THE ADOPTION OF BELIEF

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1948, 3 January 1914, Page 9

THE ADOPTION OF BELIEF

Preaching recently at (ho Kill's Weigh House Church' {England), tho Ilev. E. W. Lewis said that Mr. Bern-' arcl Shaw, in a. recent public lecture, hud described-, what ho : meant by." a - Christian. For one thing, according to Mr. Shaw, a Christian was -a inim who adopted the. doctrine of the. immanence of God. Now, surely, the adoption of this or that doetrino no more' made, a man a'Christian than the donning of a silk hat made him a gentleman. If ouo was simply, thcologising and. playing with ideas,- he supposed Hint one could ehooso this doctrine or that, just as a child chose one 'brick'' 'rather 'than another in building its toy-house. Ikt if 0110 was dealing with lii'o rather.than theology, one could not choose to adopt this doctrine or that, as one might accept one of several hypotheses in preferonce to the rest. All doctrines wore. . formulations of experience, and whoever it was that formulated th© doetrino of the inmiancneo of- God, .ho did so under the urgo of experience. It wasSiot a question of adopting. If a snail had had experience of God ho could not chooso deliberately to adopt some dcistic theory. He might as well put a trap-door on a volcano.

Another thing wliieli Mr. Bernard Shaw said was that; tho Christian Would go in for communism. But could a man decide whether or not lie Would ro in for communism ? In n way, Mr. Lewis supposed that lie could. Ho could sit in'his chair !>y the fire, and consider tho claims of communism oil tlio 0110 hand, and tho status quo wo found in England on tho othor, and wlien the mail with the. lalwls came round, this budding communist might tako.that one and pin .it on himself, lint in tho lifo of the world such clioiocs mattered little. They wcra practically insignificant, becauso thoro was 110 drive within thorn. Did a man chooso in such matters purely according to tho merits of tho case? Was tliore not always that which they called personal equation? They wcro surprised soiuetmios to find a_ man a Socialist when liv every tradition and association he should liavo hen an individualist, ft. was t.hfi personal conation.. Tho hist and weightiest .argument'was with tho heart. That mail went in for com- J munism bccaisso (lie wholes drive and! urea and visica of his bcinc were in J

that direction. Tho availing choice of communism lay in commune. But of that man it was loss into that he hati chosen communism than that it had chosen him,