The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-26
REV. NJ. s. BARNWELL.
ON BELIEF IN GOD
The Outgrowth of a Million
Years of Struggle
THE NEEDS OF TODAY
Man Must Either Believe or Not Be-
lieye-Belief as Evidence of
Mans Advance in
Civilization

! The Rev. NJ S. Barnwen, rector or
the Church of the Advent, yesterday
morning delivered from his pulpit the
first of a series of sermons which prom
ises to be of exceptional interest. AIR
Barnwell was greeted by a large con-
gregatlon and received many compi-
ments on the first sermon of the
series
His exposition of mans need for be-
lief in God and how this belief arose
was very forceful. He spoke as follows;
Greed: | believe in God Hebrews IL g,
lie that cometh to God must believe
that He is. II Tim. 112. | know whom
| have believed.
Il know WHOM have believed" Now
want you to note the thought that
Saint Paul so carefully emphasizes.
Right here at the outset we find our
selves opposed to the average thought
of the world. Most men will tell you
at once that they would believe In God
! II they knew Him. They ask that
knowledge may come that belief might
| follow. But the world is wrong, and
unreasonable in its demands. Saint
Paul is both rational and right In the
temporal things of the world. and in
the eternal things of God, there can
| be no knowldge until belief has gone
before.
The world accepts this order In the
| things of the world There Is no field
| of human endeavor where men are sue
cessfully seeking knowledge. that they
| have not postulated some belief thar
they cannot prove. Chemistry and phys
| zeal science had their start In the be-
| lief in a rational and ordered world.
1t continues in that belief: "A belief that
certain elements and certain forces
combined in given ways will always
produce the same results. Countless eX-
periments have only succeeded in
| Strengthening the belief The ultimate
proof is forever beyond the reach OF
man. Geometry begins with certain be-
liefs. \ straight line is the shortest
distance between two points. Things
equal to the same thing are equal to
each other These are called axioms
| They are incapable of proof In the sense
of mathematical demonstration. and yet
they are beliefs on which the science
of mathematics rests Before one can
| have knowledge In these fields OF
| human activity, a belief in something
that man cannot prove must go be-
fore.
! When you leave the field of science
and enter that of human relationships,
! this principle in no wise changes. IL
instead of seeking to know science, you
seek TO know living men and women,
you will find that belief in men and
women must come first. Your friend !.
ships are based upon knowledge Of
personal worthness, but such knowl-
edge never sprang from the soil Of
| mutual distrust and suspicion. When
| you meet a stranger whom you hope
| to make your friend you do not begin
with doubts and fears. You begin by
giving to him the fullness of your
human trust leaving it for time to
| tell IL that trust be misplaced often
| we are deceived and the belief and
faith which have been given, must be
withdrawn for men prove false, and
women untrue, but knowledge of their
worth or Of their lack of it cannot be
| had until the plummet of your faith
| has sounded the very depths of ther
| true that we know whom we have
believed"
! Why is 1t that men deal so strangely
with God? why do they feel that all
thoughts pertaining to Him are mys-
terious, and changed in their very
method from the thoughts of earth?
| Our relationship with Him is not DIFF
ferent in kind from the relationships
of earth. 1t is only set upon a loftier
plane. There Is no reason why the
| method that leads us to a knowledge of
our brethren should not lead us to a
knowledge of our Father. As a matter
of fact, that Is exactly what 1t docs.
And because the church desires that
her children should know God, the
church begins by teaching them to say
II believe in God" That is the cardinal
axiom OF religion; the underlying. self
evident, yet unprovable truth.
Accepting then the general state
ment that belief must precede knowl-
edge. we want to study belief itself,
and see II, from 1t, we can remove some
current misconceptions.
Superstition and Faith
There are some forms of religious
faith that we term superstition. We
call the faith fthe Indian In his medi-
cine man by that hard name The VEN
Grafton that the savage feels for his
faith Is similarly designated. And some
men who make a God OF their reason
and their intellect tell us that our faith
in God; our belief In Him Is merely the
same superstition on an exalted and
purified plane.
For this point Of view there Is one
thing to be said; our belief and the
superstition of the savage do spring
from the same source; and that source
fCnuflnmed nm naRs EfRht1