WEsey 62% 
 
 
 
 MAN AND CHRIST 
 
 BY 
 CLAYTON REID 
 
DUKE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 WOMAN'S COLLEGE 
 LIBRARY 
 
 
 

 
 Man and Christ 
 
TL bath 
 ph yl wh 
 
 
 

 

 
Man and Christ 
 

 
 iit? bos nate 
 
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Han and heist 
 
 ALBERT CLAYTON REID 
 
 Professor of Philosophy 
 Wake Forest College 
 
 with a foreword by 
 
 FRANK S. HICKMAN 
 
 Professor Emeritus of the Psychology of Religion 
 Duke University 
 
 1954 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 DURHAM, N.C. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2022 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/manchrist01 reid 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 YEARS AGO A KEEN STUDENT Of philosophy in Boston 
 University went over to the neighboring campus of 
 Harvard University to attend a convention of Ameri- 
 can philosophers then in session. She listened to a 
 number of addresses, then some while afterward told 
 me her impressions of them. One of these was that 
 there was a singular aversion to any real recognition 
 of God in the world-views which the philosophers set 
 forth. But there was one notable exception in the 
 address of Dr. Rufus Jones, the distinguished Quaker 
 thinker, who set God squarely in the middle of his 
 theory. If such a convention were held today and 
 Wake Forest College had sent its representative to it, 
 there would certainly be at least two such philosophers 
 (provided Dr. Jones were still here to bless the world 
 with his great spirit): Rufus Jones and Dr. Albert 
 Clayton Reid, whose influence has spread widely 
 through the South. Dr. Reid has as staunchly theo- 
 centric a philosophy as Rufus Jones himself. 
 
 The present volume by Dr. Reid, Man and Christ, 
 
 Vil 
 
Foreword 
 
 is a record of a series of lectures delivered at Duke 
 University before the Phillips Brooks Club, an inter- 
 denominational group of ministers which for many 
 years has assembled monthly throughout the school 
 year to hear discussions of problems of special interest 
 to the clergy. Dr. Reid’s fine modesty was clearly ap- 
 parent in his diffidence as a layman in presenting to 
 ministers problems relating to the meaning of Christ 
 in our complex modern world. But his success was 
 evidenced by the enthusiastic demand of his hearers 
 that the lectures be reproduced in book form. With 
 this demand he reluctantly complied. My own judg- 
 ment is that this small volume should have a wide ac- 
 ceptance among the Protestant clergy of America. And 
 I see no reason why a devout Catholic could not read 
 it with profit as well. 
 
 Let me bear testimony that this is as brilliant a 
 piece of writing in the religious field as I have en- 
 countered in many a day. Frequent sentences, figures 
 of speech, and crisp utterances would do high credit to 
 the style of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Dr. Reid’s argu- 
 ment is never labored, but sweeps the reader with a 
 feeling that he has been lifted to a great eminence and 
 had a wonderful panorama spread before him. In- 
 deed, Dr. Reid is an accomplished master of what I 
 was once taught to call the panoramic style of speaking 
 and writing. To be sure, this is no book for an indo- 
 lent reader. A person who would get its inner mean- 
 ing and sound its real depth must be constantly on the 
 alert to seize its flashing sentences. And he must have 
 
 vill 
 
Foreword 
 
 a considerable acquaintance with masters in the field 
 of modern science and philosophy, to say nothing of 
 the older masters as well, to match stride with Dr. 
 Reid’s rapid survey of the best thought of our time 
 with reference to the relation of religion to science 
 and our pressing world situation. 
 
 A word must be said about the forthright realism 
 of this author. He is fully aware of the difficulties con- 
 fronting the reverent man of faith in such a world as 
 ours. He does not dodge these difficulties, but reso- 
 lutely sets himself to sound them to their very depths. 
 His frank appraisal of the points made by skeptics with 
 regard to the claims of religious faith will doubtless 
 bring many a conventional mind up against thorny 
 alternatives which he would rather avoid by resorting 
 to an unquestioning dogmatism. But the author’s 
 realistic handling of the antireligious arguments will 
 cause equal discomfiture among the unspiritually 
 minded scientists and philosophers who fancy that 
 what cannot be weighed, measured, and computed in 
 quantitative terms has no reality. For Dr. Reid 
 plunges beneath all the claims of the senses to that 
 living level of reality which only the spiritual nature 
 of man can apprehend and feel with certainty. The 
 really thoughtful man of faith will find much to en- 
 courage him in the searching realism of this volume; 
 and the really reverent man of science and philosophy 
 will find much that is basic in any ultimate concep- 
 tion of reality which he can achieve. 
 
 FRANK S. HICKMAN 
 
 : Duke University 
 1X 
 
” 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 Vil 
 Foreword, by Frank S. Hickman 
 
 3 
 Introduction 
 
 9 
 
 Man and Nature 
 
 26 
 Man and Knowledge 
 
 48 
 Man and Conflict 
 
 69 
 Man and Christ 
 
 86 
 
 References 
 

 
 tet Bk 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I HAVE RECEIVED Two letters which reveal the serious- 
 ness of religious affairs. One of the letters came from 
 a prominent business executive. He asked me these 
 questions: “How can one know the reality of God? 
 How can one know that a person is a unique spiritual 
 being, that is, an immortal soul? How can a person 
 know that God is interested in him, and has some plan 
 for his life? If God has a plan for a person’s life, how 
 can he know God’s will for him and so use his time 
 and efforts that his life will conform as far as possible 
 to the will of God for him?” 
 
 The other letter came from Korea. It was from 
 a chaplain who wrote me from Heartbreak Ridge 
 where he was surrounded by the heavy thunder of 
 guns, vast wreckage, and mortal combat, carnage, 
 agony, and death. The chaplain asked me if I had 
 ever tried to tell a confused and baffled young man that 
 life has real and enduring value. He also asked me 
 this searching question: “What would you say to a 
 dying soldier as you held his head upon your knees?” 
 
