ESSAYS IN ORTHODOXY

By

Oliver Chase Quick

PREFATORY NOTE

In fairness to the reader it is well to state at the outset the limitations of the task which we are undertaking.  Apologetic is not our primary aim.  Our purpose is not to prove nor even to estimate the evidence for the Christian faith; rather it is to reach a clearer conception of its meaning and application to life.  We are trying, not to defend against attack, but to elucidate in face of misunderstanding.  In order to achieve this purpose it will be necessary to show that the affirmations of the Christian faith may be true, but not that they must be true, or even, except indirectly, that they are more probably true than not.

An illustration may serve to define the scope of our discussion.  If it be proved that the conditions obtaining on Mars are such that life cannot maintain itself there, we can no longer retain any clear conception of living creatures supposed to exist on Mars.  Our imagination indeed may still, in a sense, people the planet, diverting novels may still be written on the assumption that Mars is inhabited; but if we recognise that those inhabitants cannot be more than mere creatures of our fancy, we can no longer think of them at all as really existing on Mars, for in order to do so we should have to delude ourselves, so that they might appear to us to be more than merely fanciful.  If on the other hand the evidence as to the habitability of Mars is simply inconclusive, even though the balance of probability be on the negative side, we may still think of Martian creatures as real, and attach a definite meaning to our description of them.  If, therefore, a real meaning is to be attached to the Christian faith, it must be shown that it may be true, not necessarily that it is true.  Our discussions therefore will trench upon the sphere of apologetics, but only to the extent of showing the failure of attempts to prove that our faith is false.

Nevertheless this task is by no means so trivial as our illustration would seem to indicate.  For if we show that the Christian faith may be true, we have already gone much further towards establishing its truth, than we should go towards establishing the existence of life on Mars, merely by showing its possibility.  For in the case of Martian inhabitants we can be content to suspend our judgement.  The question does not very vitally concern the man in the street.  The answer to it, whatever it be, need not make any difference to the thoughts and actions of his daily life.  Far otherwise is it with the affirmations of the Christian faith.  If God exists as an Almighty and all-loving Creator and Father; then that fact has an immediate bearing upon every careless moment which a man spends or wastes.  He cannot afford to suspend his judgement, nay, he cannot really suspend his judgement at all, for every moment he must think and act either as though the Christian faith were true, or as though it were false.  The question about the existence of the Christian God is vitally and continually relevant, the

question about the existence of Mr. Wells’s Martians is not.  But we must observe that this vital relevance of God’s existence depends upon our attributing to that existence a definite character and meaning.  The existence of an Epicurean god, who does not interfere with the world, or of a Hegelian absolute, which cannot, is hardly more relevant to common life than the existence of a Martian.  This consideration is of the first importance and has too often been ignored.  Christian apologists have laid too much stress on “proofs” of God’s existence which leave His nature and character vague.  They have forgotten that if the Christian conception of God’s character can be made clear and credible, then the practical facts of life will inevitably force a decision as to its truth; and it is really not obscure which way the sinner who feels his need, and the saint who strives after goodness, will in the long run decide.  It is much more important to show that the Christian God may exist and what His existence means, than to show that some God does exist, while the meaning of that existence is still shrouded in obscurity.

There is much truth in Tolstoy’s contention, that for a man to argue about the existence of the Christian God is as though a drowning man should argue about the strength of a rope which is flung to him.  The drowning man sees what appears to be a rope, recognises the chance of safety which it offers, and snatches it, content to let the issue settle whether it is strong enough to bear his weight.  Similarly any human soul, which understands its own distress, if it apprehends the meaning of the gospel, will seize hold on it, content to let the issue settle whether it is true.  Our task is to show that the Christian faith offers to man’s soul what may prove to be a rope of salvation.  Perhaps the first task even of an apologetic writer should be rather to prove to man that he is drowning, than to prove that the rope must be strong enough to save him.  A man can and will settle this latter point for himself.  Possibly all that theory of any kind can ever do towards establishing the Christian faith is to make clear its meaning and its relevance; its verification must be left to experience.