The living word Author:Elwood Worcester Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I THE THREE MOTIVES OF FAITH IN GOD The chief assumption I shall make in this discussion is as to the spiritual nature of God, and I do not th... more »ink that this assumption needs any defense or apology. Of the two forms of existence under which reality reveals itself to man, spirit and matter, religion has always sought for God within the domain of the spirit, and has rejected with abhorrence the thought that God is a material object. Even fetichism does not adore the bare thing, but the invisible potent presence supposed to lurk within that thing. For religion the final word on this subject is the saying ascribed to Jesus in the fourth Gospel, "God is Spirit, and they that worshipHim must worship Him in spirit and in truth." By God, then, I understand theone eternal, all-comprehending Spirit within, above, or behind this universe. Our problem is not exactly how faith in such a Being arose, which would be a purely historical inquiry, but how faith in such a Being is justified, how it acquires its power over the human mind, and whether it is likely indefinitely to maintain itself in the face of the facts of modern life and knowledge. In other words, our problem is the roots and motives of faith in God. Faith we may define in the largest sense as the mind's acceptance of the truth and reality of those things which can neither be presented to the senses nor proved by logic. In this large significance, faith is one of the commonest things on earth. It is incredible how many things are believed in the world. But among these innumerable beliefs there is also a higher belief,—faith in the highest, greatest, last and deepest things,— faith in God and God's in providence, faith in the soul and in its eternal destiny. This higher and highest faith is notessentially different...« less