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Page 59
Religious truth does not contradict reason.--To begin with, while all
of us come to believe many things that we cannot fully understand, not
even the child should be asked to believe what plainly contradicts
common sense and so puts too great a strain on credulity. In a certain
Sunday school class the lesson was about Peter going up on the housetop
to pray, and the vision that befell him there. This class of boys,
living in a small village, had had no experience with any kind of
housetop except that formed of a sharply sloping roof. Therefore the
story looked improbable to them, and one boy asked how Peter could sleep
up on the roof and keep from falling off. The teacher, also uninformed
concerning the flat roofs of Oriental houses, answered, "John, you must
remember that with God all things are possible." And John had that day
had the seeds of skepticism planted in his inquiring mind. Another
teacher, thinking to allay any tendency on the part of his class to
question the literal accuracy of the story of Jonah and the whale, said,
"This story is in the Bible, and we must believe it, for whatever is in
the Bible is true; and if the Bible were to say that Jonah swallowed the
whale that would be true, and we would have to believe that also." But
who can doubt that, with boys and girls trained in the schools and by
their contact with life itself to think, such an invitation to lay aside
all reason and common sense can do other in the long run than to weaken
confidence in the Bible, and so lessen the significance of many of its
beautiful lessons?
True thinking about Bible truths.--What, then, shall we teach the
child about the literalness of the Bible? Nothing. This is not a
question for childhood. The Bible should be brought to the child in the
same spirit as any other book, except with a deep spirit of reverence
and appreciation not due other books. Parts of the Bible are plainly
history, and as accurate as history of other kinds is. Other parts are
accounts of the lives of people, and the descriptions are wonderfully
vivid and true to life. Other parts are plainly poetry, and should be
read and interpreted as poetry. Other parts are clearly the stories and
legends current in the days when the accounts were written, and should
be read as other stories and legends are read. The great question is not
the problem of the literal or the figurative nature of the truth, but
the problem of discovering for the child the _rich nugget of spiritual
wisdom which is always there_.
When the young child first hears the entrancing Bible stories he does
not think anything about their literalness; he only enjoys, and perhaps
dimly senses the hidden lesson or truth they contain. This is as it
should be. Later, when thought, judgment, and discrimination are
developing and beginning to play their part in the expanding mind,
questions are sure to arise at certain points. This is also as it should
be.
When such questions arise let us meet them frankly and wisely. Let us
have the spiritual vision and the reverence for truth that will enable
us, for example, to show the child how the servants of God in those
ancient times used the bold, picturesque figure of "feathers" and
"wings" to express the brooding love and care of God; how they told the
wonderful story of God's creation of the world in the most beautiful
account they could conceive; how they showed forth God's care for his
children, his companionship with them, and man's tendency to sin and
disobedience by one of the most beautiful stories ever written, this
story having its scene laid in the garden of Eden; how these writers
always set down what they believed to be true, and how, though they
might sometimes have been mistaken as to the actual facts, they never
missed presenting the great lesson or deep spiritual truth that God
would have us know.
Protecting the child against intellectual difficulties.--Children
taught the Bible in this reasonable but reverent way will be saved many
intellectual difficulties as they grow older. Their reverence and
respect for the Bible will never suffer from the necessity of attempting
to force their faith to accept what their intellect contradicts. They
will not be troubled by the grave doubts and misgivings which attack so
many adolescents during the time when they are working out their mental
and spiritual adjustment to the new world of individual responsibility
which they have discovered. They will, without strain or questioning,
come to accept the Bible for what it is--the great _Source Book of
spiritual wisdom_, its pages bearing the imprint of divine inspiration
and guidance, and also of human imperfections and greatness.
The developing child should, therefore, be encouraged to use his reason,
his thought, his judgment and discrimination in his study of religion
precisely as in other things. His questions should never be ignored, nor
suppressed, nor treated as something unworthy and sinful. The doubts,
even, which are somewhat characteristic of a stage of adolescent
reconstruction, may be made the stepping-stone to higher reaches of
faith and understanding.
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