
shepherds of Thy flock, true seers of God, and true followers of
Jesus. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch.
Fourth Week, Third Day
=And he spake also this parable unto certain who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nought:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the
other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the
week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing
afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me a sinner. I say
unto you, This man went down to his house justified rather than the
other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted.--Luke 18:9-14.=
The men against whom the Master directed this parable were bigots.
Self-opinionated, self-conceited, dogmatic, and contemptuous--they
wore all the attributes of bigotry. _And bigotry is a very familiar
perversion of faith._ Vital fellowship with God ought to make men
gracious, magnanimous, generous; it ought to make life with God seem
so incomparably important that when anyone has that, his opinions
about God will be tolerantly regarded, however mistaken they may
appear to be. Dr. Pritchett, when President of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, passed through a classroom where a young
instructor was conducting a chemical experiment. "The reaction
itself," says Dr. Pritchett, "was going on in a retort on the table,
while on a blackboard was written the conventional formula, which in
the science of chemistry is used to describe the reaction. It so
happened that the instructor had made a mistake in writing the
formula; instead of CO^2 he had written CO_3. But this made not the
slightest difference in the reaction which was going on in the flask."
So, a man may live his life with an admirably Christian spirit,
although he describes it with a mistaken formula. His error is
theoretical, not vital. But a bigot is so sure that he alone knows the
true formula, that a man without that formula is altogether wrong, and
that he must either set him right or condemn him utterly, that he
grows bitter, hard, unlovely. His opinions may be right, but his
spirit is wrong. The faith that should make his life radiant is
perverted to make it narrow, harsh, contemptuous. He renders hateful
the very faith he seeks to commend and ruins the reputation of the God
whom he is zealous to exalt. So the Pharisee of the parable missed all
the beauty of the Publican's life because he thought the Publican's
formula was wrong. No one can estimate the irreparable damage which
zealous bigots have done to true faith.
_O Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, canst Thou
bear to look on us conscious of our great transgression? Yet hide not
Thy face from us, for in Thy light alone shall we see light._
_Forgive us for the sins which crowd into the mind as we realise Thy
presence; our ungovernable tempers, our shuffling insincerities, the
craven fear of our hearts, the pettiness of our spirits, the foul
lusts and fatal leanings of our souls. Not for pardon only, but for
cleansing, Lord, we pray._
_Forgive us, we beseech Thee, our unconscious sins; things which must
be awful to Thy sight, of which we yet know nothing. Forgive by
giving us in fuller measure the awakening of Thy presence, that we
may know ourselves, and lose all love of sin in the knowledge of what
Thou art._
_Forgive us for the things for which we can never forgive ourselves;
those sad turned pages of our life which some chance wind of memory
blows back again with shame; for the moment of cruel passion, the
hour beyond recall, the word that went forth to poison and defame,
the carelessness that lost our opportunity, the unheeded fading of
bright ideals._
_Forgive us for the things that others can never forgive; the idle
tale, the cruel wrong, the uncharitable condemnation, the unfair
judgment, the careless criticism, the irresponsible conduct._
_Forgive us for the sins of our holy things; that we have turned the
sacred page without a sigh, read the confessions of holy men and
women and never joined therein, lived in Thy light and never prayed
to be forgiven or rendered Thee thanksgiving; professed to believe in
Thee and love Thee, yet dared to injure and hate._
_Naught save being born again, nothing but a miracle of grace, can
ever be to us forgiveness. Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, and
take not Thy Holy Spirit from us. Amen._--W. E. Orchard.
Fourth Week, Fourth Day
Of all perversions of faith none is more fatal than the substitution
of opinions about God for integrity of character and usefulness of
life. With what scathing vehemence does James, as Dr. Moffatt renders
him, attack this travesty on faith.
="My brothers, what is the use of anyone declaring he has faith, if
he has no deeds to show? Can his faith save him? Suppose some brother
or sister is ill-clad and short of daily food; if any of you says to
them, 'Depart in peace! Get warm, get food,' without supplying their
bodily needs, what use is that? So faith, unless it has deeds, is
dead in itself. Someone will object, 'And you claim to have faith!'
