The current objection to the Bible teaching on this subject is that no such
sacrifice could have been required by God, either because the Originating
Energy can have no consciousness of Personality and is only a blind force,
or because, if "God is Love," He could not demand such a sacrifice. On the
former hypothesis we are of course away from the Bible teaching altogether
and have nothing to do with it; but, as I have said elsewhere, the fact of
our own consciousness of personality can only be accounted for by the
existence, however hidden, of a corresponding quality in the Originating
Spirit. Therefore I will confine my remarks to the question how Love, as
the originating impulse of all creation, can demand such a sacrifice. And
to my mind the answer is that God does not demand it. It is Man who demands
it. It is the instinctive craving of the human soul for _certainty_ that
requires a demonstration so convincing as to leave no room for doubt of our
perfectly happy relation to the Supreme Spirit, and consequently to all
that flows from it, whether on the side of the visible or of the invisible.
When we grasp the fact that such a standpoint of certainty is the necessary
foundation for the building up in ourselves of the Divine Ideal then it
becomes clear that to afford us this firm basis is the greatest work that
the Spirit, in its relation to human personality, could do.
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