GOD AND MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 330, 19 October 1945, Page 24

GOD AND MAN

Sir,-J.'E. Hammil'recommends bland acceptance of evil as a spice to life in a universe the Almighty has made; declares the Almighty ."wodn’t alter it" ‘quotes St. Paul as saying God’s ways ‘are "past finding out," and thus nullifies his declaration. H. M. Thornton considers that I "regard God as an extra-Cosmic Being." Incorrect. I do not think of any extra Cosmic Being but of some power that it transcends our capacity to define which has apparently brought man and a multitude of other living things out of the unknown into life. We "live and move and have our being" in a stream of life; but nobody knows what life is. C.C.C. imagines that I have "refused to respond to the call to do all that in us lies towards man’s rising." Those who know me best would tell him that he is in error. All the dogmatic assertions about God and His purposes are based on unprovable assumptions. Inge says: "We Christians believe that, if there is a God, etc." "Tf.’ Canon Grensted says: "God is completely beyond definition." Christians believe that, as declared in Genesis, man is "made in the image of God." Notable Christians, viz., the late Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Free Church Council in a "Statement of Christian Belief" published 1943, say: "Man cannot by his own efforts master his. innate tendency to choose evil." What are the implications of those two statements taken together? It would appear that all the religions, including Christianity, constructed in the attempt to explain’ the universe and man’s place in it, do not prevent man

from progressing rapidly along the road to self-destruction. Christian nations have dominated the world for some centuries now, with the later results of economic chaos, world wars, and the atomic bomb, operated on behalf of. "the Christian way of life." Perhaps it is not our destiny to know the truth in this life, although the quest for it is fascinating. An open, sincere, and speculative attitude of mind may produce rewards despite one’s admitted fallibility and limitations. Human experience has provided us with a changing scale of values. We may cultivate those those designated good and combat those designated evil. If the universe is an expression of the essential nature of the power-by whatever ngme called-that brought it into being, the conclusion to be drawn is that the power is itself compact of good and evil. By shedding our errors, phantasies and superstitions, we might make a better thing of life than we have so far made it, and pass into the unknown without fear, good-humour-edly realising ourselves to be individually uncomprehending atoms in a stream of life moving either in a circle or to some unknown end. If we’ are indeed part of the very essence of the power that brought us here, we should be content to reflect that we shall not be destroyed.

J. MALTON

MURRAY

(Oamaru).

(This correspondence is now closed..-Ed.),.