Editorial September 9, 1911 Issue

A QUESTION OF AUTHORITY

John B. Willis

No thoughtful observer of common conversation can fail to note the well-nigh universal and often quite unconscious habit of dodging responsibility for statements, by prefacing them with "They say," or "It is reported." People who would shrink from the thought of misrepresenting anybody, not infrequently lend themselves to the purveyance of doubtful comments, as though it were not at all blameworthy so long as they do not definitely vouch for the verity of their questionable assertion. They become partners in an intentional wrong-doing, perchance, which they would despise did they but see it in its exact proportions and inherent meanness, and they thus contribute to that iniquitous "trade in tattle" which is so peculiarly discreditable to Christian profession.

This habit is vigorously taken in hand by the inspired writers, and one of the specific occasions for their condemnation of it is cited by Jeremiah when he voices the word of the Lord, saying: "Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord."

No doubt a false concept of the divine nature, that as "King of kings" God would pursue under given conditions that course with which men had been made familiar by wicked earthly rulers, rather than any spirit of deception, would account for the falsifying to which Jeremiah refers; but whether it be the result of ignorance or of well-meaning but presumptuous zeal, it is manifestly of vital importance that the Bible student recognize the fact. Failure to perceive the human element in the sacred writings has been a stone of stumbling in all the ages. It has led the many to think of the Scriptures as verbally inspired, and thus precipitated the endeavor upon the part of scholastic theology to show that, though infinitely just and good, God is responsible for laws and conditions which are condemned as cruel and unjust by every intelligent moral sense, and this explains no doubt the sad fact that many have rejected the Bible as an inspired book. Here as elsewhere the corrective significance of Christian Science to Christian belief is beyond all estimate or valuation.

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