CHANGE IN WORLD THINKING URGED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5288, 28 December 1946, Page 3

CHANGE IN WORLD THINKING URGED

MASSES OF CONFLTCT VIEWS OF RECTOR OF ZDRICH UNIVERSITY NEW YORK No world organisation hased- upon mere rules and devices can assure ma-nkind of peace unless .it is hased upon and continues to practice i(the original truth which gives the foundation of true human, dignity and human comnnunity." This is the opinion of Dr. Emil Brunner, rector of the U-niversity of Zurich, Switzerland, who spoke at the Institute for Religious and Social Studies. . Dr. Brunner* saw the rise of the Soviet state after 1917, the Nazi state in Germany, and the Fascist state in Italy. He*watehed as Europe's people were idrawn into the whirlpools of world conflict as the.. Leagoe of Nations disintegrated. All this can happen again, he warne'd, unless humanity is willing to change the'-basis of its thinking. World Crisis Traced There is hope for the world's sal* vation from its own. self-destruction, Dr. Brunner 'believes, if men and women of all nations are willing to abandon helief in human seli-suffic-ierey. "All of us for more than a century have taken part in this business of cutting the roots of the only true humanity, of true moral conseiousness, aiid of true human dignity. We have done it hy denying that man is created in God's' imagine," Dr. Brunner declared. He traced the world's crisis to-day (1) dehumanisation, (2) lawlessness, and (3) the helief in the mass man. These material and "negative" modes of thinking' began with the ( material philosophers of the late nineteenth century, and found political expression and power in the Soviet state, the Nazi state, and the Fascist state, Dr. Brunner said. New Hope Seen Yet against the crisis of mankind, evident tfo-day i-n the struggle of powerful nations to find rules and de- ■ vices for world organisation, Dr. Brun- •' ner sets up -the hope that men everyj where will see the neeessity of learnj ing once again about the dignity of man. He found encouragement in the fact that statesmen and military leaders recognised in the development of the atomic bomb a requirement for successful world organisation. Dr. Brunner urged that the world consider John's definition of God in the words, "God is love." "This phrase may rightfully 'be citlled the bolde^t ' statement that has ever come from the mouth of" man and that has ever been written hy human hands. This word has not been uttered either by Plato or Buddha or Laotse or Mohammed. It is exclusively the word of Biblical revelation. The w-hole Bible is the commentary to this statement and the whole history of revelation. -is nothing but the revelations of just this one thing: That God is Love, Love in the sense of "Agape" and not of "Eros" of which the poets speak," Dr. Brunner said. "It is God in whose will true freedom and true community, and therefore true humanity, have their source. This cor-tact with Hirn is the center of true Christianity and as such is the one solution to the problems of mankind," Dr. Brunner said.