Yes, and I claim to have deeds as well; you show me your faith
without any deeds, and I will show you by my deeds what faith is! You
believe in one God? Well and good. So do the devils, and they
shudder. But will you understand, you senseless fellow, that faith
without deeds is dead? When our father Abraham offered his son Isaac
on the altar, was he not justified by what he did?"--James 2:14-21.=
An American business man not long dead, who hated any word from the
pulpit about social righteousness, used to complain: "Preachers are
talking so everlastingly about this earth. I've done my best to get
them to stick to the Gospel, and not allow 'worldliness' to get into
the teachings of the Church; but the good old preachers have gone to
glory." Yet this pious zealot helped wreck the finances of a great
railroad system, and with part of the proceeds built a theological
seminary. _There was no vital, intelligent connection between his
faith in God and his ideals of character and service._ One verse
should be made to flame in Christian pulpits: "If any provideth not
for his own, and specially his own household, he hath denied the faith
and is worse than an unbeliever" (I Tim. 5:8). Domestic fidelity is
here only typical of all basic moral obligations. What this verse says
in principle is clear: theoretical unbelief is not the worst sin in
God's sight; any man who fails in the fundamental duties of rectitude
and service has thereby denied the faith and is worse than an atheist.
_O thou holy One and just! if alone the pure in heart can see thee,
truly we must stand afar off, and not so much as lift up our eyes
unto heaven. Were it not that thou hast help and pity for the
contrite spirit, we could only cry, "Depart from us, we are sinful
men, O Lord!" For idle words, for proud thoughts and unloving deeds;
for wasted moments and reluctant duties, and too eager rest; for the
wandering desire, the vain fancy, the scornful doubt, the untrustful
care; for impatient murmurs, and unruly passions, and the hardness of
a worldly heart; thou, Lord, canst call us unto judgment, and we have
naught to answer thee. But, O thou Judge of men, thou art witness
that we do not love our guilty ways; make our conscience true and
tender that we may duly hate them, and refuse them any peace as
enemies to thee. Stir up within us a great and effectual repentance
that we may redeem the time which we have lost, and in the hours that
remain may do the work of many days. Thou knowest all our secret
snares; drive from us every root of bitterness: with thy severity
pluck out, O Lord, the thorns of sin from our entangled souls, and
bind them as a crown of contrition around our bleeding brows; and
having made our peace with thee may we henceforth watch and pray that
we enter not again into temptation, but bear our cross with patience
to the close. Amen._--James Martineau.
Fourth Week, Fifth Day
Some of the most lamentable perversions of religious faith arise from
inadequate ideas of God. Consider, for example, the way Manasseh
thought that the Divine ought to be worshiped.
=For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had
destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as
did Ahab king of Israel, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and
served them. And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, whereof
Jehovah said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he built altars
for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jehovah.
And he made his son to pass through the fire, and practised augury,
and used enchantments, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits,
and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of Jehovah, to
provoke him to anger.--II Kings 21:3-6.=
Then compare the thought of the Master on the same subject.
=But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek
to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him
must worship in spirit and truth.--John 4:23, 24.=
There is no reason to suppose that Manasseh was insincere; he is one
of an innumerable company in whom the religious motive has been
harnessed to warped and ignorant ideas of God. Religious faith, like
any other tremendous power, is terrific in evil consequences when it
goes wrong. Men, under its subtle and prevailing influence, have waged
bloody wars, worshiped with licentious rituals, carried on pitiless
persecutions, and in bigotry, cruelty, and deceit have grown worse
than they would have been with no religion whatsoever. And men, in its
inspiring light, have launched missionary movements, founded great
philanthropies, built schools, hospitals, orphanages, and in
sacrifice, courageous service, and hope of human brotherhood have made
man's history glorious. Religion needs intelligence to save it from
becoming a ruinous curse; like all power of the first magnitude it is
a disaster if ignorantly used. Since religious faith will always be a
major human motive, under what obligations are we to save it from
perversion and to keep it clean and right!
_Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we are most unworthy to be called
Thy children; for when light and darkness have been set before us, we
have often chosen darkness rather than light. Conscious that within
us are the elements of a nobler and a meaner life, we have yet given
way to the meaner appetites, and have not obeyed the inspiration Thou
hast kindled within us. We entreat Thee now of Thy grace to call us
back from the ways of temptation and sin into that higher life which
Thou dost breathe upon us, and which is manifested in Jesus Christ
our Lord. Give us the self-knowledge, the humility, the repentance,
the aspiration which draw us to the Cross of Christ, that worshiping
there in lowliness, we may see the weakness of falsehood and the
strength of truth, the exceeding sinfulness of selfishness, and the
beauty of love and sacrifice._
_O Thou whose secret is with them that fear Thee, inspire us with
that loyalty of soul, that willingness to do Thy will to which all
things are clear. Darkness, we know, cometh upon the proud and
disobedient; confusion is ever attendant upon self-will; while to the
humble, the earnest, and the pure-minded, the way of duty and
spiritual health is made clear. O Spirit of the Eternal, subdue
within us all pride, all vainglory, all self-seeking, and bring every
thought and every desire into obedience to the law of Christ our
Lord._
_Almighty Father, to Thee would we consecrate these earthly days from
infancy to age. Thee would we remember in childhood and youth. Thee
would we serve in all the relations and activities of middle age.
