FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  
ly bound up with hope of immortality for the being that is endowed with a moral and responsible nature. Faith in the absolute supremacy of the Moral Law is the first, but this again is not the last step upwards in Faith. We are called upon, and still by the same imperative voice within, to carry our Faith still further, and to believe something yet higher. For the supremacy of the Moral Law must be a moral, not merely a physical supremacy. In claiming supremacy at all the Moral Law does not assert that somehow by a happy accident, as it were, all things turn out at last in accordance with what is in the highest sense moral. The supremacy of the moral over the physical involves in its very nature an intention to be supreme. It is not the supremacy of justice, if justice is done as the blind result of the working of machinery, even if that be the machinery of the universe. In our very conception of a moral supremacy is involved the conception of an intended supremacy. And the Moral Law in its government of the world reveals itself as possessing the distinctive mark of personality, that is, a purpose and a will. And thus, as we ponder it, this Eternal Law is shown to be the very Eternal Himself, the Almighty God. There is a sense in which we cannot ascribe personality to the Unknown Absolute Being; for our personality is of necessity compassed with limitations, and from these limitations we find it impossible to separate our conception of a person. And it will ever remain true that our highest conceptions of God must fall altogether short of His true nature. When we speak of Him as infinite, we are but denying that He is restrained by limits of time and space as we are. When we speak of Him as absolute, we are but denying that He is subject to conditions as we are. So when we speak of Him as a person, we cannot but acknowledge that His personality far transcends our conceptions. But it still remains the truth that these descriptions of Him are the nearest that we can get, and that for all the moral purposes of life we can argue from these as if they were the full truth. If to deny personality to Him is to assimilate Him to a blind and dead rule, we cannot but repudiate such denial altogether. If to deny personality to Him is to assert His incomprehensibility, we are ready at once to acknowledge our weakness and incapacity. But we dare not let go the truth that the holiness, the justice, the goodness, the righteousness,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

supremacy

 

personality

 

conception

 

justice

 

nature

 
assert
 

absolute

 

person

 

altogether

 

highest


acknowledge
 

conceptions

 

physical

 

limitations

 

denying

 

Eternal

 

machinery

 
incapacity
 

goodness

 

compassed


necessity

 

righteousness

 

holiness

 

impossible

 

remain

 

weakness

 
separate
 
purposes
 

nearest

 
incomprehensibility

denial

 

repudiate

 

assimilate

 
descriptions
 

Absolute

 

subject

 

conditions

 

restrained

 
limits
 

remains


transcends

 

infinite

 

universe

 

higher

 

accident

 

claiming

 
imperative
 
immortality
 

endowed

 

responsible