 3 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 We meet the same type of exacting problems and 
 responsibilities in various ways and places, and some 
 of us know how serious they are and how helpless we 
 feel when we face them. It is difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to point out another period within recent cen- 
 turies when there existed as much confusion, tension, 
 and hopelessness. We have been so enamored of the 
 tangible and the temporal that we have lost faith in 
 the enduring. Scientific, industrial, social, and educa- 
 tional developments have produced what many people 
 feel is an illusion of progress, while wars and prepara- 
 tion for war have brought us to the brink of what a 
 host of people fear is world catastrophe. 
 
 Moreover, in view of existing confusion, many of 
 us—clergy and laymen—find ourselves pitiably unpre- 
 pared to speak convincingly about spiritual reality. 
 For example, what are we able to reply when an intel- 
 ligent man, in complete earnestness and sincerity, asks 
 us plain questions about such vital matters as the 
 reality of God and of the human soul, the existence 
 of moral law, the hope of personal immortality, the 
 love and the goodness of God, the nature of sin and of 
 salvation? When hungry souls cry out for bread, are 
 they usually given stones? 
 
 I have said these things for a purpose. It is clear 
 that religious leaders must recognize the nature of the 
 present religious situation and their inescapable re- 
 sponsibility and high privilege. In this crucial time 
 we must not underestimate the vital obligation of a 
 Christian minister or, indeed, that of any Christian 
 
 4 
 
Introduction 
 
 layman. You will agree with me, I feel sure, that one 
 cardinal evil of our generation is the lukewarmness, 
 the complacency, the superficiality, and the forms of 
 pride now existing in the field of religion. You have, 
 very likely, often felt that Christian convictions have 
 become feeble, that Christian standards have become 
 obscure, that smoke hides the sun, and that artificial 
 illumination keeps us from seeing the stars. The plain 
 fact is that our Christian organizations and programs 
 do not reflect a faith that is convincing to the non- 
 Christian world either at home or abroad. 
 
 Unless we develop a faith that is genuine and im- 
 pelling, we cannot hope to dispel the present moral 
 darkness and to remove the selfishness that flourishes 
 in high places and in low places. Forms of arrogance 
 are numerous and glaring. International conflagra- 
 tions impoverish us in various ways. We are exhaust- 
 ing our material wealth and placing financial burdens 
 upon generations unborn; we are bartering our polit- 
 ical freedoms for opportunism and expediency; vastly 
 worse, we are wasting our moral resources and giving 
 future generations a heritage almost devoid of faith. 
 We are squandering our moral birthright, and our 
 spiritual reserves have become so limited that another 
 crisis, military or financial, could bring a national 
 collapse. 
 
 Now, a free people, resting upon the solid rock 
 of faith in God, cannot be overcome by hardship or 
 conquered by foreign enemies; but a spiritually weak 
 civilization will collapse because of the vacuum within. 
 
 5 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 The worst symptom of an existing moral vacuum is 
 widespread apathy toward evils, for we appear to be 
 insensitive to crime, undisturbed by intemperance, 
 and hardly concerned about a war in progress. The 
 role of Christian leadership becomes plain when we 
 realize that awareness of God and wise and genuine 
 devotion to him are essential to the development and 
 preservation of human freedom and spiritual welfare. 
 The Kingdom of God is here and now, and we must 
 become wise and effective workers in the Kingdom. 
 
 The Christian faith is vital and basic to man’s be- 
 liefs, motives, and freedom. A person’s conviction 
 about the reality of God, of the human soul, and of 
 spiritual principles directs him in his devotions and 
 practices. An awareness of enduring reality gives him 
 a permanent standard of reference for all temporal 
 things, hopes, values, and loyalties. It is a person’s 
 knowledge of God and his relation to God that enable 
 him to maintain valid dignity and high courage, for 
 he thus realizes and respects his divine lineage and 
 heritage. In this way he understands that he is in the 
 image of a spiritual, creative God, and that he himself 
 is, therefore, spiritual and creative. He is aware that 
 he lives in a moral universe in which ethical principles 
 are real, in which honor, justice, temperance, and love 
 are not human inventions but divine law, and in 
 which he as God’s representative has a divine respon- 
 sibility. Such knowledge of the truth is indispensable 
 to freedom, moral progress, and hope. Truth is im- 
 perishable, and the choice fruits of truth are free per- 
 
 6 
 
Introduction 
 
 sons. More than that, the very rootage of truth runs 
 deep in the divinely human nature of God’s earthly 
 children. 
 
 One can safely assume that a civilization never 
 rises above the level of its concept of Deity. If the con- 
 cept is crude or refined, vague or clear, the civiliza- 
 tion will reflect the condition. A nation consists of 
 persons. There are leaders, and there are followers. 
 There are rural and urban groups. There are numer- 
 ous types of institutions, including political, industrial, 
 and educational. But persons and the convictions of 
 persons shape and establish the moral standard of any 
 organization, institution, or civilization. Furthermore, 
 the soundness of concepts, the permanence of stand- 
 ards, the integrity of an institution, and the endurance 
 of a civilization depend upon conformity to the truth. 
 Great policies, constitutions, laws, homes, schools, 
 churches, and all other implements of culture and free- 
 dom must be constructed upon the bedrock founda- 
 tion of divine reality. No civilization can hope to be 
 either safe or constructive very long, if it presumes 
 to substitute any other foundation for that of a sound 
 faith in God. God is not mocked; he will not abdicate 
 in the interest of opinion or other types of human 
 devices. 
 
