The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
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“I for my part would much rather have men say of me that there never was a Plutarch at all, nor is now, than to say that Plutarch is a man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to anger, revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed at small things.” That's what Plutarch said and doesn't it make moral and spiritual sense?
It isn't enough for us to affirm that God exists. In the final analysis it is of critical importance to say that the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” exists. That gives God a character and gives us personal reason to praise him and good reason to brag on him before the world. George Adam Smith was surely right when he said, “For the chief thing for individuals, as for nations, is not to believe that God reigneth so much as to know what kind of God He is who reigneth.”
We're not interested in a god who's the cold conclusion of a rational syllogism or a villain like spiteful Zeus or some other mythical being. Though the God we worship must be altogether above us he must be of such a character that we can honor him. When we call him “good” there must be something recognizably good about him or we couldn't praise him. The agnostic John Stuart Mill said that, and he was right.
The great news is that God is like Christ and in him is no unChristlikeness at all (compare John 14:7-9 and Hebrews 1:3). A God like that we are not only willing to worship, we can't keep ourselves from it and it is in that character that his greatest power lies. When you begin to worry about “eternal decrees” or where God is taking the world remember that the one true God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if that's true, we're in good hands.