Thee would we teach our children to love and serve. Be Thou our stay
and hope when health and strength shall fail. And when we are
summoned hence, do Thou, O Life of our life, illumine the mystery of
the invisible world with Thy presence and love. We ask these
blessings in the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--John Hunter.
Fourth Week, Sixth Day
The perversions of religious faith, working pitiable instead of
benevolent consequences, are often seen on mission fields. Consider
Paul's address in Athens:
=And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said,=
=Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are very
religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your
worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN
GOD. What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto
you. The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being
Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything,
seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and
he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the
earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of
their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel
after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: for
in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your
own poets have said,=
=For we are also his offspring.=
=--Acts 17:22-28.=
Paul did not need to plead for religion with the Athenians; they were
already "very religious." Only religion was not doing for them what it
ought; it was a power used "in ignorance"; and Paul, valuing all that
was good there, quoting their own poets with appreciation,
nevertheless longed to take their strong religious motives and so
clarify and direct them that faith might mean unqualified benediction.
Is not this always the right missionary method? The people of India
are intensely religious; no tribe in Africa lacks its gods; and
everywhere the faith-motive is immensely powerful. But often it makes
mothers drown their babies in sacred rivers, it consecrates caste
systems as holy things, it centers man's adoration around unworthy
objects, its powers, gone wrong, are a curse and not a blessing. If in
Jesus Christ religious faith has come to us, through no merit of our
own, as an unspeakable benediction, ought we not, humbly, without
dogmatism or intolerance, and yet with passionate earnestness, to
share our best with all the world? Religious faith may either depress
or lift a people's life; it is forever doing one or the other in every
nation under heaven; and _there is no hope for the world until this
master-motive is lifting everywhere_.
_Almighty God, our Father in heaven, who hast so greatly loved the
world that Thou hast given Thine only-begotten Son, the Redeemer,
communicate Thy love to the hearts of all believers, and revive Thy
Church to preach the Gospel to every creature._
_O Thou who rulest by Thy providence over land and sea, defend and
guide and bless the messengers of Christ; in danger be their shield,
in darkness be their hope; enrich their word and work with wisdom,
joy, and power, and let them gather souls for Thee in far fields
white unto the harvest._
_O Thou who by Thy Holy Spirit workest wonders in secret, open the
eyes that dimly look for light to see the day-star in Christ; open
the minds that seek the unknown God to know their Heavenly Father in
Christ; open the hearts that hunger for righteousness to find eternal
peace in Christ. Deliver the poor prisoners of ignorance and captives
of idolatry, break down the bars of error, and dispel the shadows of
the ancient night; lift up the gates, and let the King of glory and
the Prince of Peace come in._
_Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom! Strengthen Thy
servants to pray and labor and wait for its appearing; forgive our
little faith and the weakness of our endeavor; hasten the day when
all nations shall be at peace in Thee, and every land and every heart
throughout the world shall bless the name of the Lord Jesus, to the
glory of God the Father. Amen._--Henry van Dyke.
Fourth Week, Seventh Day
The sad perversions of religious faith are not a matter for foreign
missions only. At home, too, we find people who seem to be rather
worse than better because they are religious. Just as power in any
other form may be abused, so may religious faith. Some in the name of
religion become censorious and intolerant, some superstitious, some
slaves to morbid fears; and ignorance, self-conceit, pride, and
worldly ambition when driven and enforced by a religious motive are
infinitely worse than they would have been without it. Toward this
fact two attitudes are possible. One is to throw over religion on
account of its abuses; which is as reasonable as to deny all the
blessings of electricity because in ignorant hands it is a dangerous
power. The other is to take religious faith more seriously than ever,
to see how great a force for weal or woe it always is in human life,
and to strive in ourselves and in others for a high, intelligent, and
worthy understanding and use of it. For religion can mean what Amiel
said of it: "There is but one thing needful--to possess God. Religion
is not a method: it is a life--a higher and supernatural life,
mystical in its root and practical in its fruits; a communion with
God, a calm and deep enthusiasm, a love which radiates, a force which
acts, a happiness which overflows." From our study of the perversions
and travesties of faith, we turn therefore in the weekly comment to
consider faith's vital meanings. So Paul, writing to the Galatians,
rejoices in religion as a gloriously transforming power in life.
