Miracles: How God Intervenes in Human Affairs

p. 94

“It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘it’s alive!’ . . An ‘impersonal God’–well and good. A Subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads–better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap–best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband–that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God’!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing he had found us?”