Chapter 2

"Chapter 2 (The Creator and the Creature)


I.   In the studio of a sculptor a magnificent statue is standing. The famous artist has chiseled it out of pure white marble; the masterpiece is the object of universal admiration. We regard it as a matter of course that the sculptor has every right to do as he pleases with his work, and will only surrender this right to another for a very large sum of money. Yet it can scarily be said that he created the statue, since the form of it alone is the work of his hands, and not the marl out of which he fashioned it.
   Now, dear reader, look once more at the marvelous work of the universe, and all that it contains; look especially at man and tell me whether He who not only made all this, but created it out of nothing, whether God Almighty has not an absolute, unlimited, and immutable right of possession over it all? Must not, therefor, the whole of creation, and especially man, who is endowed with reason, serve and obey this God as the supreme Lord and Master of all, and do His will in all things?
   And it is this relation of dependence and subservience in which man stands to God which is termed religion.
II.   Religion (from religare, "to bind back, to bind fast") expresses the bond of piety by means of which God has drawn man to Himself, in order that we may were Him as our master, and obey Him as our father. Man must, indeed, serve God; that is, he must both do and suffer His will. But since man is endowed with free will, can he nor to whatever he likes? Most assuredly not! For his free will comes not from himself, but is the gift of God. And it is impossible that God can have endowed man with free will in order that he should do what he likes, but in order that he should do what he ought, and do it quite willingly of his own free will.
   All creation fulfills the purpose of its existence; the sun, the moon, and the stars revolve in their appointed orbits, not voluntarily, but in unswerving obedience to the laws of nature, with such mathematical regularity that astronomers can calculate their movements with perfect precision.  The animal world likewise, compelled by the law of instinct, fails not to fulfill the object for which it was created. Man, on the other hand, is so constituted that he ought to serve, honor, and worship God deliberately and of his own free will.
III. This consciousness, this conviction that he is bound to honor and worship God, is deeply and ineradicably implanted in the heart of every human being. Hence we find that in ancient times no nation was with our its own religion. It is impossible that this universal conviction of mankind can be a deception or a lie; it is, on the contrary, a plain proof that, to quote the word of a Christian writer of the early Church, "the soul is of its very nature religious."
   And indeed the most ancient books of Holy Scripture teach us that not only did Abraham and his descendants worship the true God, but that all nations with whom they came in contact had, and adored, their own deities.
   Both Greek and Roam historians tell a similar tale. Plutarch, for instance, expresses himself in the following terms: "If one were to wander over the whole world, one might find cities with our walls, with our literature, and without written laws, . . . but a city without temples and divinities no one has discovered as yet."
   In our own day research has been carried so far that scarcely any country has remained unexplored, or any nation unknown. And all honest explorers bear unanimous witness that just as it was of old, so also in modern times there is no nation which does not possess its own religion."

(Chapter two to be continued)