=But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of
the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that
ye may not do the things that ye would. But if ye are led by the
Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions,
divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like;
of which I forewarn you even as I did forewarn you, that they who
practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is
no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
with the passions and the lusts thereof.--Gal. 5:16-23.=
_Thou, O God, hast exalted us so that no longer we walk with prone
head among the animals that perish. Thou hast ordained us as Thine
own children, and hast planted within us that spiritual life which
ever seeks, as the flame, to rise upward and mingle with Thee. Every
exaltation, every pure sentiment, all urgency of true affection, and
all yearning after things higher and nobler, are testimonies of the
divinity that is in us. These are the threads by which Thou art
drawing us away from sense, away from the earth, away from things
coarse and unspiritual, and toward the ineffable. We rejoice that we
have in us the witness of the Spirit, the indwelling of God. For,
although we are temples defiled, though we are unworthy of such a
Guest, and though we perpetually grieve Thee, and drive Thee from us,
so that Thou canst not do the mighty work that Thou wouldst within
us, yet we rejoice to believe that Thou dost linger near us. Even
upon the outside, Thou standest knocking at the door until Thy locks
are wet with the night dews, and dost persuade us with the
everlasting importunity of love, and draw us upward, whether with or
without our own knowledge. Thou art evermore striving to imbue us
with Thyself, and to give us that divine nature which shall triumph
over time and sense and matter; and we pray that we may have an
enlightened understanding of this Thy work in us and upon us, and
work together with Thee. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher.
COMMENT FOR THE WEEK
One might be tempted by the last chapter to suppose that, if he could
accept the proposition that God is personal, he would be well upon his
way toward Christianity. But in theory at least Plato accepted this
proposition four hundred years before Christ, when he said: "God is
never in any way unrighteous--He is perfect righteousness; and he of
us who is most righteous is most like Him." He, too, used personality
as a symbol of God. When, however, one compares Plato with Jesus, how
incalculably greater is the religious meaning of our Lord! There is
something more in the Master's experience and thought than the belief
that God is personal. Evidently our quest must be followed further
than the last chapter carried us.
In Scripture two kinds of faith in the personal God are clearly
indicated. On the one side stand verses such as this: "Thou believest
that God is one; thou doest well; the demons also believe and shudder"
(James 2:19). On the other, one finds through both the Testaments
witness and appeal for a kind of faith that plainly differs from the
first: "O my God, in thee have I trusted" (Psalm 25:2). It is not
difficult to guess the terms in which many would describe this
difference. In the first, so the familiar explanation runs, we are
dealing with the _mind's_ faith in God; the man's intellect
assents to the belief that God is and that He is one. In the second we
are dealing with the _heart's_ faith in God; the whole man is
here involved in an adoring trust that finds in reliance upon God
life's stimulus and joy.
This distinction between the faith of the intellect and of the heart
is valid, but it does not go to the pith of the truth. When a
professor in the class-room, discussing conflicting theories of life's
origin, concludes that theism is the reasonable interpretation of the
universe, the listener understands that the lecturer believes in God's
existence. But if the professor could be followed home and overheard
in a private prayer, like Fénelon's: "Lord, I know not what I ought to
ask of Thee; Thou only knowest what I need; Thou lovest me better than
I know how to love myself. O Father! give to Thy child that which he
himself knows not how to ask," something incalculably more than the
classroom talk disclosed would be revealed about the meaning of the
teacher's faith. And as the classroom lecture and the private prayer
stand so contrasted, the gist of the difference is plain. In the one,
faith was directed toward a _theory_; in the other faith laid hold
upon a _Person_. That the intellect was more involved in the first and
the emotions in the second is incidental to the main matter, that _two
differing objects were in view_. Toward these two objects we
continually are exercising faith--_ideas and people, propositions and
persons_.
Now faith in a proposition we conveniently may call belief; and faith
in a person, trust. We believe that gravitation and the conservation
of energy universally apply, that democracy will prove better than
absolutism, and that prison systems can be radically reformed; these
and innumerable other propositions that cannot be demonstrated we
confidently believe. But in quite another way we daily are exercising
faith; _we have faith in our friends_. How profound a change
comes over the quality and value of faith when it thus finds its
objective in a person! Our beliefs in propositions are of basic import
and without them we could not well exist, but it is by trust in
persons that we live indeed. Belief in monogamy, for all its
importance, is a cold abstraction, and few could be found to die for
it. Men do not lay down their lives for abstract theories, any more
than they would suffer martyrdom, as Chesterton remarked, for the
Meridian of Greenwich. But when monogamy is translated from theory
into personal experience, when belief in the idea becomes trust in a
life-long comrade of whom one may sing:
"What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes,"
faith has taken a form for which men do live and die in glad
surrender. Although the same word, faith, be applied to both, trust in
persons reaches deeper than belief in propositions and supplies a
warmth and power that belief cannot attain.
