God The Invisible King

by Herbert George Wells

PREFACE

This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious
belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it
is not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a
profound belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in
its statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for
the expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several
particulars opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be
sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is
well to prepare the prospective reader for statements that may jar
harshly against deeply rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him
at the outset that the departure from accepted beliefs is here no
vague scepticism, but a quite sharply defined objection to dogmas
very widely revered. Let the writer state the most probable
occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon which this book will
be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma of the Trinity.
The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, which forcibly
crystallised the controversies of two centuries and formulated the
creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are based, was
one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of all
religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations
which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only
disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief
possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for
what he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that
undignified gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or
propitiatory in this connection. He criticises the creeds
explicitly and frankly, because he believes it is particularly
necessary to clear them out of the way of those who are seeking
religious consolation at this present time of exceptional religious
need. He does little to conceal his indignation at the role played
by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing the
religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from
among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to
storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an
ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read
on at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a
believer, but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to
them more sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That
the writer cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is
declaring that there is a living God, different altogether from that
Triune God and nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book
is like that of a missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and
smash some Polynesian divinity of shark's teeth and painted wood and
mother-of-pearl. To the writer such elaborations as "begotten of
the Father before all worlds" are no better than intellectual
shark's teeth and oyster shells. His purpose, like the purpose of
that missionary, is not primarily to shock and insult; but he is
zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a reverence that
stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning and proceeds
with his matter.
His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only
incidentally and because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal
Christianity.

In a previous book, "First and Last Things" (Constable and Co.), he
has stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and
thought as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of
metaphysics that is, seems to him to be a discussion of the
relations of class and individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist
and the Realist, the opposition of the One and the Many, the
contrast of the Ideal and the Actual, all these oppositions express
a certain structural and essential duality in the activity of the
human mind. From an imperfect recognition of that duality ensue
great masses of misconception. That was the substance of "First and
Last Things." In this present book there is no further attack on
philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we work at a less
fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and religious
ideas. But just as the writer was inclined to attribute a whole
world of disputation and inexactitudes to confused thinking about
the exact value of classes and terms, so here he is disposed to
think that interminable controversies and conflicts arise out of a
confusion of intention due to a double meaning of the word "God";
that the word "God" conveys not one idea or set of ideas, but
several essentially different ideas, incompatible one with another,
and falling mainly into one or other of two divergent groups; and
that people slip carelessly from one to the other of these groups of
ideas and so get into ultimately inextricable confusions.
The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought
that preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was
essentially a struggle--obscured, of course, by many complexities--
to reconcile and get into a relationship these two separate main
series of God-ideas.
Putting the leading id a part against evil.
The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely
extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in
this book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer
entangled in such speculations and disputes.

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