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destroyed, but partially indulged. Wisdom and Love
may require many sacrifices of self to save us from sin.
One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to
pay the debt of sin. The atonement requires
constant self-immolation on the sinner's part. That
God's wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son, is
divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made. The
atonement is a hard problem in theology, but its scientific
explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense
which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering
will fall at the feet of everlasting Love.
(Doctrines and faith)
Rabbinical lore said: "He that taketh one doctrine,
firm in faith, has the Holy Ghost dwelling in him."
This preaching receives a strong rebuke in
the Scripture, "Faith without works is dead."
Faith, if it be mere belief, is as a pendulum swinging between
nothing and something, having no fixity. Faith,
advanced to spiritual understanding, is the evidence gained
from Spirit, which rebukes sin of every kind and establishes
the claims of God.
(Self-reliance and confidence)
In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith and the
words corresponding thereto have these two definitions,
trustfulness and trustworthiness. One
kind of faith trusts one's welfare to others.
Another kind of faith understands divine Love and how
to work out one's "own salvation, with fear and
trembling." "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!"
expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the
injunction, "Believe . . . and thou shalt be saved!"
demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes spiritual
understanding and confides all to God.
The Hebrew verb to believe means also to be firm or
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