In religion these two aspects of faith continually are found and both
are indispensable. Trust in a person, for example, presupposes belief
in his existence and fidelity. "He that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him"
(Heb. 11:6). Trust cannot exist without belief, but when one seeks the
inner glory of the religious life that has overflowed in prayer and
hymn, supplied motive for service and power for character, he finds it
not in belief, but in the vital relationships involved in trusting a
Person. Men often have discussed their particular beliefs with cool
deliberation, have stated them in formal creeds, have changed them
with access of new knowledge and experience. But _trust_, the
inner reliance of the soul on God and glad self-surrender to his will,
has persisted through many changes, clothing itself with beliefs like
garments and casting them aside when old. Trust has made rituals and
churches and unmade them when they were ineffectual, it has been the
life behind the theory, the experience behind the explanation; and its
proper voice has been not creed and controversy, but psalm and song
and sacrifice. Men have felt in describing this inward friendship that
their best words were but the "vocal gestures of the dumb," able to
indicate but unable to express their thoughts. _For while belief is
theology, trust is religion._
II
This central position of trust in the Christian life is evident when
one considers that in its presence or absence lies the chief point of
difference between a religious and an irreligious man. The peculiarity
of religion is not that it has beliefs; everybody has them. As we have
seen, Huxley, who called himself an agnostic, said that he thoroughly
believed the universe to be rational, than which only a few greater
ventures of faith can be imagined. A man may not want to have beliefs.
He may say that knowledge is wool, warm to clothe oneself withal, that
belief is cotton, and that he will not mingle them. But for all that
he still does have beliefs and he cannot help it.
When, therefore, a Christian and an atheist converse they can match
belief with belief. "I believe," says one, "in God the Father"; and "I
believe," says the other, "in the eternal physical universe, without
spiritual origin or moral purpose." Says the Christian, "I believe in
the immortality of persons," and the atheist replies, "I believe that
the spirit dies with the body as sound ceases when the bell's swinging
iron grows still." Says the Christian, "I believe in the ultimate
triumph of righteousness"; and the atheist replies, "I believe that
all man's aspiration after good is but the endless sailing of a ship
that never shall arrive." So the two may play battledore and
shuttlecock, but if, so having paired beliefs, they part with no more
said, they have missed the real point of their difference. The
irreligious man can match the Christian's belief with his own, but one
thing he cannot match--the Christian's trust. _He has nothing that
remotely corresponds with that._
The Christian always has this case to plead with an unbelieving man:
Do not suppose that the difference between us is exhausted in a
conflict of contrasting propositions. Great indeed is the divergence
there! But the issue of all such difference lies in another realm.
When you face life's abysmal mysteries that your eyes can no more
pierce than mine, you have no one to trust. When misfortunes fall that
send men to their graves, as Sydney Smith said, with souls scarred
like a soldier's body, you have no one to trust. When you face the
last mystery of all and whether going say farewell to those who stay,
or staying bid farewell to those who go, you have no one to trust. You
can match my belief with your belief, but for one thing you have no
counterpart. "Jehovah is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1).
You cannot match that! "My heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped"
(Psalm 28:7). You cannot match that! "Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25); "We have our hope set on the living
God" (I Tim. 4:10); "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke
23:46). That trust you cannot match!
III
In the light of this distinction between belief and trust some
mistaken types of faith can be easily described. There, for example,
is the _faith of formal creedalism_. We cannot have trust without
some belief, but we may unhappily have belief without any trust. Now a
man who believes the doctrines that underly the Christian life but who
does not vitally trust the Person whom those doctrines present, has
missed the heart out of faith's meaning. He is like one who cherishes
a letter of introduction to a great personality, but has never used
it; he has the formal credentials, but not the transforming
experience. It follows that we cannot estimate a man merely by knowing
his beliefs. I believe in all the Christian truths, says one; and the
curious question rises, how did these beliefs of his come into his
possession? They may have been handed to him by his forbears like a
set of family jewels, a static and external heritage, which now he
keeps in some ecclesiastical safe-deposit vault and on state days, at
Christmas or at Easter, goes to see. Still he may claim that they are
his beliefs; he may even quarrel about their genuineness, not because
he ever uses them but because they are his. He may repeat the creed
with the same unquestioning assent that he gives to the conventional
cut of his clothes. His beliefs are not the natural utterance and
explanation of his inner life with God and man, but are put on as they
were handed to him, like the fashions of his coats. So easy is it to
be formally orthodox!
Over against such conventional believers one thinks of other folk whom
he has known. They have no such stereotyped, clear-cut beliefs. They
are very puzzled about life. It seems to them abysmally mysterious.
