What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern SoulSwain, Richard La Rue
Religion
What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern Soul
Swain, Richard La Rue
Christianity; God (Christianity)
Because of our newly acquired knowledge of the physical universe
multitudes, both without and within the Church, are asking _what_ God is
and _where_ He is that they may find Him.
The poverty of faith and confusion of ideas concerning God were recently
brought _to_ light by Professor Leuba in his questionnaire. Many seem to
think there is no place for God in their conception of the universe.
Having no longer a satisfying idea of God, the thought of Him is fading
from their minds. And while some rejoice in their scepticism, others
deeply regret a waning faith.
All this only proves that the world is over-ripe for a finer conception
of God and His universe; and that a better and more definite idea must
be obtained, or doubt will run into positive unbelief. Modern learning
is thought by many to be particularly hard on faith. Some of us,
however, have found the world of modern knowledge more congenial to
faith and much superior to the old unscientific world as a place in
which to live the simple Christian life. This better vision should be
given to the people with all possible speed. They should be taught to
see that as boulevards and steel bridges are superior to mud roads and
dangerous fords, so the new Christian highway is better than the old.
Nevertheless, new knowledge in certain directions does present grave
difficulties for those who retain crude conceptions of God and erroneous
views of His relation to the forces of nature that envelop us. Until we
do the work that our times demand of us, even Christians may not hope to
remain immune from the devastating influences of doubt. There is a deep
cry in the modern soul that must be met.
While our hope of knowing God rests on His immanence yet the idea of
immanence has not been sufficiently clarified to meet our practical
demands. If we continue to teach the beautiful doctrine that God is
everywhere, in the vague way that is now so prevalent, an ever
increasing number will surely come to believe that He is nowhere.
Lovingly and faithfully our mothers taught us that God was everywhere in
all majesty and power. But it was different. They believed that God had
a form, or nucleus, in heaven, and that His spirit radiated from this
form to the remotest particles of matter in the universe. They also
believed that when transported at death to His central abode they should
look with rapture upon His ineffable being. They expected to see the
glorious presence of the Father distinct from the glorified body of
Jesus. In their thought, the visible Jesus was literally on the right
hand of a visible Father. However, this conception of a visible and
localized God in heaven is either gone or going; and for the average
mind there remains a Deity, if any, as attenuated as stellar ether, and
scarcely more personal than the forces of nature. No one ever made a
more rational demand than the minister's wife when she asked for a
particular God to supplement a universal God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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