Sunday, March 13, 2011

Lenten Reading Day 3--when God was an atheist

Today's bit that stood out to me in my reading for Lent comes from G.K. Chesterton:

"In that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unintelligible way) went not only through agony, but through doubt.  It is written, 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.'  No; but the Lord thy God may tempt himself. . . When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross; the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. . . let the atheists themselves choose a god.  They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist."

From G.K. Chesterton, "God the Rebel," from Orthodoxy.  New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1908, as reprinted in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter.  Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 2003.

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