God, the Invisible KingWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Religion
God, the Invisible King
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
God (Christianity)
“The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time
is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of
that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general
social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic.
It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the
finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines
it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of
the claims of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice,
for these are elemental principles of social life; but it appeals
more confidently to the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered
children of the race, and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction
of suffering and the creation of happiness. The advance guard of the
race, the men and women in whom mental alertness is associated with fine
feeling, cry that they have reached Pisgah’s slope and in increasing
numbers men and women are pressing on to see if it be really the
Promised Land.”
“Pisgah--the Promised Land!” Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as if he
were half-way to “Oh! Beulah Land!” and the tambourine.
That “larger spirit,” we maintain, is God; those “impulses” are the
power of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but to
realise fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the Catholic
Church, and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be lured
back to that altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from that
preoccupation, and immediately he will begin to realise the presence of
Divinity.
3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY
It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set themselves
to express the good will that is in them, do shape out God, that
if their conception of right living falls in so completely with the
conception of God’s service as to be broadly identical, then indeed God,
like the ether of scientific speculation, is no more than a theory, no
more than an imaginative externalisation of man’s inherent good will.
Why trouble about God then? Is not the declaration of a good disposition
a sufficient evidence of salvation? What is the difference between such
benevolent unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those
who have found God?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account