Great and good

I can see clearly that the ideas conveyed in my previous two posts are the product of my own experience. If I had not written down the resolutions that grew out of my thoughts on that cold and wet night long ago, I would not have had the same powerful memory of that time, nor of the echoes which followed me for so long after; and a recent brief contact with people whose present situation brought it to mind again, would not have resulted in the words that were posted here. I may have found something to say based on what I had heard or read, but it is unlikely that I would have had the feeling that I should write something; the feeling that arose in me as a result of my own experience, and as a reaction to my uncertainty over whether or not to respond to their distress in a more personal way.

This has reminded me that the bulk of what we take for granted today, most of the systems and structures and processes in society, the options and laws and theories and beliefs, are the product of other people’s thoughts. The answers to nearly all our questions have been born in some other person’s experience. Their experience gave power to their thinking – not that experiences were necessarily good, nor the thinking well founded – and thoughts gave wings to delusions and errors as well as to their insights. But if their ideas and propositions were sound they were taken up and built upon by others whose experience confirmed the value and the truth of these foundations.
In a similar way, our faith will come alive only through our own experience, not merely as a result of listening to others: belief in the existence of God is achieved, as Newman said, ‘not because others say it, not on the word of man merely, but with a personal apprehension of its truth.'
Most of mankind has been led through history by a succession of people, few in number, whose thoughts and actions, in one way or another, have steered the advance of mankind into increased knowledge and (in theory at least) increasingly civilized forms of society.
Thomas Carlyle’s thinking – of nearly one hundred and seventy years ago – is not accepted as fully as once it was, but it still carries within it underlying truths relating to humanity’s continued progress towards a realized potential, harmony, and perfection.

‘... the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment, of thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: ... We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens, which has enlightened the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness;--in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them.’
(On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.)

How well that also describes the biblical journey from Genesis all the way through to the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the place of the Apostles, Paul, and the sequence of other great men in the early years of the Christian Church. From Noah, and Abraham, and the chain of great people empowered by God to command, to lead, and to teach the people: Moses, Solomon, David, the Prophets, and all the wonderful names God has raised and used to achieve His ends, the world’s awareness of God at work has been dependent on the thoughts and deeds of these few men, each one ‘a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven.’

The Muslim statement that “There is no god but God” is in complete agreement with both the Jewish and Christian certainties that there is only the one God. In that basic agreement, we are all of one mind. We all sit, kneel, and prostrate ourselves at the feet of the same God, and it is to the one undisputed source of our being that our prayers are directed. In the same work, Carlyle had in mind not only great men in general, but Muhammad and Islam in particular when he wrote, ‘the Great Man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would flame.’
This appears to contradict the suggestion that other people’s words and deeds are, in themselves, not sufficient to bring us to a real belief in God, but it is the experience of being led towards faith by such people that enables us to approach the very edge of our own doubts and fears , and to venture into our own surrender into His unseen hands. God works through such people to draw us out of ourselves and into our own defining experience.

Jesus was, and is, the ultimate Great and Good Man: God’s own expression of perfection in mankind, and our Teacher, Example, and Saviour. In coming to Him, and following Him, we are not being led towards an encounter with God; we are encountering God. In the meaningful context of our own lives we are experiencing Him for ourselves, and it is this experience, devoid of all worldly advancement, honour, or material gain, that has the power to transform us.
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