The same reasoning and
canons of criticism which convince me that Christ was crucified
convince me at the same time that he was insufficiently crucified. I
can only accept his death and resurrection at the cost of rejecting
everything that I have been taught to hold most strongly. I can only
accept the so-called testimony in support of these alleged facts at
the cost of rejecting, or at any rate invalidating, all the testimony
on which I have based all comfortable assurance of any kind
whatsoever.
God and the Unknown
God is the unknown, and hence the nothing qua us. He is also the
ensemble of all we know, and hence the everything qua us. So that
the most absolute nothing and the most absolute everything are
extremes that meet (like all other extremes) in God.
Men think they mean by God something like what Raffaelle and Michael
Angelo have painted; unless this were so Raffaelle and Michael Angelo
would not have painted as they did. But to get at our truer thoughts
we should look at our less conscious and deliberate utterances. From
these it has been gathered that God is our expression for all forces
and powers which we do not understand, or with which we are
unfamiliar, and for the highest ideal of wisdom, goodness and power
which we can conceive, but for nothing else.
Thus God makes the grass grow because we do not understand how the
air and earth and water near a piece of grass are seized by the grass
and converted into more grass; but God does not mow the grass and
make hay of it.
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