 What is the cause of the present inadequate re- 
 ligious situation? No person can list all of the widely 
 different forces that converge and produce existing 
 conditions, and a layman dares not presume to do 
 more than mention a few matters leading to our re- 
 
 7 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 ligious situation. In the four papers which follow, I 
 shall discuss four things—Man and Nature, Man and 
 Knowledge, Man and Conflict, and Man and Christ— 
 in an effort to stress the magnitude, the difficulty, and 
 the importance of a Christian minister’s work. Make 
 no mistake about it, a religious leader stands on the 
 stage of modern affairs, in the spotlight of science, 
 before a background of history, and facing an audience 
 waiting to hear words of truth and faith. Laymen know 
 the theater of life—the building, the trappings, the 
 actors, the plays. They want to know what the play 
 means. Will the play end; the actors, like Caesar’s 
 family, all die; the lights go out; then come oblivion, 
 “the timeless silence of the dreamless dust’’? Or is the 
 drama of human life a prelude to personal, glorious 
 immortality? There is a grave need to distinguish 
 between the seen and the unseen, between the tempo- 
 ral and the enduring, between reason and faith. Some 
 things we shall consider are neither easy nor pleasant, 
 but I assume that a Christian minister is earnest, sin- 
 cere, and courageous, and that he, to the uttermost of 
 his ability, desires to be a wise and convincing ambas- 
 sador of Christ to a troubled and needy world. 
 
MAN AND NATURE 
 
 WHAT Is MAN’S STATUS in the universe? What is his 
 place in nature? Does he occupy a unique position in 
 kind, in quality, and in duration? Or is he only a 
 part of the vast realm of natural forces and objects, 
 different in degree and not in kind? The problem is 
 as old as human history. 
 
 Nature is here defined as the realm which em- 
 braces all modes of inanimate existence and all types 
 of life. It includes all phenomena, physical objects, 
 and organisms of the fields designated by the natural 
 sciences. While the problem of man’s place in the 
 realm of nature is very old and has been approached in 
 various ways, let us here, for convenience, use three 
 developments that appeared during the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries. They are the new geography, the 
 new astronomy, and the new anatomy. Of course, 
 ancient scholars, including the Greeks, knew a great 
 deal about physics and biology; and they offered val- 
 uable theories about the nature of the physical uni- 
 verse, the origin and development of organisms, and 
 
 9 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 man’s place in the world. But the developments, or 
 revivals, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were 
 in a real sense new. Certainly, each one of these three 
 related movements caused revolutionary changes in 
 basic philosophical and religious concepts. 
 
 The new geography revealed to the man of the fif- 
 teenth century a new earth and a new world. Prior 
 to the discovery of America by Columbus, Europeans 
 generally believed that the earth occupied the center 
 of the universe and that it was flat and had corners 
 and sides. They were convinced that the sky was a 
 vaulted firmament resting upon the seas or upon pil- 
 lars. ‘They understood that the sun, moon, and stars 
 were set in the firmament, that rain fell from open 
 windows of heaven, and that heaven was above the 
 firmament. People relied upon sense perception and 
 proof-texts as convincing evidence of such beliefs, for 
 they observed that rain, snow, and hail fell downward, 
 while, of course, the sun passed overhead and gave 
 light by day and the moon and stars furnished light 
 by night. 
 
 Not only was the universe geocentric; it was also 
 homocentric. Man was a unique creation, for he was 
 made in the image of God, and placed in a garden. 
 Everything else was, as it were, created for him, and 
 he was commanded to have dominion. 
 
 The voyage of Columbus revealed a fact that 
 wrecked mediaeval man’s smug little concept of an 
 earth-centered universe. His discovery that the earth 
 is a sphere smashed prevailing erroneous beliefs about 
 
 10 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 the earth. At the same time, he dealt a powerful blow 
 to man’s conceit and to numerous forms of religious 
 dogma and authority. Moreover, the new earth chal- 
 lenged ambitious men to seek adventure, to discover 
 new lands, and to acquire wealth. Continents must be 
 explored; lands and seas must be charted; governments 
 must be extended. Thus, the new earth offered tan- 
 gible objectives and specific rewards, and it challenged 
 men of intelligence, vision, and courage to explore 
 it and transform it. Nothing else provoked such en- 
 thusiasm and effort; intangible truths, by contrast, 
 seemed relatively unimportant, and the seed of dis- 
 content about religious dogmas was planted. That 
 seed germinated, and, to many people, tangible ma- 
 terialistic-utilitarian achievements seemed more im- 
 portant than religious beliefs. 
 
 Interest was not restricted to geographical explora- 
 tion. Thoughtful persons became concerned about 
 the place of the new earth in the universe. Old helio- 
 centric theories were remembered. Mathematics de- 
 veloped. Modern science was about to be born—a 
 precocious child who, by experiment and logic, would 
 dare explore every accessible area of the earth and of 
 the heavens. With the birth of modern science, the 
 new astronomy appeared. 
 
 The new astronomy is, therefore, a second revolu- 
 tionary development. Despite the established spher- 
 ical nature of the earth, the geocentric conception 
 persisted. In the early part of the sixteenth century 
 Copernicus formulated the heliocentric theory. He 
 
 11 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 was familiar with the Ptolemaic theory; he had read 
 Cicero’s account of Hicetas’ doctrine that the earth 
 moved; and it is likely that he was acquainted with 
 the doctrines of Heracleides and Aristarchus. Using 
 the two-pointed instrument, mathematics and geome- 
 try, Copernicus fashioned the heliocentric concept. 
 While the work of Tycho Brahe in charting the stars 
 and the mathematical genius of Kepler must be noted 
 here, Galileo was the intellectual giant who, through 
 devotion to scientific methods and experimental 
 achievements, deserves to be called the father of mod- 
 ern science. His experiment, at Pisa, with falling iron 
 balls crushed the authority attributed to Aristotle. 
 His telescope enabled him to observe craters on the 
 moon, the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, spots 
 on the sun, and thousands of stars hitherto unseen. 
 He proved the heliocentric theory and gave man a new 
 universe. His observations led—through Newton, 
 Herschel, and a host of others—to the discovery of 
 billions of stars in almost infinite space. 
 
