EVOLUTION THROUGH SEX

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 5

EVOLUTION THROUGH SEX

Sir,-Delinquency may be defined as the violation of some important precept of the moral law. From this it is obvious that a person’s concept of delinquency will be determined by his views concerning the moral law, and conduct which a Christian regards as delinquent may not be so in the eyes of one who takes a purely naturalistic view of man. T.P. suggests that people have come to believe that naturalism should be the basic principle in morals because Christian standards have become confused. If people do imagine that naturalism can be made the basis of a moral code, they are badly mistaken. Naturalism is the theory that man is simply a part ot Nature, no more than a highly evolved member of the animal kingdom, an extremely cunning species of the class Mammalia. In this view of man, there is no place for a moral code of any kind, for man is as incapable of moral good or evil as a rabbit or a monkey, and it is as meaningless to speak of juvenile delinquency among human beings as it would be if one were discussing young monkeys,

Furthermore, Christian standards of morality are not confused, as T.P. says, but perfectly plain and well-defined. He is equally mistaken in his view that "Christians place all their emphasis on what is forbidden." The Christian moral code is essentially positive, since it lays down that man, being a son of God, must behave accordingly, in order to prepare himself for the vision of God in the life to come. It is summed up in two positive commandments-to love God .and love our neighbour-and is set out in more detail in those parts of the New Testament which deal with the various Christian virtues, St. Thomas has expounded this moral code in systematic form in his Summa Theologica, showing how and why man must believe in God, hope in God, and love God, be prudent, honest, religious, respectful to parents, patriotic, obedient, grateful, truthful, liberal, brave, magnanimous, patient, perservering, chaste, sober, gentle, modest and so forth. Furthermore, commenting on the text of Scripture, Turn away from evil and do good, he writes: "Doing good is the completive act of justice, and, so to speak, the principal part thereof. Declining from evil is a more imperfect act, and a secondary part of that virtue."

G.H.

D.

(Palmerston North).