Читать книгу Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors - James Freeman Clarke - Страница 13

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If Churchism and Moralism place the essence of Christianity in action, and Emotionalism puts it in feeling, Orthodoxy places it in something intellectual, which it calls faith. All the sects of Christendom do, indeed, place faith at the root of the Christian life; but some make it essentially an intellectual act, others essentially affectionate, and others an act of will. Orthodoxy makes it, in substance, a sight of faith, or an act of looking at spiritual realities. Sometimes it is called a realizing sense of spiritual things. But, at all events, the sight of truth is considered the beginning and root of religion by the Orthodox party in the Church. We are saved by the word of truth; and the Saviour himself is called “the Word,”—belief in whom constitutes eternal life. Rationally, it is argued that the essential difference between the Christian and the unbeliever, or the unchristian, must lie in seeing Christ or not seeing him. The first step in the religious life always consists in looking at the truth.