We may with complete detachment study and form a judgement
upon a religion, but we cannot maintain our detachment if the
subject of our inquiry proves to be God Himself. This is, of
course, why many otherwise honest intellectual people will
construct a neat by-pass around the claim of Jesus to be God.
Being people of insight and imagination, they know perfectly
well that once to accept such a claim as fact would mean a
readjustment of their own purposes and values and affections
which they may have no wish to make. To call Jesus the
greatest Figure in History or the finest Moral Teacher the
world has ever seen commits no one to anything. But once to
allow the startled mind to accept as fact that this man is
really focused-God may commit anyone to anything! There is
every excuse for blundering in the dark, but in the light
there is no cover from reality. It is because we strongly
sense this, and not merely because we feel that the evidence is
ancient and scanty, that we shrink from committing ourselves to
such a far-reaching belief as that Jesus Christ was really God.
... J. B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small
<< >>
|