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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 20, No. 14. September 26, 1957

I Believe

I Believe

The religious debate which I originally provoked seems to have got well side-tracked in the bog of Christianity's ultimate defensibility. I once discussed this very issue with an elderly and very scholarly clergyman (now dead) for a whole afternoon, and he afterwards wrote me a letter from which I excerpt the following:

"To the intellectualist, the reason for the truth of Christianity must. I think, always appear somewhat feeble and unconvincing. The fact is, the first steps to an acceptance of it are not conclusive reason or scientific proof, but faith and love, which must always appear to the intellectualist as slightly absurd.

"I don't think that the Christian religion can ever be proved true by argument. although it is. I believe, a reasonable faith. I suppose the hardest article of the Creed to accept is the first: I believe in God the Father Almighty' as so much in the world seems flatly to contradict it, if we can surmount this hurdle all the rest are easy in comparison.

"One great help I have found in times of doubt is to go on behaving as if Christianity were true, and not throw up church-going, worship. Communion, etc. I do not believe this is to act hypocritically."

This sems to me to sum up both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Christian position.

—B.

(This correspondence is now closed.—Ed.)