STUDY VI. A PERSONAL GOD.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.” (John iii. 16, 17.)

PART III. THE CHARACTER OF GOD.

If we are to have a God whom we can worship, his character must be self-consistent and good; otherwise he would be a monster whom we might fear, but whom we could never worship. No sooner do we come to consider this phase of God's nature than the problem of evil rises up to confuse us. If God is good, how does it happen that evil is prevalent and at times seems to be triumphant? If evil is separate from God and not amenable to God, then we have a dual universe, which science will not permit us to believe. If, on the other hand, God is supreme, how can we reconcile the continued existence of evil in the world with our conception of his benevolence? This is the age-long problem, which can never be completely solved, but which we can in a measure come to justify.

The purpose of life is training, as we shall show in a later chapter. But training in moral character can come only through overcoming obstacles and through moral choice. In a world where every obstacle was removed and in which one could not help doing the right there would be no real morality. Character could never be developed in such a place. "Tell me, now," says Browning, "what were the bond 'twixt man and man, dost judge, pain once abolished?" In his poem entitled "Rephan" Browning sets forth clearly that life without battles would be a dead calm where no character could be born. Life in such a place would be unbearable, and one would be glad to get to a world where struggle was and victory was possible.

"You divine the test.
When the trouble grew in my pregnant breast
A voice said: "So wouldst thou strive, not rest!

Burn and not smoulder, win by worth,
Not rest content with a wealth that's dearth?
Thou art past Rephan; thy place be earth!"

Instead, therefore, of its being impossible to reconcile a good God with a world of conflict, it would be impossible to conceive of God as good in a struggleless world; for a God who would shut me up to dead indifference would rob me of the chance of character and hence be immoral. We have no praise for the parent who so smooths the path of the child as to rob the child of all endeavor, for thereby he robs the child of character. Precisely this is the danger of all luxury and ease: it makes people soft and spineless. No good God will treat me thus. We cannot make God less benevolent than our standard for parenthood. It is easier to justify the existence of evil in the presence of a good God than it would be to believe in a good God in the absence of any chance for character.

Kant, in his critique of practical reason, said that there was an oughtness in the human soul, a sense of duty which gave meaning to all morality. "But," said Kant, "if this oughtness is not in harmony with the spirit of the universe, I am opposed to the universe and must be ground to powder." He felt it absolutely essential, therefore, to posit the goodness of the universal order. We must believe that God is good or else plunge into absolute pessimism, which denies all morality.

On the hypothesis of a God without goodness, man's goodness would be the highest and the best in existence. But we all know that man's goodness is very partial. If, therefore, God is not good, there is no final goodness, and the world is incomplete. There is failure written at the very heart of things. All my striving for right is a failure, because there is no final standard. All morality is a chaos, my own moral nature a misfit and a lie. Again, we are plunged into complete pessimism, which ends in a blind alley. This human nature cannot and will not accept.

While we may not escape the difficulty of this problem, we at least can rest sure of this, that a universe such as we have is far more reasonable on the hypothesis of a God who is good than on any other basis; and if we are to be really scientific, we will act on the most reasonable hypothesis. We can no more prove God than we can prove the existence of a substance called ether; but we must accept both in order to reconcile the facts of experience.

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STUDY VI. A PERSONAL GOD.

"For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law; for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified; (for when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them)." (Rom. ii. 12-15.)

PART IV. THE MEANING OF GOD TO DAILY LIFE.

Most men do not deny God. They simply fail to see that he has any meaning for their daily lives. To them God is a being far removed from the earth, who dwells apart from men. Christ, on the other hand, conceived of God as a Father deeply interested in his children and having daily contact with them.

If God is a Person, as we have seen there is reason to believe he is, then it is possible to have personal fellowship with him. In an earlier study we tried to show that Christian life is just this companionship with God and that this companionship is normal.

This at once dignifies all life. I measure myself and am measured by others on the basis of my companionships. Noble companionships dignify life. A student friend of mine was invited to ride with President Roosevelt in his private car across my friend's native State. The friends of this college man never ceased to talk about this honor done him. His life was at once dignified by his friendship with a strong personality. This is a weak illustration of what God does for us. By giving us access to his life he at once dignifies our persons; he makes us bigger and better men.

Again, this Christian conception of God as a Person gives basis for universal religion. If religion were initiation into an occult system of knowledge, as the systems of India declare, some men would be incapable of being religious. If religion were living according to set formula or creed, then no man could be religious until he knew that formula. Even

if religion were a specific type of emotional response, then some races and some individuals of every race might find themselves incapable of such emotional response and might be cut off from religious life. But since religion is fellowship with God and God is a Person, then all men of every grade of intelligence and of every temperament can enter this fellowship. The fact that we are personal means that we can enter into fellowship with persons. Hence religion is a universal possibility-indeed, broadly speaking, it is a universal fact. Jesus called men away from an external and formalistic religion to an inward and personal religion, a religion of personal fellowship.

This Christian conception of God as a Person further means that all men may receive from God help in their every hour of need. The greatest power in the world is not electricity or steam or any other form of physical force. No amount of physical force can change a man's disposition or his spirit or his attitude. Only personal influence can do this. The stronger the personality, the surer will be his influence upon us. Henry Drummond once said: "I become a part of every man I meet, and every man I meet becomes a part of me." There is no more certain fact of scientific research than this fact of the influence of one person upon another. If, therefore, God is a person and we will use these laws of personal association, we can have our lives transformed by his presence. To help us in our every need God does not have to dip into the universe, as it were, and change all the laws of nature.

If I can so strengthen the character of my friend that he can care for his own physical welfare, I have served him more really than if I had furnished food and clothes all his life. If God through direct contact with our souls can equip us to live, he has met the fundamental need of our lives. This God does and is doing day by day.

STUDY VI. A PERSONAL GOD.

"Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, except he reveal his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared; who will not fear? The Lord Jehovah hath spoken; who can but prophesy?" (Amos iii. 7, 8.)

"For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." (Matt. x. 20.)

PART V. CAN GOD SPEAK TO MEN?

BUT some object that we cannot come to know God. According to Herbert Spencer, God, as the Absolute, is unknown and unknowable. To think is to condition or limit objects; it is to set them over against what they are not. But to think the absolute or unconditioned would be to think the unthinkable. This was Mr. Spencer's contention, and there is considerable disposition on the part of some modern writers to take his attitude. Felix Adler seriously asks: "Can we form any conception of the kind of being capable of governing these tremendous forces, of overlooking this interminable wilderness of worlds? Can the analogy of human intelligence give the least clue to the nature of such a being?"" And yet in this very same chapter Adler gives a lot of clues to his nature when he says that “it tends to back up moral efforts" or that it is "a power outside ourselves which coöperates in the attainment of moral ends." "I believe that there is a higher Being, an ultimate divine Reality in things." He at least is saying that this Being has morality and effective will. That is something.

Mr. Spencer and his followers, down to and including the modern ethical culturist, say that we cannot know God and then proceed to describe him. We must not forget that all knowledge is relative. That is Mr. Spencer's contention. Thought about a thing delimits it by setting over against it what it is not; but we cannot think of the delimited object without at the same time thinking of that which limits it. We cannot think of the North Pole without at the same time setting it over against the South Pole, by which process we are of necessity forced to think of the South Pole. No man

1Adler, "The Religion of Duty," page 37.