Notes: Trinity and Human Intelligence
The Light (Pakistan), 1st April 1922 Issue (Vol. 1, No. 8, p. 1)
Mr Charles Dawbarn, while discussing the difficulties of the missionary’s task in Africa, has, perhaps unconsciously, passed a very unpleasant verdict against Christianity. He says:
“Perchance, also, a greater simplicity is needed in addressing the Gospel to a primitive people. Thoughtful observers, both lay and clerical, have told me of the inroads made by Islam in the wavering hearts of the black races. And the reason, I find, is the greater adaptability of the Moslem [Muslim] faith. Polygamy is no bar to Mahomet’s [Muhammad’s] Paradise. The native intelligence is assailed by the sublime perplexities of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The doctrine of vicarious sacrifice requires something more than earnestness to make clear to a childlike people. A real talent for exposition and zeal in acquiring the vernacular [local language], as well as the native point of view, are essentials.”
If we divest this passage of the unnecessary use of adjectives which represent only the subjectiveness of the writer and are used to defend and whitewash the dogmas Christianity, it is an outspoken confession of the fact that Christianity is beyond human intelligence and lacks adaptability to human nature.
We cannot agree with the writer that it is only “the native” intelligence that is “assailed” by the Trinity, because we see that the most civilised intelligence also revolts against it. It is, however, interesting to know that the perplexities of Trinity are “sublime,” and we hope that no other perplexity in the world will usurp this epithet of Trinity.