God is His Own Interpreter, and He Will Make it Plain
Abstract
Religion, in its mystical, emotional or practical expression is, to me at any rate, of little value if divorced from intellectual integrity. I think that the reason “many believers” are so repulsive is that they don’t really have faith but a kind of false security. They operate by the slide rule, and the Church for them is not the body of Christ but the poor man’s insurance system. It’s never hard for them to believe because actually they never think about it. Unfortunately the reality is simply that it is not easy to get vast masses of men to think in advanced terms. To turn slowly away, step by step, from theologies which one has cherished, which were vital and are vital to friends past and present, to feel that these theologies are now but the skeletons of religion, this cannot be done without mental anguish. With all his “enlightenment” there are still times when modern man must long to hear even old Triton blow his wreathed horn or for the stately dogmatic mansion which the souls of the fathers built. Still, as a tortoise cannot dwell in the dry shell which its father shed but must grow a shell of its own—so must we!