It is distrust in the goodness of God, I say again, which is the beginning of all unbelief. Gerald Eversley thought himself unfairly used by religion, and his reprisal lay in using religion with more unfairness.
The truth is that if God be good, if He be, as the Wisdom has it, a ‘lover of souls,’ then it is a natural presumption that He should anticipate the need of His children, by establishing an understanding or sympathy between Himself and them. Granted the goodness of God, inspiration and revelation, however understood, cease to be intrinsically difficult; they are natural, almost necessary. The one eternal paradox would be that God should care for men and should take no means to assure them of His care.
But a treasure is not the less a treasure because it is in earthen vessels. The human record of a divine revelation may be looked at either broadly or in detail. If it be scrutinised microscopically, many flaws, fissures, faults will come to light. The element of humanity is in all things the element of error. It is only in the inviolate works of God in Nature that the microscope reveals ever new wonders of beneficence and beauty. But religion can never depend upon disputed points of authorship and chronology. Truth is self-luminous; it matters not who discovers or describes it. Names, places, dates, are the accidents of a religion; they are not of its essence. We need no proof of the sun in heaven. We need no proof of the Divine Life on earth. He who lived that Life called Himself the Son of Man. That one who is mere man should call Himself the Son of Man, were arrogance. But that one who is higher than man, stooping for a time to human estate, should call Himself the Son of Man, is the perfectness of condescension. More it is not necessary to define. ‘If you do not ask me,’ says the philosopher, ‘I know.’
Gerald Eversley fell into the mistake of pressing details. It is the mistake of one who would contemn a hero for an error in dress. Revelation is not infallibility. Life is spontaneous, erratic; death is rigid, immaculate, complete in itself. God speaks by revelation; revelation is life.
Gerald Eversley argued himself into his own predetermined conviction. He did not believe in God, therefore he did not believe in revelation. He mistook his premiss for his conclusion.
He stood then in his thoughts face to face with Christ. We all stand so one day. The ages of history are as one vast columnar gallery, and at its head looms the one pathetic Divine Figure, saying to every individual soul of man, What thinkest thou of Me? It is the one eternal question, ever ancient, ever new; there is no other question in the world.
The life of Christ is unlike other lives. Its features are distinct and pre-eminent. All depends (though Gerald failed to see it) upon the way of looking at them.
It is possible to argue from miracle to Christ. Or it is possible to argue from Christ to the miracles. Gerald reasoned that miracles could not occur; therefore Christ did not work miracles; therefore He is not the Son of God.
But what means that phrase, The Son of God? Is it literal, sufficient truth? Is it not metaphor? and is not metaphor the sole expression of divine relations?
Sonship implies two things in the human conception of it—posteriority and inferiority; but no sooner does the Creed declare Him Son of God than it declares that He is neither posterior nor inferior to His Father, and yet it calls Him Son. It denies in one clause what it asserts in another. It is self-contradictory, but it is not therefore false.