 The new astronomy overthrew the geocentric 
 theory and forced man to reconsider himself in rela- 
 tion to time and space. The problem of readjustment 
 of his conception of himself to astronomical space and 
 time was so important, so comprehensive, and so diffi- 
 cult that it still perplexes us. A few facts about the 
 stellar universe will refresh our memories in regard 
 to the problem of a person’s status in the universe. 
 
 Our galaxy, of which of course the sun is a mem- 
 ber, resembles a watch or a grindstone in shape. It 
 
 Ls 
 
 _— 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 consists of at least two billion suns, many of which 
 are much larger than ours. This swarm of stars is 
 about 300,000 light years in diameter. Work it out 
 yourself, in miles. Multiply the number of seconds in 
 300,000 years by the velocity of light per second, 
 186,300; you will find the distance about 1 34 quin- 
 tillian miles. Then, too, the sun moves through space 
 about 400 million miles a year, and our galaxy itself 
 is going somewhere. Our galaxy has been coming 
 from somewhere for millions of years; it will be going 
 somewhere for millions of years. 
 
 But, of course, our galactic system is only one of 
 an almost unlimited number of stellar systems. There 
 are probably more than a million such systems. They 
 are said to resemble swarms of bees—galactic swarms 
 of about 100 million stars. But the swarms of stars 
 are very far apart, relatively about as far from each 
 other as if there were one swarm of bees in North 
 America, another in South America, another in Eng- 
 land, and another in Hawaii. According to Edding- 
 ton, the stellar universe is, conservatively, about 200 
 million light years in diameter, which “leaves room 
 for a few million spirals.” 
 
 The age of the universe staggers one who thinks 
 of it. Nobody knows when stars were formed of the 
 original cosmic substance, but astronomers write of 
 young stars and old stars. A few illustrations are 
 enough for our present purpose. Eddington suggests 
 that our sun became ‘a luminous star’’ about five 
 billion years ago, and that it will continue for at least 
 
 48) 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 fifty billion years. Other astronomers are conserva- 
 tive in their estimates, but a difference of a few billion 
 years does not reduce the difficulty of our problem. 
 
 So, the age-old cry comes from our hearts: What 
 am I in time and place? The naive conception of the 
 universe and of time is gone. The easy homocentric 
 belief is gone. A man is a microscopic unit, clinging 
 for a second to the surface of a small planet of one sun 
 among billions of suns! In view of the astronomical 
 vastness of time and space, what is a man? Can you 
 answer the question, clearly and satisfactorily, for those 
 people who rely upon you? 
 
 The third movement, the new human anatomy, de- 
 veloped almost contemporaneously with the discovery 
 of a new world and a new universe. The body of in- 
 formation derived from comparative anatomy and 
 human anatomy also led man to apply caustic inquiry 
 to himself. It made man question his claim to unique- 
 ness, even among organisms on the earth. Man had 
 not only believed the earth the center of the universe, 
 he felt that he was a special, superior creation, es- 
 sentially different from all other creatures. He thus 
 believed himself unique in his nature and from the 
 point of view of divine concern. 
 
 Vesalius founded the first laboratory of human 
 anatomy, in the University of Salerno. By 1642 he had 
 published a superb work on human anatomy. Thus a 
 powerful movement in biological science developed. 
 Its impact upon contemporary philosophy and theol- 
 ogy was tremendous, for human anatomy revealed that 
 
 14 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 the human organism is similar to that of the brute. It 
 showed that one finds in lower animals the counter- 
 part of every major structure and function of the 
 human body and revealed that the anatomy and physi- 
 ology of man are, in the larger sense, similar to those of 
 the brute. Perhaps, then, man is not unique, and the 
 disturbing suspicion arises that a person belongs to the 
 order of animals, differing from them only in second- 
 ary characteristics and not in kind. 
 
 Biological science gained in scope and in momen- 
 tum. It came to include the vegetable kingdom and 
 the animal kingdom. It explored the cell and the 
 complex organism, and it read the massive, well-filled 
 pages of geology. It discovered laws of heredity, pat- 
 terns of development of types of organisms, vast peri- 
 ods of flora and fauna, and the approximate age of 
 life on the earth. It is plain, therefore, that, in our 
 efforts to establish the uniqueness of man, we cannot 
 ignore such matters as biologic time, the origin of 
 life, the appearance and relation of various types of 
 plants and of animals, and man’s resemblance to other 
 types of life. 
 
 For example, geology reveals that life has existed 
 on the earth about 1500 million years. The earliest 
 forms of life were perhaps blue algae and green algae. 
 Molluscs existed some 500 million years ago, and—to 
 mention only these—fishes, reptiles, mammals, and an- 
 thropoids appeared later. Although the origin of life 
 is unexplained, and although the cause of development 
 into types of organisms is theoretical, the development 
 
 = 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 of human organisms seems to have occurred within the 
 last million years. Cro-Magnon man, a higher type of 
 prehistoric man, is said to have appeared within the 
 last 30,000 years. 
 
 In view of facts cited in historical biology, ques- 
 tions related to our most cherished concepts about 
 ourselves inevitably arise. Did life originate in a chem- 
 ical reaction? If so, is life basically chemical? Did the 
 original unit of protoplasm, whatever the nature and 
 cause of its origin, evolve progressively into more and 
 more complex and advanced forms until, through all 
 modes of variations, man was achieved? Do all organ- 
 isms, then, have a common chemical, or protoplasmic, 
 ancestor who lived about 1500 million years ago? 
 
