The Light Shineth in Darkness
by
Udo Schaefer
One Paragraph

..The theologians fail because they have taken possession of God, because He is at their disposal. This applies, of course, not only to Christian theologians. It was this attitude with which Muhammad reproached the Jewish divines: "The hand of God," say the Jews, "is chained up." Their own hands shall be chained up.. Nay! outstretched are both His hands!" (Qur'an 5:69). "The hand of God was over their hands!" (Qur'an 48:10). From Paul Tillich come the remarkable judgment: "Nothing characterizes our religious life so much as these self-created images of God. I think of the theologian who does not wait for God because he possesses him, shut up in a lecture hall. I think of the theologian student who does not wait for God because he possesses him, shut up in a book. I think of the man of the Church who does not wait for God because he possesses Him, shut up in an institution. I think of the believer who does not wait for God because he possesses Him, shut up in his own experience." Because the theologians are not ready to surrender "their whole knowledge of God, which they think they possess, and to wait upon Him" (Heinz Sahrnt), they are deaf to the voice which is now proclaiming to mankind "the glad-tidings of the nearness of God." (Baha'u'llah). That is why, in this age also, "they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." That is why, at the very time that the Lord has spoken, they have the "experience of a void," the experience "of the absence of God." We cannot but agree with the theologian Zahrnt who says: "God must also forgive us our theology, perhaps there is nothing for which we need His forgiveness so much as our theology." (108:1) see

End of Quote

  The Light Shineth in Darkness
  Citation Source List
: see