the chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside
from our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God
is. Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there
is always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I
have not called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God.

And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE.



2. GOD IS A PERSON


And next GOD IS A PERSON.

Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are
very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of
their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend,
who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature;
who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless
and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against
much that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be
loyal; he is our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our
lives. He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He
hopes and attempts. . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no
Infinite. He is as real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace.

Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking
about the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show
us this person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within,