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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 548, 23 December 1949, Page 5

Sir,- Referring to Mr. Prior’s review of Father Duggan’s book: if the Bible myth of creation is accepted it seems to

me to involve facing its implications. For instance, how comes it that creatures: living by instinct make a good job of their lives by adaptation to environment, whilst man, theoretically endowed with the god-like qualities of mind and soul, makes a mess of both his life and his environment? Further, Dean Inge, in his God and the Astronomers, says: "If there is such a God and if it is His nature to create a world, must He not create always?" The world is said to be 3,000 million years old and during that time myriads of living beings (created or evolved) have appeared and disappeared. If this is the work of a Creator continuously active, man is totally ignorant of plans and purposes behind jit. Inge says that, if we are asked, "it is best to say simply that we do not know." From which it follows that organised religion, no matter what the creed, is totally unjustified in adopting an authoritarian attitude and pretending to know what nobody knows concerning the ultimate power behind the universe and man’s relation to that power. Man, recognisable as man, is said to have existed on earth for'a million years, but as far as we know he has not so far discovered any new creations on the Biblical model. For all he knows, man may be no more than an experi-ment-like the diplodocus-due to vanish completely when the cosmic experimenter so wills, if there is such an experimenter. On the other hand, he looks a bit like forestalling his destiny by making an end of himself.

J. MALTON

MURRAY

(Oamaru).