I will call no being
good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow
creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so
calling him, to hell I will go." [Footnote: An Examination of Sir
William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. VI.] It is clear that God is to
be obeyed only because He is good and his will right. Not the existence
of a will, but its goodness makes it authoritative. But how do we know
that it is good unless we have some deeper criterion to judge it by?
How do we know that God is not an arbitrary tyrant? The answer must
be that we judge the Christian teachings to be a revelation of God
because we know on other grounds what we mean by "right" and "good,"
and see that these teachings fit that conception. If the teachings
were coarse and low, no prodigies or miracles would suffice to attest
them as God-given; it would be superstition to obey them. Experience
alone can be judge; the experience of the beneficence of the Christian
ideal. The Way of Life that Christ taught verifies itself when tried;
that it is the supreme ideal for man is proved by the transfiguration
of life it effects. Christ and the Bible deserve our allegiance because
they are worthy of it; from them we can learn the secrets of man's
true welfare. Morality is, indeed, older than religion. It develops
to a certain point, and in some cases very highly, without the concept
of God. It has an and needs no supernatural prop.
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