WITHOUT DOGMA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 780, 2 July 1954, Page 5

WITHOUT DOGMA

Sig,-Your correspondent Jean Irvine in her letter concerning my review of The Quaker Approach to Contemporary Problems, has raised several important points of criticism. The field she has opened up is a large one, A full answer would probably require a _ detailed analysis of the historical development of Protestant and Catholic Christianity, I

cannot offer that; but I will try to answer a few of her objections. She asks, "Can confused thinking lead to such a remarkable unity of action as the Quakers show?" I would not dare to suppose that members of the Society of Friends cannot, by submitting their wills to the will of God, perform acts of invaluable service to their fellow men. But this is hardly the point I raised: that, as set forward in the book under review, Quakerism has become in a large degree a religion of social welfare. I would like to express my point of view more fully. I am of the opinion that those %ections of the believing Christian community who lay very great stress on works and do not examine their faith intellectually may, while aiding their fellow men in material things, weaken by confused thinking the structure of values which makes such acts of charity possible. How often is work for social welfare or the abolition of war (I am myself pacifist by conviction) not based in part upon an anxiety that such works alone can save mankind, yet that the forces of destruction are too virulent to be overcome? The three parts of the Creed which your correspondent quotes as so difficult to give intellectual assent to, are in my opinion essential parts of a view of the world which removes that anxiety. The promise of the resurrection of the body implies that man as he essentially is, a hybrid of spirit and animal, not a ghost or Platonic Form, shall live at one with God through the mystery of the Resurrection of Christ. The doctrine of the descent into hell implies the release of all imprisoned souls, not from the world of sense, but from the forms of death and corruption which afflict us all, The doctrine of the communion of saints asserts precisely that mutual help of all, living or dead, who are in God's will, which sustains the universal Church, including the Society of Friends. These are deep waters; but we are told that Much-Afraid passed over the river singing. No one could tell the meaning of her song; for it was the ex‘pression of a private joy. But the exercise of common faith and a most meticulous reasoning by the first Fathers of the Chutch gave Bunyan the material for his Christian allegory.

JAMES K.

BAXTER

(Wellington).