Liberty for
the sake of finding the truth; for we believe that people will be more
likely to find the truth if they are free to search for it than they
will if they are threatened or frightened, or if they are compelled to
come to certain preordained conclusions that have been settled for
them. Freedom, then, for the sake of finding the truth.
Second, God. The deep-down conviction that wisdom, power, love, that
is, God, is at the heart of the universe. Third, that God is not only
wisdom and power and love, but that he is the universal Father, not
merely the Father of the elect, not merely the Father of Christians,
not merely the Father of civilized people, but the Father of all men,
equally, lovingly, tenderly the Father of all men.
In the next place, being the Father of all men, he would naturally wish
to have them find the truth. So we believe in revelation. Not in
revelation confined to one book or one epoch in the history of the
world, though we do not deny the revelation contained in them. We
believe that all truth, through whatever medium it comes to the world,
is in so far a revelation of our Father; and it is infallible
revelation when it is demonstrably true, and not otherwise.
The next step, then: in the words of Lucretia Mott, we believe that
truth should be taken for authority, and not authority for truth. The
only authority in the world is the truth. The only thing to which
intellectually a free Unitarian can afford to bow is ascertained and
demonstrated truth.
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