i8 7 o] CHRISTIANITY AND SUPERNATURAL 125 



the subject was gained. I do not, however, profess to 

 expound the views of Rothe further than they have 

 recommended themselves to me as true ; so that while 

 I think it right to express my obligations to this author, 

 no one but myself is responsible for the details of my 

 argument. 



If Christian faith is rendered possible only by the 

 work of redemption, and if this faith is essentially con 

 sciousness of God, it follows that no true consciousness 

 of God is possible to sinful man except through the work 

 of redemption. Revelation then is that form of God s 

 redemptive activity whereby man s consciousness of 

 God is purified and strengthened, and so man is enabled 

 rightly to apprehend God. And here I must repeat, at 

 the risk of being tedious, that the knowledge communi 

 cated directly by revelation is from this very conception 

 of revelation knowledge of God only. &quot; Indirectly in 

 deed,&quot; as Rothe beautifully expresses it, &quot; revelation 

 diffuses its light over everything else, over the whole 

 world. For by making the sun of the true idea of God 

 rise in our firmament it sheds over the whole world the 

 brightness of day in which we perceive all things quite 

 otherwise than in the dim twilight in which we wander 

 without revelation.&quot; There is surely no obscurity here ; 

 no knowledge of phenomena will save man it is a 

 personal acquaintance with God that is required. And 

 so soon as this is given all other knowledge receives its 

 proper significance the whole world appears no longer 

 a dismal and insoluble problem, &quot; for God who com 

 manded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in 

 our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the 

 glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.&quot; 



How then is this knowledge of God imparted to men ? 

 Clearly not by a mere mechanical process not by a sheer 

 exertion of omnipotence infusing certain conceptions into 

 men s minds. God must so act on man that man may 

 come to know Him just as he comes to know any other 



