Читать книгу The Kernel and the Husk: Letters on Spiritual Christianity онлайн

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In the present letter I should like to confine myself to this subject, the culture, if I may so say, of Christian faith. Let me then ask you first to clear your mind by asking yourself what is the essence of the faith which you would desire to retain. It is (is it not?) a faith or trust in the fatherhood of God. This surely is the Gospel or Good News for which Christ lived and died, in order that He might breathe it into the hearts of men. “Fatherhood”—some of your young friends will exclaim—“What an antiquated notion! Flat anthropomorphism!” By “anthropomorphism” they mean a tendency to make God in human shape; just as Heine’s four-legged poetic Bruin makes God to be a great white Polar Bear, and the frogs of Celsus imagine Him to be a gigantic Frog. No doubt, this is very funny; but the decryers of anthropomorphism who venture on any conception of a God—are they any less funny? Do not they shew a similar disposition to make God in the shape of human works or human experiences? Shall I be exploring a nobler path of spiritual speculation if I say God is a Rock or a Buckler, or a Centre, or a Force, than if I say God is a Father in heaven? Ask your sceptical companions what conception of God they can mention which is not open to objection, and they will perhaps reply “An Eternal, or a Tendency, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.” Now to reply “an Eternal,” appears to me to be taking a rather mean and pedantical advantage of the uninflected peculiarities of English (and Hebrew), which leave it an open question whether you mean your “Eternal” to be masculine, or neuter. And “Tendency”—what is it? Is it not a “stretching,” or “pulling,” or partially neutralised force—a common human experience? Now we are dealing with the accusation of limiting our conception of God to our experiences as men. And, so far as this charge is concerned, what is the difference between calling God a “Tendency,” or a “Rock,” or a “Shield,” or a “House of Defence,” as the old Psalmist does? Are not all these names mere metaphors derived from human experience? In the same way to call God a Father is (no doubt) a metaphor: but is it more a metaphor than to call Him a Tendency?