And when they speak they talk with a modesty the formal creedalist has
never felt: My beliefs are most uncertain. Confused by many voices
shouting conflicting opinions about truths which I once accepted
without thinking, I cannot easily define my thoughts. But I do trust
God. That assent of the mind which I cannot give to propositions, I
can give to him. Life is full of mystery, but I do not really think
that the mystery is darkness at its heart. My faith has yet its
standing ground in this, that the world's activities are not like the
convulsions of an epileptic, unconscious and purposeless. There is a
Mind behind the universe, and a good purpose in it.
"Yet in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good."
Say as one may that such an attitude is far from adequate, yet as
compared with the merely formal acceptance of inherited opinions how
incomparably superior its religious value is!
The people of placid, stiff beliefs are not the successors of the real
saints. When one reads George Matheson's books of devotion, for
example, or sings his hymn "O Love, that wilt not let me go," or
learns of his great work in his church in Edinburgh, one might suppose
that he never had a doubt. Yet listen to his own confession: "At one
time with a great thrill of horror, I found myself an absolute
atheist. After being ordained at Innellan, I believed nothing; neither
God nor immortality. I tendered my resignation to the Presbytery, but
to their honor they would not accept it, even though an Highland
Presbytery. They said I was a young man and would change. I have
changed." One need only read such books of his as "Can the Old Faith
Live with the New?" to see through what a searching discipline of
strenuous thought he passed in the regaining of his faith. But if one
would know what held his religious life secure while he was working
out his beliefs from confusion to clarity, one must turn to Matheson's
poem:
"Couldst thou love _Me_
When creeds are breaking--
Old landmarks shaking
With wind and sea?
Couldst thou refrain the earth from quaking
And rest thy heart on _Me_?"
Many a man has been held fast by his trust in God while in perplexity
he thought out his beliefs about God.
Indeed, within the Scripture, whatever word is used to describe the
attitude of faith, this vital personal alliance with God is everywhere
intended. For convenience we have called faith in propositions belief,
but that does not mean that when the Scriptures use "believe" they are
urging the acceptance of propositions. Not often in the Bible are we
invited merely to agree with an opinion; we are everywhere called to
trust a Person. "Trust in the Lord" in the Old Testament, "Believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ" in the New, are neither of them the
proclamation of a theory, but the exaltation of a personality.
Wherever in Scripture doctrines are insisted on--the unity of God,
the deathlessness of the spirit, the divinity of Christ--they are
never doctrines for their own sakes; _they are either commendatory
truths about a Friend, that we may not fail to trust him, or they are
ideas about life that have come to men because they did trust him_.
_Trust in a Person is either the source or the goal of every Christian
doctrine._ The Gospel at its center is not a series of propositions,
but a concrete, personal relationship opened between the soul and the
Divine, out of which new powers, joys, possibilities flow gloriously
into human life. When out of this experience of divine fellowship
Paul, for example, speaks of faith he means by it the alliance that
binds him to his friend. He fairly sings of the peace that comes from
such believing (Rom. 15:13), of the love that is its motive power and
chief expression (Gal. 5:6), and of "the sacrifice and service" which
are its issue (Phil. 2:17). He enthusiastically commends to everyone
this divine alliance through which moral defeat is changed to victory
in the "righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3:9); and his
prose slips over into poetry when he describes his new transfigured
life as "access by faith into that grace wherein we stand" (Rom. 5:2).
Plainly he is not talking here about a set of propositions; he is
rejoicing in a transforming personal relationship. Some faith is
nothing but an inherited set of opinions and it gives a cold light
like an incandescent bulb; some faith, like sunshine, is brighter for
seeing than any incandescence can ever be, but warm too, so that under
its persuasive touch new worlds of life spring into being. The faith
of the New Testament and of the real saints is not the cold brilliance
of a creed in whose presence one can freeze even while he sees; it is
the warm, life-giving sunshine of a trust in God that makes all
gracious things grow, and puts peace and joy, hope and love into life.
Belief in propositions is there, but the crown and glory of it are
trust in a Person.
IV
In the light of this distinction between belief and trust, the
inadequacy of another type of faith can easily be understood. Many
would protest that they have not accepted their beliefs as an external
heritage from the past, but rather have thought them through, and hold
them now as _reasonable theories to explain the facts of the spiritual
life_. They would say that as a geologist observes the rocks and
constructs an hypothesis to account for their origin and nature, so
the mind, observing man's contacts with invisible powers, constructs
religious beliefs as explanations of experience. They would insist
that their theology is not merely traditional, but in large degree is
independently appropriated and original. They hold it as an hypothesis
to make intelligible man's experiences of the spiritual world.
