MAN'S RESPONSIBILITIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 504, 18 February 1949, Page 5

MAN'S RESPONSIBILITIES

Sir,-It could be said in reply to J. Malton Murray that God, having given man freedom of will, is indirectly responsible for Hitler, etc., as He is for J. Malton Murray’s letter. As I am sure that the latter would prefer to accept the responsibility himself, so the direct responsibility for Hitler should be laid at Hitler’s door as well as the door of the German people’ and also the Western Powers who encouraged his rise to power. Let it also be said that a man’s sense of courtesy as well as his love for truth should insist that any assessment of any field of knowledge should be made on the works of acknowledged authorities in that field. Francois Guizot may havé been able to. speak with some authority as a statesman and an historian, but not as a philosopher or theologian even though he may have been "a devout believer." (After all a regular user of the radio is not necessarily an authority on physics!) As I am slow to believe that J. Malton Murray is lacking in either of the qualities mentioned it is to be hoped that he will give Christianity the courtesy and his love of truth the satisfaction of withholding future judgments on the Christian faith until he has read some such widely accepted exponents as, say, Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr of America, or Dr. H. H. Farmer of England, both of whose books are easily obtainable in New Zealand. Windmills being much easier to tilt at than real opponents, J. Malton Murray likes to think that Christianity believes that "European civilisation .. .- progresses according to the intentions of God." But of course that doesn’t represent the Christian belief. The whole of Christendom believes that the present condition of the world is the result of man’s folly and sin-hence the disorder. Neither does it expect any widespread and permanent improvement until man uses his free will to love God and his

| neighbour,

W. F.

FORD

(Grey ' Lynn),