As one sets himself to meet faith's intellectual difficulties, the
attitude in which he is to approach the problem is all-important.
Samuel M. Crothers tells us that a young man once left with him a
manuscript for criticism, and remarked in passing, "It is only a
little bit of my work, and it will not take you long to look it over.
In fact it is only the first chapter in which I explain the Universe."
When one outgrows this cocksure presumption of youth and gains a
graver and more seasoned mind, he leaves behind the attempt to pierce
to creation's last secret. He sees that we can no more neatly and
finally demonstrate God than we can demonstrate any of life's
important faiths.
Moreover proof of God, as a theorem in philosophy, is not a deep human
need. Men often have supposed that they had such demonstration, but
human experience was little affected by the fact. The exhaustless
source of mankind's desire for assurance about God is not theoretical
curiosity but vital need, and until a man feels the need, sees how
urgently man's highest life reaches out toward God, he never will make
much of any arguments. Browning's bishop asks his friend:
"Like you this Christianity or not?
It may be false, but will you wish it true?
Has it your vote to be so if it can?"
Until a man gives an affirmative answer to that inquiry, until he
possesses a life that itself suggests God and wants him, he is not
likely to arrive anywhere by argument alone.
This is not the case with Christianity only. We cannot prove with
theoretical finality that monogamy is the form of family life to which
the universe is best adapted. But mankind, trying many experiments
with family life, has found in the monogamous family values unique and
indispensable. It is because men feel the value of such a love-bond,
that they begin to argue for it. And their argument, when one sees
deeply into it, is framed after this fashion: We know the _worth_
of this family-life of faithful lovers. We want monogamy and we
propose to have it. We do not pretend that our faith in monogamy, as
the form of marriage best fitted to this universe, is capable of exact
demonstration; but we do see arguments of great weight in favor of it
and we do not see any convincing arguments against it. We are
persuaded that our faith has reasonable right of way; and we propose
to go on believing in monogamy and practicing it and combating its
enemies, until we prove our case in the only way such cases ever can
be finally proved, by the issue of the matter in the end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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