The beliefs of unbelief: studies in the alternatives to faith
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| The beliefs of unbelief |
Excerpt
Time, in a word, is intolerant of hesitations. Life has to be lived. The swift, unresting moments throng past us, each one, in turn, complete probation; each one bringing with it a challenge that pierces the conscience and judges it.
At every instant, the sharp challenge of duty has to be met and answered. The ship, to vary the figure, is on the wide and restless sea, with its mysterious tides, brooding tempests, and far-off harbours. Sail we must! Some course must be chosen: some hand must be on the wheel — is on the wheel. Let us imagine a captain laying side by side the conflicting charts of Faith and Doubt.
He is undecided betwixt the two. He accepts neither. But that refusal to choose is itself a choice. To let the ship drift is a choice. The absence of a course is a course
! Doubt, it is somehow taken for granted, means only the refusal to decide. It is not an act, but the arrest of action. But in religion, that arrest of action is itself an act of the highest significance. It stops the train! It cancels out the most tremendous factors in the arithmetic of life. It thrusts aside, as though they were non-existent, obligations which, if they have any reality, are measureless.
It forbids the hand of Christ to touch the conscience. It puts God Himself in the category of forces it is safe to neglect. What decision could be more tremendous in scale than that "refusal to decide," which decides so much!
Contents::
Book I. God: The Christian faith.--The alternative to belief in God. Book II. The alternatives to belief in Christ: The Christian faith about Christ.--The alternatives to faith in Christ. Book III. The Bible: The Christian faith about the Bible.--The alternatives to Christian faith about the Bible
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