Christ the Light of the Mind

Extract

In all the discussions recounted between our Lord and the Jews in the fourth Gospel we should note that St John the mystic, the lover, gathers up the sharp details of human reasoning, the clear natural replies of the unbelieving mind. And his record of them in the Gospel can be said to clothe them with a certain dignity and finality. They are at least human replies to God, intellectual, rational; no better perhaps have ever been made; and in symbol they stand as the earliest evidence of the human mind face to face with God revealing—two orders, the reason of man over against the revealed word of God. The doctrines Christ announces are truths beyond the natural understanding of men; but they are truths nevertheless proposed to human assent. In the records of his ministry we find him hearing, and we ourselves can read, the questions, replies and criticisms that men, judging by their own intellectual measure, could give in objection to his mysterious dogmas.