 But, whatever the answer to such questions, man 
 himself offers problems enough. The human family 
 consists of various races, every degree of ability, and 
 all levels of social and moral conditions. Even a little 
 knowledge of anthropology makes one wonder 
 whether man is unique or not. Then, too, have you 
 ever stood on the seashore and watched the waves 
 come in, one by one, and break upon the sand, and 
 thought how they have rolled in and broken, one after 
 the other, for millions of years? There are about two 
 billion people on the earth. These two billion persons 
 are only one generation of countless generations of 
 the tide of humanity ending, wave after wave, on the 
 breakers of death. Then, what is a person? Is he only 
 a momentary, conscious, organic incident? Or, to use 
 another figure, perhaps he is, . 
 
 16 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 Like snow upon the desert’s dusty face, 
 Lighting a little hour or two—is gone. 
 
 The three movements—the new earth, the new 
 universe, and the new biology—represent man’s ex- 
 panding knowledge of himself and of the realm of 
 nature of which he seems to be a part. The impact of 
 this knowledge upon religious concepts and devotions 
 is tremendous and persistent. 
 
 ATTITUDE TOWARD PROBLEMS 
 
 We must not ignore the problems associated with 
 man’s relation to nature. We cannot destroy our ships, 
 telescopes, microscopes, and wealth of information and 
 revert to the naive concepts of the Middle Ages. As 
 informed Christians, thoughtful persons who repre- 
 sent Christ, we are doubly obligated to declare our- 
 selves. Let me specify a few possible attitudes. 
 
 First, some persons have arbitrarily ignored or 
 denied bodies of newly established facts. Some low or 
 perverted minds have assumed that attitude in an ef- 
 fort to justify their beliefs and wishes or to protect 
 vested interests. Others permit their zeal for defend- 
 ing religious concepts to exceed their wisdom, as was 
 the case with the man who arose and said: “Mr. Chair- 
 man, I arise in defense of Almighty God.” It is a dan- 
 gerous situation when loyalty is not supported by 
 wisdom, and when people resolve that the truth must 
 be confined in formulas and tombs. Academic arro- 
 gance and religious dogmatism are alike barriers to 
 
 progress. 
 i 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 The spherical nature of the earth was, of course, 
 known to the ancient Greeks. But the doctrine of 
 Aristarchus and others was neglected or largely sup- 
 pressed for fifteen centuries. Biblical statements about 
 the ends of the earth, the firmament, waters above the 
 firmament, and the function of the sun, the moon, and 
 the stars were interpreted literally. Many prominent 
 leaders used Scripture in proof of the flatness of the 
 earth until Columbus and Magellan dealt them a 
 crushing blow, and adventure and material profits ad- 
 ministered an anaesthetic. 
 
 The new astronomy brought bitter and prolonged 
 opposition. Copernicus was unsafe in Rome. He re- 
 turned to Poland, and, because of the hostility of both 
 Protestants and Catholics, he delayed publication of 
 his book thirty years. Catholics condemned the book, 
 while such Protestants as Luther, Melanchthon, and 
 Calvin denounced Copernican astronomy. Bruno, who 
 believed that stars are scattered throughout infinite 
 space, openly opposed orthodox religious beliefs; in 
 1600 the Inquisition had him burned at the stake. 
 When Galileo reported the moons of Jupiter, the 
 phases of Venus, craters on the moon, and spots on 
 the’sun, a storm of fury broke upon him. Some re- 
 ligious and academic leaders were merciless. Galileo 
 was called a heretic and an atheist. Some of his ene- 
 mies refused to look through the telescope. Others 
 said his announcements were unscriptural, scandalous, 
 and contrary to the Christian plan of salvation. Old, 
 feeble, partially blind, and ill, Galileo was brought 
 
 18 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 before the Inquisition and forced to recant. When he 
 died he was denied a decent burial. Opposition to 
 Copernican astronomy continued for almost two hun- 
 dred years. It is noteworthy that “in 1822 the Sun 
 received the formal sanction of the Papacy to become 
 the centre of the planetary system.’ Superstitions 
 about storms and meteors lasted much longer. Man is 
 very slow to relax his grip upon any established mode 
 of thought, especially when it is cemented with prej- 
 udice and experiences no commercial or financial 
 competition. 
 
 The attack upon the new biology became more 
 severe as the science itself developed. Numerous lay- 
 men and clergy opposed the work of Vesalius. The 
 worst weapon they used was the claim that human 
 dissection is un-Christian. More generally, progress 
 in medical science was variously handicapped and re- 
 tarded for three centuries by persons who said, for 
 example, that illness is divine punishment, that 
 plagues are sent because of sin, that smallpox must be 
 treated by prayer, that inoculation against disease is a 
 violation of God’s will, and that mental illness is 
 demoniacal possession. It could be claimed with some 
 justification that such prejudice caused the loss of 
 millions of human lives and untold suffering. 
 
 Of course, no thoughtful Christian can afford to 
 deny facts or refuse to recognize any area of discovery 
 and progress. ‘To disregard authenticated facts is dis- 
 
 1 William Cecil Dampier, A History of Science (4th ed.; Cambridge: 
 Cambridge University Press, 1948), p. 113. 
 
 19 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 honest and un-Christian. Condonement of ignorance, 
 prejudice, and stupidity discredits Christian truths 
 and objectives, and it is, therefore, quite likely that 
 academic and religious reactionism did much to culti- 
 vate distaste for religion during the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries and to cause many able minds to 
 turn to philosophical naturalism. 
 
