272 religious revolution nowwithin themselves the marks of the transformative power that gives
them authority.
To possess this power, such occurrences must both concern and ex-
emplify the overstepping of the boundaries between the human and
the divine: that is to say, our ability as the mortal, groundless, and insa-
tiable beings that we are to reach beyond ourselves, under the shadow
of death and absurdity, and to come into the possession of a life that if
not eternal will at least be higher and greater. Such a life will give us by
way of intensity what it lacks by way of eternity. It is not enough that
the exemplary events of revelation and redemption provide us another
way of representing these suff erings and aspirations. It is necessary that
they supply a tangible token of our rise. Only then will they elicit faith
in the message of salvation. Th eir salvifi c power will be manifest— to
some— in their living out as well as in their eff ects. No subject, other
than the crossing of the frontier between the human and the divine,
would suffi ce to endow them with such power.
Th e mysteries of the Trinity and of the Incarnation show just how
great is the leap in Christianity from those natural experiences to this
improbable and burning faith. It is one thing to discern in the world, in
the fashion of panentheism, a penumbra of reality and possibility to
which our perceptual experience and our established ideas fail to do
justice. It is another thing to subscribe to the formulas of the Nicene
Creed about the triune God and the activity of each person of the Trin-
ity. It is one thing to imagine an acceleration of the dialectic between
transcendence and immanence, brought about by the action and teach-
ing of inspired individuals and enabling us to make ourselves more
godlike. It is another thing to believe that God appeared in Palestine as
a Jewish holy man and heretic under Roman imperial rule. No demy-
thologizing and allegorizing can diminish the distance between these
beliefs.
Th e only response to the scandals of reason that has any chance of
being eff ective is an unrefusable experience, of vision and of life. Like
Luther, the believer must be able to say, “I can do no other.” Th at such
an experience appears to overwhelm him will not protect him against
the risk of staking his life on an illusion. It is part of the deal: an endur-
ing characteristic of religion is to require a commitment of life for which
the grounds always remain insuffi cient.