Adolf von Harnack

It's an unmerited gift by us, which is given by Jesus Christ.

Also, I'm reminded that Adolf von Harnack, who was a great historian, kind of liberal Protestant historian of dogma, who also wrote a book, What Is Christianity?, and kind of tried to come up with the idea of Jesus as a – you know, modern kind of ethical reformer.

Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

Yes, exactly.

the new life he has brought into the world, the new creation which he has produced by his life and work in the world, here are at least his most palpable credentials.

Take it objectively, read such a book as Harnack's The Expansion of Christianity, or such an one as von Dobschütz's Christian Life in the Primitive Church, neither of which allows the deity of Christ, and then ask, could these things have been wrought by power less than divine? and then remember that these things were not only wrought in that heathen world two thousand years ago but have been wrought over again every generation since for christianity has reconquered the world to itself each generation think of how the christian proclamation spread eating its way over the world like fire in the grass of a prairie think how as it spread it transformed lives the thing whether in its objective or in its subjective aspect were incredible had it not actually occurred should a voyager says charles darwin chance to be on the highest point of shipwreck on some unknown coast he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have reached thus far the lesson of the missionary is the enchanter's wand Could this transforming influence, undiminished after two millenniums, have proceeded from a mere man? It is historically impossible that the great movement which we call Christianity, which remains unspent after all these years, could have originated in a merely human impulse, or could represent today the working of a merely human force.

the proof within or take it subjectively every christian has within himself the proof of the transforming power of christ and can repeat the blind man's syllogism why herein is the marvel that ye know not whence he is and yet he opened my eyes spirits are not touched to find issues who are not finely touched shall we trust demands an eloquent reasoner the touch of our fingers the sight of our eyes the hearing of our ears and not trust our deepest consciousness of our higher nature the answer of conscience the flower of spiritual gladness the glow of spiritual love to deny that spiritual experience is as real as physical experience is to slander the noblest faculties of our nature it is to say that one half of our nature tells the truth and the other half utters lies the proposition that facts in the spiritual region are less real than facts in the physical realm contradicts all philosophy the transformed hearts of christians registering themselves in gentle tempers in noble motives in lives visibly lived under the empire of great aspirations these are the ever-present proofs of the divinity of the person from whom their inspiration is drawn the supreme proof to every christian of the deity of his lord is then his own inner experience of the transforming power of his lord upon the heart and life not more surely does he who feels the present warmth of the sun know that the sun exists than he who has experienced the re-creative power of the lord known him to be his lord and his god here is perhaps we may say the proper certainly we must say the most convincing proof to every christian of the deity of christ a proof which he cannot escape and to which whether he is capable of analysing it or drawing it out in logical statement or not He cannot fail to yield his sincere and unassailable conviction.

Whatever else he may or may not be assured of, he knows that his Redeemer lives.

The question what is true or essential Christianity is a thorny one, because each party gives the name of genuine Christianity to what it happens to believe.

Thus Professor Harnack, not to mention less distinguished historians, makes the original essence of Christianity coincide, what a miracle, with his own Lutheran and Kantian sentiments.

But the essence of Christianity, as of everything else, is the whole of it, and the genuine nature of a seed is at least as well expressed by what it becomes in contact with the earth and air as by what it seems in its primitive minuteness.

It is quite true, as the modernists tell us, that in the beginning Christian faith was not a matter of scholastic definitions nor even of intellectual dogmas.