Under Thirty Page
CAN I BE A CHRISTIAN ?—VI
[The writer, whose age is 26, is an Oxford graduate, and a schoolmaster] y BELIEVE in Christianity because I accept its claim to I answer rightly the fundamental questions about human life, the meaning and purpose of the universe, the place of man in it, and consequently the way in which men must behave towards one another if they are not to violate the laws of their own nature. In other words, I believe in Christianity because I believe It to be true. A religion cannot be rightly judged by any standard except that of truth. This might seem a commonplace were it not that it is often suggested that Christianity should be accepted because it maintains a high ethical standard, because people find emotional satisfaction in it, or even because it is good for the lower-classes. There may be " much to recommend Christianity as a code of behaviour," as the first writer in this series said, but Christianity is not a code of behaviour. It is not a man-made philosophy of life. It is a religion, and its claim to be the revealed truth of God makes it im- possible for us to hold that it is only acceptable to those who like that sort of thing. If it is true, it claims the allegiance of all men ; if it is false it were better at the bottom of the sea.
But religion is concerned with assertions which admittedly are incapable of proof, such as the existence and nature of God, and our ability to know His will. In what sense, then, is it possible for me to believe in Christianity and yet demand that my religion stand the test of truth ? The fact is that while these assertions are incapable of strict logical proof, the questions to which they are answers cannot be left unsettled. How we ought to treat our fellow-men, for example, depends on our answer to the question : " What is man for ? Where does his good lie ? " But no answer that we may make to that question is capable of proof, and yet we must enter into relationships with other men here and now. By demanding of my religion that it satisfy truth, I mean at least that the answers-it gives to such questions shall not be repugnant to reason, but that I must be content with belief where knowledge is not possible.
Yet the Christian religion takes us much farther than this. Its central belief is that God, the Creator of the universe, exists ; that we can best understand His nature in terms of loving Fatherhood ; and that to bring this truth to men to turn them from the death into which their own wilfulness leads them, He, whose existence transcends space and time and all human categories, broke into history at a definite foment and revealed Himself in the life of a rman, Jesus of Nazareth.
The whole case for Christianity as a religion, the whole case for Christianity as a personal faith for myself, rests upon the historical figure of Jesus Christ. This is a second commonplace, but the historical basis of Christianity was not even mentioned by the writer of the first article, and is commonly ignored. But that is to treat Christianity as a " philosophy of life," a man-made theory, whereas its claim to be true rests ultimately upon the life of a man who lived as though it were true, in perfect certainty of God and His Fatherhood, of the hollowness of wealth and power and self- Importance, and of the supremacy of this faith over evil, disease and even death. Either Jesus was right and we must accept Him, or He was the most deluded man who ever set His fellow-creatures astray. As a Christian I believe Jesus was right and that the Resurrection set the seal of God upon His life. Here all argument ends. Each man must lace this Jesus for himself and answer His question : " Whom .,ay ye that I am ? " Is He God, fool or devil ?
I think that I share in some degree the experience of many Christians that our answer is somehow forced out of us against our will. We are afraid to call Him God because the consequences of real obedience are terrifying. His strength and purity, His love and gay serenity forbid us to call Him fool or devil. We try to ignore the question, but it pursues us. We find we must give an answer and that however hypocritical our lives may appear in consequence, however wide the gap between what we do and what we say we believe, we cannot in the end deny the claim of Jesus Christ to be the truth and to command our obedience.
The case for Christianity, therefore, rests wholly upon the life of Christ, and not at all upon the behaviour of Chris- tians. Their faults, the ineffectiveness of the Church— these are serious hindrances to the advance of the Gospel, but they are wholly irrelevant to the question of its truth. To believe in Christianity is to choose Christ as Master, " to bet your life," as Donald Hankey said, " that Christ is right."
This is to believe where proof is impossible. But it is not irrational. On the contrary, I find that as my own knowledge and experience grow, the truth of this faith is constantly vindicated. Every Christian could give at least some instances of what he calls the " working of the Holy Spirit," has seen or shared in some triumph of love and faith over hatred and suspicion. But it is not only in these spheres that Christianity is upheld—in what are often private and apparently trivial situations. All human history, I would venture to assert, is a commentary upon the truth of the Christian Gospel. The teaching of Jesus was not an idealist's dream ; it is the sober truth about the nature of God's Kingdom. He asserted the strength of what was outwardly weak and despised, that abundance of property does not constitute wealth, that disaster follows in the train of human selfishness, since God's laws cannot be broken with impunity. There has been no age and no nation in history which can claim to have had exemp- tion from these laws. The disintegration of social and political systems based on force and injustice is perhaps the clearest lesson of history. If Europe had known the meaning of forgiveness twenty years ago . . .
The recovery of faith in the God of Jesus is equally essential to the future maintenance of all that is valuable in our western civilisation. The cheerful optimism of liberal opinion, summed up in the belief in progress, was shattered by the Great War. The outrages upon human personality which have become so brutal a commonplace of certain continental regimes are not so surprising if we remember that no man- made faith can guarantee a faith in man. Humanism is not enough. Sooner or later it finds itself out. Similarly with the State. Christianity is the bulwark against both the licence of individualism and the tyranny of totalitarian States for the same reason, that it sees man against the eternal purpose of the love of God, and not as an isolated phenomenon who is entitled to do as he pleases or as a mere cog in a pur- poseless, selfish machine. To the question " Why shouldn't I ? " which so often heralds the subversion of morality, Christianity can reply, " Because God . . ." It takes a whole metaphysic to answer that question, as Plato knew when he set out to reply to Glaucon and Adeimantus. Christi- anity has in it the power to safeguard freedom ; and the Church may yet be found the champion of liberty in our age.
Or it may not. The tragedy which is the essence of man's life is epitomised in the events of Holy Week. The innocent is always slain with the guilty, men prefer darkness to light, falsehood to truth. But the Christian's faith is that God's purpose is not defeated. Whether in the next years the things that Jesus stood for are rejected or sought by men will not affect the sovereignty of God or the truth of Christianity any more than the Crucifixion destroyed the life of Christ.
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