 Philosophical naturalism, as stated by extremists 
 in this field, is the theory that all reality is reducible 
 to the substance, or phenomena, and the laws of na- 
 ture. It assumes that there is nothing supernatural 
 or other worldy. It regards man as no exception, for 
 it assumes that he is only an animated complex of 
 skeleton, nerves, muscles, glands, and other structures. 
 In its radical form, it claims all of his activities are re- 
 ducible to stimulus and response. A man is, therefore, 
 only an organism, a conscious organism, the highest 
 product of a line of organic development extending 
 back millions of years. According to this theory of 
 naturalism, man is only a thinking animal, subject to 
 the conditions of heredity, growth, training, health, 
 disease, and death experienced by lower animals. 
 
 Now, we must accept and respect the realm of 
 nature. We do not argue with a swiftly moving train, 
 leap from a plane, or toy with an atom bomb. More- 
 over, in nature we seem to find permanence, power, 
 and precision. Then, too, the process of clearing away 
 jungles of myth and superstition seems to expose more 
 of naturalistic reality, from atoms to stars and from 
 amoeba to man. It is likely that it was this scientific 
 
 20 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 progress which caused such men as Holbach, La Met- 
 trie, Cabanis, and La Place to turn to a wealth of facts 
 to be found in nature. It offers one explanation why, 
 today, so many people are so fascinated by the natural 
 world and so devoted to it, for the world of nature 
 offers not only opportunity of achievement, it may 
 even hold the secret of reality itself. 
 
 A third attitude is assumed by many thoughtful 
 persons. They appreciate the extent and grandeur of 
 the physical universe. They regard with pleasant awe 
 the records of geology. They feel pride and humility 
 when they reflect upon atomic fission. They confess 
 wonder and meekness when they observe organic struc- 
 tures. ‘They believe the universe is divinely created 
 and directed. This group of persons does not, of 
 course, include those sophisticated people who know 
 little about religion and less about science, but pre- 
 sume to adapt religion to science. Some such shallow 
 minds seem to experience a spiritual renaissance when 
 a great scientist states that he believes in God. 
 
 When I speak of great and humble men, I mean 
 the great men of sclence—experimental and philosophi- 
 cal—who with intellectual honesty, comprehensive in- 
 formation, and superior wisdom regard the universe 
 as a manifestation of a supreme and immanent Creator. 
 Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, Newton, Kant, Charles 
 Darwin, Eddington, Charles Sherrington, du Noiiy, 
 Kirtley Mather, Whitehead, and Macneile Dixon are 
 a few members of a group who are scholarly and 
 devout. 
 
 21 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 These scholars respect facts, relations, and valid 
 inferences. They eagerly explore, evaluate, and ap- 
 ply. With unfaltering persistence and amazing devices 
 they explore earth and stars, algae and man. With all 
 of their labor and achievement they are humble and 
 reverent. For example, read a good life of Galileo. 
 Examine Darwin’s Descent of Man. Read Eddington 
 and du Noiiy and Charles Sherrington. Catch the 
 enthusiasm and spirit of such men as they describe 
 the structure and development of the human eye, 
 features of the nervous system, or the life of an insect, 
 as they wonder how nervous impulses are translated 
 into consciousness, as they turn the heavy pages of 
 geology, and as they gaze upon the infinitude of ce- 
 lestial orders. 
 
 Now, these men know that reasoning based solely 
 upon scientific facts must, of course, restrict itself to 
 observed facts. These facts as such do not prove the 
 existence of God. But these facts are not all; there is 
 the reasoner. The reasoner, by virtue of his inherent 
 capacity, relates, evaluates, and forms judgments. The 
 natural realm of objects, precision, permanence, and 
 time and space then becomes meaningful. The nature 
 of the universe thus seems to require a God of such 
 magnitude as to be the Lord of all the space and of all 
 the time necessary for the creation of the stellar uni- 
 verse and the creation of man. It is thus that the de- 
 sign of objects small and large—atom and star, Eu- 
 glena and man—becomes evidence of a designer. If 
 such inferences are not sound, then it seems that 
 
 22 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 human reason is worse than insanity. If the existence 
 of harmony, beauty, kindness, love, and mercy does 
 not require an author having the power to create them, 
 then it must be that something does come from noth- 
 ing, that chaos is the father of order, and that elemen- 
 tary logic is a delusion. But we must not overlook this 
 question: If the wise and devout reasoner thus claims 
 the existence of Truth and of truths that exceed the 
 facts of nature and naturalistic phenomena, what are 
 the source and character of his convictions? 
 
 Our difficulty therefore persists. What is man’s 
 place in the universe? I repeat, science as such does 
 not presume to speak about such matters as the human 
 soul and personal immortality. It does not treat such 
 matters as ethical principles. There are persons who 
 would say that perhaps great scientists indulge in wish- 
 ful thinking. It is much more likely that the devout 
 and reverent scientist interprets natural phenomena 
 in the light of his deep religious faith and convictions. 
 However that may be, man continues to wonder why 
 an omnipotent and benevolent Creator made a world 
 so helpful and, at the same time, so destructive. Na- 
 ture often appears to be utterly impersonal and inex- 
 orable. As John Stuart Mill so graphically states, na- 
 ture inflicts, alike upon the guilty and the innocent, 
 disease and torture of body and mind in ways that 
 excel the brutality of the worst of human despots, and 
 it finally brings death to every person. He says: 
 
 In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged 
 or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature’s every day 
 
 23 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 performances. Killing, the most criminal act recognized by 
 human laws, Nature does once to every being that lives; and 
 in a large proportion of cases, after protracted tortures such 
 as only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever pur- 
 posely inflicted on their living fellow-creatures. If, by an 
 arbitrary reservation, we refuse to account anything murder 
 but what abridges a certain term supposed to be allotted to 
 human life, nature also does this to all but a small percentage 
 of lives, and does it in all the modes, violent or insidious, 
 in which the worst human beings take the lives of one 
 another. Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the 
 wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them 
 to death, crushes them with stones like the first Christian 
 martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, 
 poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, 
 and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve, such as 
 the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never sur- 
 passed. All this, Nature does with the most supercilious dis- 
 regard both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon 
 the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst; 
 upon those who are engaged in the highest and worthiest 
 enterprises, and often as the direct consequence of the noblest 
 acts; aad it might almost be imagined as a punishment for 
 them. She mows down those on whose existence hangs the 
 well-being of a whole people, perhaps the prospects of the 
 human race for generations to come, with as little compunc- 
 tion as those whose death is a relief to themselves, or a 
 blessing to those under their noxious influence.? 
 
