Whether a man has or has not the necessary power of
mind to comprehend scientific reasoning is tested with comparative ease.
And if he have that power, the reasoning is certain in course of time to
be understood, and when it is understood it compels assent so long as it
keeps within its own proper domain. But the perception of spiritual
truth depends on a faculty whose power or weakness it is far more
difficult to test; and it involves the will which may be exerted on
either side. And for this reason men sometimes dismiss this truth as
being no more than an imagination, needed by some men to satisfy an
emotional nature, but having no substance that can be brought to an
external test. The believer in God knows that the truth which he holds
is as certain as the axioms of mathematics; but he cannot make others
know this whose spiritual faculty is not awake; and he is liable to be
asked for proof not of the spiritual but of the physical kind.
Now this much must be acknowledged, that we cannot but expect the claim
to supremacy over all things to show itself in some way in the creation
which has come from Him who makes that claim. It would, no doubt, be a
serious difficulty if things physical and things spiritual were cut off
from one another by an absolute gulf; if we were required to believe
that God had created and now ruled everything, and yet we could trace
not the slightest evidence of His hand either in the creation or in the
history of the world.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198