Week 2—Wednesday 2 Corinthians 3:4-6
Week 2—WEDNESDAY
PRINCIPLES INSTEAD OF A PERSON?
In Conversion, we mentioned Dr. Hocking, the philosopher, who said that as a philosopher he could not say, “The Word became flesh,” though he said that he saw it. There is a sequel to that. I mentioned the above story to his son, who is also a philosopher, at Emory University, and he replied, “That is interesting, for when someone asked my father what verse in the Scripture was the most precious to him, he replied, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.’ ” That is interesting, for one would have thought that the great philosopher would have chosen, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32, KJV), for that would have been down his philosophical alley; but no, he chooses this personal approach from the Unseen, this fact of God coming to us and knocking at the door of our hearts, the Word of Love made flesh. Dr. Hocking, the philosopher, could see this personal approach but could not say it; but Dr. Hocking, the person, sees it, loves it, and says it, and cherishes it as the most precious thing in Scripture and in his life. There is the difference between philosophy and real religion—one is cold, calculating, and uncommitted; the other is warm, uncalculating, and committed with a life committal.
That is where Dr. Q. Hobart Mowrer, Research Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois, was so right in his diagnosis of Freudianism—psychoanalysis—and so wrong when he switches to religion and says, “As long as different religious groups fasten upon personages, which are of necessity unique, they will remain apart; but when they begin to look at the principles which they have in common, reconciliation and union are by no means improbable.” He would take the principles of the Christian faith and push to the edges the Person. He would take the stream, but not the source; the rays of the sun, but not the sun.
O my Father, they want the impersonal but not the Personal. But it is you that my soul most deeply craves. I can take no halfway house and call it a home. You are my home, and nothing this side of you can ever satisfy the deepest cravings of my heart. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The personal is too big to be satisfied with the impersonal.