 Moreover, nature gives no evidence of personal im- 
 mortality; death brings permanent silence. Nature 
 raises man up, and then takes him back to herself. 
 Perhaps, like a candle consumed, a man reverts to en- 
 
 2 John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Religion (New York: Long- 
 mans, Green & Co., 1923), p. 284. ] 
 
 24 
 
Man and Nature 
 
 ergy, and passes into oblivion. Nature does not answer 
 the age-old cry of the heart of her child, “If a man die, 
 shall he live again?” 
 
 As we have observed, nature does not offer a solu- 
 tion for our problem. No Christian, however, can af- 
 ford to falter in his belief in and search for truth. 
 
 eo 
 
MAN AND KNOWLEDGE 
 
 ‘THE NATURAL UNIVERSE amazes man. Its size, design, 
 precision, and power arouse awe. Its apparent inclu- 
 siveness of all modes of existence frightens a person, 
 for it makes him suspect that he is only a momentarily 
 conscious bundle of atoms. Then he allays his fear by 
 telling himself that he surveys atoms and stars, dis- 
 covers relations and values, formulates ideas about the 
 universe, and to some extent has dominion over na- 
 ture. He thus feels that he, and he alone, is unique. 
 
 But his exultation is brief. Another crucial prob- 
 lem arises. It is the problem of knowledge. It is the 
 old question about the nature of a person’s mind. 
 What is the mind? How does thought originate? How 
 does one’s mind develop? What are its limits? What 
 can one know? Can there be, in fact, any metaphysics, 
 or any theology? Can a person know the reality of 
 God, of the human soul, and of spiritual principles? 
 We make assumptions about matters central to our 
 greatest ideas, dearest hopes, highest values, and even 
 to faith itself; and we usually accept them uncritically. 
 
 26 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 At times we feel that it is a sacrilege to examine them. 
 
 The problem of knowledge demands the use of 
 acid tests. For example, the present religious situation 
 requires the most serious and the wisest examination 
 of religious beliefs. We must distinguish between 
 opinion and truth and between credulity and faith. 
 We must appreciate the difference between human 
 devices and divine principles, for, however much we 
 dislike to think so, the dominance of opinion and the 
 impact of pragmatic usefulness are now so great that 
 agnosticism and skepticism about spiritual reality have 
 become prevalent. 
 
 Let us examine the problem of knowledge, there- 
 fore, from two points of view. First, let us review some 
 concepts of knowledge; and, second, let us note some 
 effects of these concepts. 
 
 SOME CONCEPTS OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 There are, of course, numerous concepts of the 
 mind, and therefore, of the nature and limits of 
 thought. This brief survey includes only three pres- 
 ent-day doctrines. 
 
 First of all, we shall look at a movement that af- 
 fixed to itself the label of psychology and named itself 
 behaviorism. Behaviorism is the old doctrine of philo- 
 sophical materialism which has adopted a new name 
 and which feeds itself upon the fruits of biological 
 science. It is a revised version of the ancient doctrines 
 of Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, and an adap- 
 tation of the tenets of Cabanis, La Mettrie, Haeckel, 
 
 27 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 and other modern authors. In its most radical form 
 behaviorism claims that mind is nothing more than 
 neuromuscular activity. It assumes that consciousness, 
 if it exists at all, is only an impotent epiphenomenon, 
 whereas the human organism and the behavior of the 
 organism are the basic and important matters. The 
 behaviorists say that a person is essentially a very 
 complex, exceedingly sensitive, delicately balanced 
 machine. —The machine consists of skeleton, nervous 
 system, muscles, viscera, glands, and other structures, 
 and it functions with fine co-ordination and dexterity. 
 The important thing is the human organism and how 
 it behaves. For mind is nothing more than neuromus- 
 cular activity; all learning is the “conditioning”’ of the 
 organism; thinking is implicit language behavior; 
 memory is the reactivation of neuromuscular patterns; 
 and love is largely thoracic-visceral agitation. 
 
 The less radical forms of behaviorism recognize the 
 mind, but they, too, place the major emphasis upon 
 the organism. They regard the organism as the chief 
 object of study and respect. Physiological psychology, 
 paradoxical hybrid that it is, is quite in vogue. It is 
 popular because it is much easier to examine and to 
 teach anatomy and physiology than it is to discover 
 and to teach the nature of states of consciousness and 
 psychological laws. From one point of view, this so- 
 called physiological psychology is definitely material- 
 istic; from another it is a valuable means of studying 
 the relation of mind and body; frequently it is neither 
 fish nor fowl. There are, nevertheless, facts that must 
 
 28 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 not be ignored. 
 
 First, we cannot overlook the relation of the or- 
 ganism to the mind. While nobody has solved the 
 mind-body problem, nobody would deny, at least from 
 the common-sense point of view, the intimate relation- 
 ship of mind and body. For example, informed per- 
 sons recognize ways in which the mind depends upon 
 the sense organs, the cerebrum, and other organic 
 structures. Books on anatomy, physiology, neurology, 
 endocrinology, and abnormal psychology are filled 
 with proof of the close connection of mind and body. 
 It is enough for our purpose only to mention brain 
 tumors, hypothyroidism, paresis, hydrocephaly, micro- 
 cephaly, and encephalitis as organic causes of mental 
 abnormality, and to say that we must safeguard or- 
 ganic health in the interest of mental alertness. 
 
