The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX Analogy was the sole dogma of the ancient magi. This dogma may indeed be called “ mediator,” for it is half scientific, half hypothetical; half reason, and half poetry. This dogma has been, and will always be, the father of all others. What is the Man-God? He who realizes, in the most human life, the most divine ideal. Faith is a divination of intelligence and of love, when these are directed by the pointings of nature and of reason. It is then of the essence of the things of faith to be inac- cessible to science, doubtful for philosophy, and undefined for certainty. Faith is an hypothetical realization and a conventional determination of the last aims of hope. It is the attach- ment to the visible sign of the things which one does not see. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” To affirm without folly that God is or that He is not, one must begin with a reasonable or unreasonable definition of God. Now, this definition, in order to be reasonable, must be hypothetical, analogical, and the negation of the known finite. Itis possible to denya particular God, but the absolute God can no more be denied than He can be proved; He is a reasonable supposition in whom one believes. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” said the Master; to see with the heart is to believe; and if this faith is attached to the true good, it can never be deceived, provided that it does not seek to define too much in accordance with the dangerous inductions which spring from personal ignorance. Our judgments in questions of faith apply to 16