STUDY III. THE DISTINCTIVE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY. "He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? For from Israel is even this; the workman made it, and it is no God; yea, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces." (Hosea viii. 5, 6.) "For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse: because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened." (Rom. i. 20, 21.) PART 1. THE GOD OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS. In order to understand clearly the uniqueness of the Christian message it is necessary to set forth very briefly the message of the non-Christian faiths. It will be necessary to do full credit to these religions if we are to have a fair understanding of the supremacy of Christianity. Surely every religion has much of good in it, for it represents, in part at least, the striving of the Spirit of God with these people, as he has attempted to lead all men to himself. "The scientists," says Professor Knox, "may ignore the wisdom of Asia, but the Christian cannot ignore its faiths. He must consider their claim and compare them with his own." Perhaps we shall find that this comparison will be the greatest proof of the supremacy of Christ's gospel. As a religion is determined by its conception of God, let us first see what these non-Christian faiths have to say concerning this ultimate reality. Islam holds firmly to a personal and final person in the universe. Being, who is the divine "There is no God but God," is the battle cry of the Mohammedan. In the fact of a personal God, Islam is like unto Christianity, but in the characteristics of that God they stand far apart. Christianity believes in a God who is self-existent, has free will, but always acts in accordance with his own highest self. Islam, on the other hand, sets forth a God who is self-existent, has a free will, acts in entirely arbitrary fashion, without any regard for self-consistency. The Mohammedan God is therefore one without consistency, or, one may almost say, without real morality; for no person who is arbitrary can be completely moral. Of the ninety-nine names given to the God of Islam, there is none that denotes the idea of fatherhood or tender care. He is absolutely separate and distinct from the world and touches it only according to caprice, not according to any law of self-consistency. Such a God, supremely worthy in its conception of unity, which opposes all polytheism and destroys all idol worship, can hardly satisfy the longings of the human soul for fellowship with the divine. STUDY III. THE DISTINCTIVE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY. "And he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." (Acts xvii. 26-28.) PART 2. THE GOD OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS (Continued). TURNING from Mohammedanism to Hinduism, we immediately come into an entirely different realm of thought. Mohammed held to a God of distinct personality and complete unity. While the Hindu religion from time to time declares its God to be personal, it is a personality far different from anything we know. He is the sole essence and reality of the universe, the unity pervading all things. Beside him there is no other reality. "There is no second outside of him, no other distinct from him," is the set formula of the Hindu faith. This does not mean that there is no other God beside him; it means that there is no other reality beside him. There is in this conception the fundamental truth of the unity of life, the interrelatedness of all being; but there is the fundamental error of leaving out of account all human personality. If there is no other beside God, then I am a mere dream, a shadow, a delusion. This being so, it is made impossible for me to know that that is so; for my mind, which tells me it is so, is not real, has no existence. |