There is significant truth in this view of faith. Man's ideals, his
loves, hopes, aspirations, his unescapable sense of moral obligation,
his consciousness of Someone other than himself, are facts, as solidly
present in experience as stars and mountains. To explain these facts
by theology is as rational as to explain the stars by astronomy. Every
believer in religious truth should welcome this confirming word from
Dr. Pritchett, written when he was President of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology: "Science is grounded in faith just as is
religion, and scientific truth, like religious truth, consists of
hypotheses, never wholly verified, that fit the facts more or less
closely."
But when one turns from such a statement to inquire what faith has
actually meant to religious men, he does not find that their
experience could easily be defined as belief in an hypothesis. The
prophets, standing their ground through national disaster,
undiscourageable in their conviction of God's good purpose for His
people, would have been surprised to hear their faith so described.
When the Sons of Thunder were swept out into a new life by the
influence of Jesus, or the seer of Patmos was ravished with visions of
eternal victory, or Paul was made conqueror in a fight for character
that had been his despair, they would hardly have spoken of their
experiences as belief in an hypothesis. Real religion has always meant
something more vital than holding a theory about life. When Robert
Louis Stevenson says of his transformation of character, "I came about
like a well-handled ship. There stood at the wheel that unknown
steersman whom we call God"; when Tolstoi cries: "To know God and to
live are one and the same thing"; when Professor William James, of
Harvard, writes of his consciousness of God, "It is most indefinite to
be sure and rather faint, and yet I know that if it should cease,
there would be a great hush, a great void in my life"; one sees what
conversion of character, what increase of life's value, what
spiritual reenforcement religion has meant even to such unconventional
believers. When they speak of it, they are evidently thinking of a
vital power and not a theory.
The most obscure Christian to whom religion has become a necessity in
living, knows how far short the plummet of hypothetical belief comes
from reaching bottom. In sin, burdened by a sense of guilt that he
could not shake off and unable to forgive himself, he has cried to be
forgiven, and the Gospel that has been his hope was no injunction to
hold hard by his hypothesis! In sorrow, when the blows have fallen
that either hallow or embitter life, he has sought for necessary
fortitude, and the Gospel which established him certainly was not,
Cast thy care on thine hypothesis! And when, more than conqueror, he
faces death, his confidence and hope will rest on no such prayer as
this, O Hypothesis, guide me! The word of religion is of another sort,
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for _Thou_ art with me." Not belief in propositions, but
trust in a Person has been the heart of the Gospel, and to make any
hypothesis, however true, do duty as religion is to give the soul a
stone when it asks for bread.
The futility of seeking contentment in faith as an hypothesis alone is
especially manifest in our time. This is an age of swiftly changing
ideas in every realm. As in science, so in religion, today one theory
holds the field to be displaced tomorrow by another. A man in
theology, as much as in politics or psychology, goes to bed supposing
he has settled his opinions, and wakes up to find a new array of
evidence that disturbs his confidence. When, therefore, religious
faith has meant no more to its possessor than theory, there is no
security or rest. Each day the winds of opinion shift and veer, and
minds at the beginning obstinate in their beliefs, at last, dismayed
by the reiterated uncertainties of thought, give up their faith.
Where, then, have the men of faith found the immovable center of their
confidence? Paul revealed the secret. On the side of his particular
opinions he frankly confessed his limited and uncertain knowledge.
"Now we know in fragments," he wrote, "now we see through a glass
darkly." "How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing
out!" But on the side of his trust he is adamant: "I know _him_ whom
I have believed." The certainty of his life was his relationship with
a person, and his beliefs were the best he yet had thought in the
explication and establishment of that trust.
The great believers of the Church continually have exhibited this dual
aspect of their faith. Even St. Augustine, facing the profound
mysteries involved in his trinitarian belief, complains that human
speech is pitiably futile in trying to explain what "Three persons"
means, and that if he uses the familiar phrase, he does so not because
he likes it, but because he may not be silent and knows no better
thing to say. But when Augustine prays to the God whose nature is so
unfathomable that no man can see it fully or express it adequately, he
reveals no such uncertain thought: "Grant me, even me, my dearest
Lord, to know Thee and love Thee and rejoice in Thee.... Let the love
of Thee grow every day more and more here, that it may be perfect
hereafter; that my joy may be great in itself and full in Thee. I
know, O God, that thou art a God of truth; O make good Thy gracious
promises to me!" So children do not fully understand an earthly father
and often hold conceptions grotesquely insufficient to do justice to
his life and work. But they may have for him well-founded trust. Even
in the years of infancy an ennobling personal relationship begins,
despite the inadequacy of their beliefs, and that trust yearly deepens
while mental concepts shift and change with access of new knowledge.
