"Despite all its lacks and defects the modern world has given to us one supreme gift—the sense that the closed mind is no longer operative for humanity. The world of science has built up its achievements on a basis of unbounded inquiry, inevitable progression from one hypothesis to the next, refusal of unalterable certainty. This is the climate of the mind in which we live, in its positive aspect. Uniquely in the Christian tradition, the Quaker stands at the same point. The true Quaker is open to new knowledge from whatever quarter it may come. When we seek for certainties in an uncertain world, or cry out for a return to the safety of what is known as fundamentalism, we forget our heritage. We are not answering Fox's challenge: “What canst thou say?” The Inward light by which the Quaker lives, falls not on the closed circles of an institution walled against experiment, but on the open ground whose darkness is illuminated step by step as he proceeds—and the illumination that he carries with him has come to him from the past."
No comments:
Post a Comment