You tell me that “worship is a tribute conceded to God alone.” But what
is God? The absolute God no one knows. Our most perfect conception of
Him is only a conception of a Mediator of some kind by which we approach
Him. To each man, that which he worships, and that alone, is God. I
worship Christ, therefore to me Christ is God. What will you say to
that? I suppose you will say “A non-miraculous Christ _ought not to be_
God to you”? Why not? How does He differ from your conception of God? Is
He less loving, less merciful, less just? “No,” you reply, “but He is
less powerful.” “How is He less powerful? Has He less power of pitying,
loving, forgiving, raising men from sin to righteousness? Is He less
powerful in the spiritual world?” “Perhaps not; but He is less powerful
in the material world. He never, according to your account, rose above,
never even for a moment suspended the laws of nature.” Indeed? And God,
the Maker of the world—did He ever rise above, or suspend the laws of
nature? When? “Well, He is said to have done so frequently in the
records of the Bible”. But many men deny that, and you yourself are
disposed to agree with them. “At all events He did so when He made the
world.”
Here at last we can come to an understanding. You look up to God as to
the Maker of the world, and are more ready to worship Him, as such, than
to worship a non-miraculous Christ. If by “the Maker of the world” you
mean—as I am quite sure many mean—“the Maker of the mere material forces
of Nature,” or even “the Maker of _all things apart from Christ_,” then
words fail me to express how entirely I differ from you. But let me try
to put your view into my own language, in order to shew you that I do
not condemn it without understanding it. “We cannot,” you say, “worship
a mere non-miraculous man, who did nothing but talk and lead a good
life, and perhaps perform a few acts of faith-healing, however
beneficial may have been his influence on posterity. The fact that,
after his death, visions of him were seen by excited and enthusiastic
followers, and in one case by an enemy of highly emotional tendencies,
cannot alter this decision. It is impossible to worship a being so
helpless, so limited, so aweless as this. What is such a creature in
comparison with the mysterious Maker of the stars or Ruler of the ocean?
Surely the sight of a storm at sea ought to suffice to turn any one from
the imaginary and self-deceiving worship of the merely human Jesus of
Nazareth to the worship of One whose greatness and glory and terror
surround us on every side with material witnesses, One in comparison
with whom no mere man may be mentioned.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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