What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern Soul. Richard La Rue Swain
asked to relate my experience. This unexpected request shattered my beautiful world as completely as a hammer stroke would have shattered a piece of crystal. Such a stage fright seized me that I could neither move nor speak before they were compelled to go on with the service. This embarrassing experience sent me from the highest state of bliss to the deepest state of gloom. Peter's denial seemed trivial in comparison with mine; he had denied the Lord under trying circumstances, but I had denied Him while sitting in glory.
A little later, when the minister rose and stated that they would "open the doors of the Church" for any who desired to join, there ensued a terrible struggle within me. During the few minutes of exhortation that followed I seriously questioned my heart. I knew that candidates were expected to answer the question, "Have you found God in the pardon of your sins, and do you now have peace with God?" But being in a state of torment, how could I claim peace with God? Though my conversion still seemed like a miracle, yet never before had I been in such a humiliated or distressed state of mind. Before ever I tried to "get religion," I had plighted my soul and honor that I would follow God from that time forward. Even now I knew that I should follow Him, but how could I say that I had peace with God when my burden remained in spite of my earnest prayer to be forgiven? Had I in that act of denial become a "backslider," and was it necessary for me to be converted again? As a large percentage of the Christians present had been converted two or more times to my knowledge, a second conversion was not strange to me. Never doubting that I had been converted, and knowing why I was in despair, and believing that my suffering was wholly deserved, I dismissed the thought of a second conversion. "How can a person know beforehand," I reasoned, "that he will feel at peace with God at the moment the question is asked?" By "now" do they not mean something more general; to-night, for example? Deciding that there must be some latitude to the word "now" and that God would understand my honesty of purpose, I went forward and united with the Church. As I look back upon it, it still seems a most wise decision.
Though fully expecting to be happy again after joining the Church, yet my misery only increased. This was inevitable. I had identified religion with an abnormal psychic state. And such a state would not return without another terrific effort.
The next night, with an embarrassment that caused my cheeks to burn like fire, I rose before the scoffers and told them that God had converted me. Again I expected to feel happy. But, naturally, my sorrow only deepened as the abnormal state did not return. For the next two weeks I tried with all my original earnestness to get back my happiness; but without success. One day while in a valley far from any human being, where the woods covered the hill before me, I was looking up into the sky and still pleading with God to restore my happy state of mind. Then the thought occurred to me, "Where is God?" At that time I was so ignorant of the universe that I thought the earth had a ceiling, and that the ceiling of the earth was the floor of heaven. It seemed to be about three rifle shots away. I thought that if one could get through the ceiling of the earth he would be in heaven, and there would be God. As I stood there gazing into the sky my mind said, "Why does God not show Himself?" That He could part the clouds and show His face seemed the most natural and reasonable thing in the world. Why, then, did He not do so? Since He neither blesses me in answer to my prayers, nor shows Himself, possibly He does not exist. My wonderful experience may have been nothing but a highly wrought state of feelings.
I then recalled that ministers based their belief in the existence of God on certain arguments. But suddenly this seemed the strangest procedure imaginable. Why had God left us to argue and reason about His existence? Should He not settle so great a question beyond all argument? How strange it would be if my earthly father should stay away from us until we did not know whether he was dead or alive! We had the satisfaction of loving and obeying our father without ever a chance to doubt his existence. If our Heavenly Father would make me equally certain of His existence I should follow Him through flood and fire. "Then why does God not show Himself?" "Isn't it strange that He has hidden forever and forever!"
Here I remembered the Scripture which says, "No man can see God and live." But my heart quickly responded, "It is one thing to come near enough to kill us, and quite another to come near enough to convince us. Oh, isn't it strange that He hides forever?"
Then I thought of Jesus. But my heart replied, "Maybe Jesus was mistaken." If He had a rapturous feeling like mine, and was able to sustain it, He would continue to believe in God even if He did not exist. Nothing short of God's personal appearance, it seemed to me, could settle the question. "Then why does God not show Himself? There is no sense in hiding; and if no sense in it, then it is wrong; and if wrong, then there is no God. Because God, if He exists, must be good and sensible."
Therefore, when my reasoning led me to say, "There can't be a God," I found that unbelief had entered the marrow of my being. I felt that God could not possibly do such a foolish and wicked thing as to hide from His children.
Having reached this conclusion, I felt alarmed at my wicked thoughts. They were not, however, to be driven away. From that day forward the sky became more gray, and cold, and Godless. An awful crisis had come into my life. It seemed an irreparable loss if there were no God. My life, also, would go out in eternal night. If there was a God, and I gave up faith, then I should go to an endless hell of inexpressible torment. There was no comfort in either alternative. The problem was no longer the problem of the Church; it was my personal problem. And the battle had to be fought to a decisive issue. Being impaled on the two horns of the dilemma, I found it increasingly difficult to reproduce the exalted state of feeling on which I still relied for assurance.
Never having met a college graduate, of course I had not heard one preach. It was in the college chapel, four years later, that I first listened to a sermon by a college man. My impression was that he made neither noise nor light. That he made but little noise I knew. But I am now willing to admit that he may have shed more light than I saw. Preaching often fails to make any connection with the fundamental ideas and difficulties of doubting minds.
In my new state of doubt, the first impulse was to confide in my father and Christian friends. But then I realized that I knew all the stock phrases, and that none of them met my case. If confronted with the old phrases would I not argue, and might I not confirm myself in a possible error? Was it not safer to fight it out with God, if He existed, than to argue with those who could not feel what I had felt? The insistence of these questions caused me to keep my secret wholly to myself, and to go on with the struggle. Twenty-two years later during the last visit with my father, as we rode together over the hills, I told him this story. With a look of tenderness I shall never forget, he replied, "I believe the story because you tell me, but I am glad you did not tell me at the time. I could not have helped you." Said he, "I do not recall ever in my life doubting the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the existence of God. I have often doubted my worthiness and acceptance, but nothing more." Still believing that I did the wise thing under the circumstances, I was glad to have his approval. If an honest doubter asks for bread, he is not infrequently given a stone by well-meaning Christians—and neither can understand the other.
As this is a case study, it should be said that my first mistake was in discrediting my early religious experience. My second mistake was in identifying religion with an extreme psychic state. And when my psychic state failed me, then my utterly false images of God and the universe completed the destruction of my faith. If I could have reproduced the psychic state readily, my false images of God and the universe would not have troubled me for many years.
The ministers who created these false impressions in my mind were not deserving of censure, because they did not understand the forces with which they were dealing—and the community was in great need of something. Even for me, it was best that I did what we thought was right regardless of what followed.
Having entered upon the vigorous adolescent period, I greatly needed to take my stand as an adult Christian. I needed to realize such a new influence as a thorough commitment of myself would bring. This, however, no one in the community understood.
We now know that one may be genuinely converted and hypnotized at the same time. That is, he may enter God's service with the noblest spirit of loyalty, and at the same time submit himself to a process that will induce the hypnotic state. Likewise, it is possible for one to be hypnotized under