ple faith in that
Word. For Satan raised a question about the Word,--"Yea, hath God
said?"--and thereby opened the way for incipient doubt, and then he
reasoned Eve into accepting a "common sense" interpretation of what God had
said, which proved to be an outright denial of His Word. And look at the
consequences--indescribably terrible--of rationalizing about God's Word
instead of believing it!

But rationalism did not stop there, for ever since that day all men without
exception have been natural-born rationalists. For it is perfectly natural
to all men to =rationalize= about God's Word, but it takes a miracle of
Divine power to make any one willing to =believe= it.

These two attitudes toward Scripture are forever irreconcilable. In the
nature of things, they can never be harmonized. The believer in the Word
and the rationalist take two utterly divergent paths that cannot possibly
reach the same goal.

The program of the rationalist is to arrive at an understanding of
spiritual truth over the pathway of reasoning that is apart from faith.
That of the believer is to arrive at it over the pathway of reasoning that
is founded on faith.

The program of the rationalist is to harmonize the Word of God with his
conclusions. That of the believer is to harmonize his conclusions with the
Word. The program of the rationalist is to become a critic of the Word and
sit in judgment on it. That of the believer is to let the Word become his
critic and sit in judgment on him.

These are certainly reasons enough why the believer and the rationalist can
never travel together. For the believer is walking by God's estimate of
him, while the rationalist is walking by his estimate of God, and these
paths go in opposite directions.

If you sit in judgment on some portion of God's Word and determine that it
is reasonable, and that since it commends itself to your judgment it is
therefore acceptable and you will believe it, =that= is not faith in the
=Word= but in =your own reason=. You have surrendered your =intellect= to
your own conclusions but your =heart= is far from God. Faith in the Word is
surrender to it without passing judgment on it.

And yet surrendering one's mind to one's own conclusions about God is
precisely the thing that passes for faith in God on the part of those who
have lost their old-fashioned, evangelical faith while they were in the
Schools, and yet come out with what they describe as a more intelligent and
rati