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 | God The Invisible King Ebook | |
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E-book Title: God The Invisible King
Author: Herbert George Wells
Book Description: PREFACE
This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious
belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it
is not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a
profound belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in
its statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for
the expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several
particulars opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be
sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is
well to prepare the prospective reader for statements that may jar
harshly against deeply rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him
at the outset that the departure from accepted beliefs is here no
vague scepticism, but a quite sharply defined objection to dogmas
very widely revered. Let the writer state the most probable
occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon which this book will
be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma of the Trinity.
The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, which forcibly
crystallised the controversies of two centuries and formulated the
creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are based, was
one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of all
religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations
which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only
disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief
possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for
what he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that
undignified gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or
propitiatory in this connection. He criticises the creeds
explicitly and frankly, because he believes it is particularly
necessary to clear them out of the way of those who are seeking
religious consolation at this present time of exceptional religious
need. He does little to conceal his indignation at the role played
by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing the
religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from
among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to
storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an
ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read
on at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a
believer, but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to
them more sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That
the writer cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is
declaring that there is a living God, different altogether from that
Triune God and nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book
is like that of a missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and
smash some Polynesian divinity of shark's teeth and painted wood and
mother-of-pearl. To the writer such elaborations as "begotten of
the Father before all worlds" are no better than intellectual
shark's teeth and oyster shells. His purpose, like the purpose of
that missionary, is not primarily to shock and insult; but he is
zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a reverence that
stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning and proceeds
with his matter.
His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only
incidentally and because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal
Christianity.
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