_The abiding core of a child's life with his father is not belief
but trust._
Such has always been the secret of faith's stability in men who have
entered into personal fellowship with God. Even of the first disciples
it has been said--"They would have had difficulty sometimes to tell
you _what_ they believed, but they could always have told you in
_whom_ they believed."
V
The truth of which we have been speaking has pertinent bearing on the
main object of our studies. We shall be considering the difficulties
which Christians have with their beliefs, and the arguments which may
clarify and establish our minds' confidence in God. But many problems
in the realm of intellectual belief cannot be solved by any arguments
which the mind devises. The trouble often lies not in our theories
about the religious life, but in our religious life itself. _The
deeper difficulty is not that our thinking is unreasonable, but that
our experience is unreal._
To a man who never had seen the stars or felt the wonder of their
distances, astronomy would be a lifeless topic and his endeavors to
think about it a blundering and futile operation. Our theories about
anything depend for their interest and worth upon the vividness with
which we experience the thing itself and care to understand its
meaning. This is true about matters like the stars; how much more true
about the intimate affairs of man's own life! Democracy vs. autocracy
is a crucial problem. But plenty of men are so careless about human
weal, think so little of their country and the world as objects of
solicitude and devotion, that to discuss in their presence democratic
and autocratic theories of state is a waste of time. The trouble is
not with their minds; they may be very clever and acute. The trouble
is with their lives. They need to experience patriotism as a vital
motive; they need to care immensely what happens to mankind. Only then
will the problems of government grow vivid, and the need of a solution
become so critical that thinking will be urgent and productive. We
never think well about anything for which we do not care.
Plenty of people today discuss theology as an academic pastime. It is
a speculative game at which they play, as they do at golf, for its fun
and lure. They do not really care about God; they feel no crucial need
of him. Of little use is all their ingenuity in argument, clever and
astute though it may be. Blind men might so discuss the color scheme
of an Italian landscape and deaf men debate the harmonies of Handel's
oratorios. What is lacking is experience. For our theories are only
the explanations of experience, and an emptier game cannot be played
than debating explanations of experiences which we have not had.
Everyone in difficulty with his faith should give due weight to this
important truth. Our intellectual troubles are not all caused by the
bankruptcy of our spiritual lives, but many of them are. Men live with
drained and unreplenished spirits, from which communion with God and
service of high causes have been crowded out. God grows unreal. The
self-evidencing experiences that maintain vital confidence in the
spiritual life grow dim and unimperative. Men pass years without
habitually thinking as though God really were, without making any
great decisions as though God's will were King, without engaging in
any sacrificial work that makes the thought of God a need and a
delight, without the companionship of great ideas or the sustenance of
prayer. Then, when experience is denuded of any sense of God's
reality, some intellectual doubt is suggested by books or friends, or
fearful trouble shatters happiness. What recourse is there in such a
case? The arguments of faith have no experience to get their grip
upon; they can appeal to no solid and sustained fact of living.
Religious confidence goes to pieces and men tell their friends that
modern philosophy has been too much for faith. But the underlying
difficulty was not philosophical; it was vital. The insolvency of
"belief" was due to the bankruptcy of "trust." Personal fellowship
with God failed first; the theory about him lapsed afterward.
Throughout our endeavor to deal with intellectual perplexity, this
fundamental truth should not be forgotten. _The peril of religion is
that vital experience shall be resolved into a formula of explanation,
and that men, grasping the formula, shall suppose themselves thereby
to possess the experience._ If one inquires what air is, the answer
will probably be a formula stating that oxygen and nitrogen mixed in
proportions of twenty-one to seventy-nine make air. But air in
experience is not a formula. Air is the elixir we breathe and live
thereby. Air is the magician who takes the words that our lips frame
and bears them from friend to friend in daily converse. Air is the
messenger who carries music to our ears and fragrance to our nostrils;
it is the whisperer among the trees in June, and in March the wild
dancer who shakes the bare branches for his castanets. Air is the
giant who piles the surf against the rocky shore, and the nurse who
fans the faces of the sick. One cannot put that into a formula. No
more can God be put into a theology, however true. They who define him
best may understand him least. God is the Unseen Friend, the Spiritual
Presence, who calls us in ideals, warns us in remorse, renews us with
his pardon, and comforts us with power. God is the Spirit of
Righteousness in human life, whose victories we see in every moral
gain, and allied with whom we have solid hopes of moral victory. God
is the One who holds indeed the far stars in his hand, and yet in
fellowship with whom each humblest son of man may find strength to do
and to endure with constancy and fortitude and deathless hope. And
when one lives close to him, so that the inner doors swing easily on
quiet hinges to let him in, he is the One who illumines life with a
radiance that human wills alone cannot attain. That is God--"Blessed
is the man that taketh refuge in him" (Psalm 34:8).