 Another conception of knowledge is the empirical. 
 This view of thought is as old as the Sophists of ancient 
 Greece. Although it has appeared many times under 
 various names, empiricism is today the psychological 
 core of pragmatism, instrumentalism, and humanism. 
 Moreover, it varies in its range of emphasis from the 
 working concepts used for the examination of mind 
 to the extreme claims of radical sense perception. For 
 the sake of clarity, empiricism is here defined as the 
 assumption that all of one’s knowledge is derived from 
 experience. It is assumed that experience is restricted 
 to sense perception and its derivations. It is claimed 
 that a person inherits only the capacity to learn, and, 
 as John Locke suggests, that at the time of a person’s 
 
 =o 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 birth, the mind is as completely free of experience as 
 an unmarked wax tablet or clean sheet of paper is 
 devoid of impressions. Experience writes upon this 
 clean surface; the mind retains the experiences, com- 
 bines them, organizes them, revives them, and uses 
 them in such ways as are necessary to produce memory, 
 meanings, values, concepts, and ideas. Minds differ 
 greatly in capacity to receive, to retain, and to use 
 experience, but none possesses any innate information, 
 meanings, or ideas. 
 
 As a scientific working basis, the empiricist defines 
 a person’s mind as the sum total of his states of con- 
 sciousness as experienced during his lifetime. It is 
 assumed that his first experiences are sensations re- 
 sulting from the stimulation of sense organs. For ex- 
 ample, he experiences pressure, pain, warmth, cold, 
 tastes, odors, sounds, and colors. These sensations are 
 retained and reappear later, for illustration, as images. 
 Sensation and image may be accompanied by a third 
 type of mental element, affection, which gives the 
 quality of pleasantness or unpleasantness to thought. 
 Complex states of thought consist of combinations of 
 sensations, images, and affection, somewhat as chemical 
 compounds consist of chemical elements. For ex- 
 ample, the meaning “‘book”’ or the judgment “heavier 
 than” consists of sensations and images, just as nitric 
 acid is a chemical compound consisting of hydrogen, 
 oxygen, and nitrogen. If affection also appears, the 
 meaning or judgment becomes pleasant or unpleasant. 
 A psychological law, called the law of association, ef- 
 
 30 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 fects the combination of states of consciousness and 
 thus enables a person to form meanings. If it were 
 not for this law, states of consciousness would likely 
 be separate units of experience, and it is probable 
 that no memory, meaning, opinion, concept, or idea 
 would exist. 
 
 In view of our problem, it is necessary to review 
 three things about the empirical conception of one’s 
 mind. First, there is the unique nature of imagina- 
 tion. The mind unites two or more images to form a 
 new image and, at the same time, retains the images 
 used in producing the new image. One thus uses 
 mental data to form new data, yet retains the data 
 used. The mind is, therefore, somewhat like a builder 
 who would use steel, brick, and lumber in erecting a 
 building, but would keep the materials for another 
 structure. In more or less the same way meanings, con- 
 cepts, and ideas are developed; and thus it is that the 
 more one uses the data of the mind, the more the mind 
 grows. According to the empiricist, it is this manner 
 of the use and growth of states of consciousness that 
 furnishes us an explanation of the unique creative ca- 
 pacity of one’s mind. Nothing like this creative capac- 
 ity is known to exist in physics or biology. 
 
 Another thing of prime importance is the law of 
 association, a law which binds states of consciousness 
 together and later enables them to flow in certain se- 
 quences. One thus becomes able to recite the letters 
 of the alphabet, the lines of a poem, or a musical score 
 with ease. Likewise, one can form sequences of ideas 
 
 31 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 and repeat freely a lecture or a sermon. The law links 
 image with sensation, image with image, and affection 
 with sensation and image. It makes possible the for- 
 mation of meanings and the construction of judg- 
 ments, ideas, and values. The law is also intimately 
 related to neuromuscular-glandular functions, as we 
 can easily see by observing how thought expresses it- 
 self through the organs of speech, respiration, heart 
 action, digestion, and locomotion. ‘The law of associa- 
 tion is, therefore, a basis of one’s habits and attitudes. 
 States of consciousness, whether they are simple or 
 compound, whether they are images or ideas, obey 
 psychological law and, in many respects, govern one’s 
 conduct. 
 
 Now, in the next place, empiricism offers us a 
 major problem; for a strict empiricism assumes that 
 all knowledge has its origin, directly or indirectly, in 
 sensation. It assumes that there are no innate ideas or 
 any other form of inborn knowledge. For example, 
 sensation is believed to be one’s earliest form of con- 
 sciousness. Image has its origin ultimately in sensa- 
 tion, and it is therefore like sensation in its basic char- 
 acteristics. Meanings, concepts, and ideas are com- 
 pounds derived basically from sensation. Affection 
 only colors thought, making it pleasant or unpleasant. 
 Moreover, emotion has nothing unique; it is only a 
 sort of mental-organic zephyr or storm. To what does 
 this lead us? The answer seems to be as inevitable as 
 it is disturbing. . 
 
 A strict empiricism claims that all a person knows 
 
 32 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 is derived from his experience, that is, from sense per- 
 ception. It assumes that, in so far as he thinks, he 
 must think in terms of acquired data of thought. 
 Whether he thinks foolishly or wisely, sanely or in- 
 sanely, in terms of rote memory or creative reason, he 
 is restricted by acquired data. Evidences of this notion 
 of the origin and growth of thought are numerous, 
 plain, and plausible. For example, a congenitally 
 blind person has, of course, no real notion of colors, 
 for he has never seen colors. A congenitally deaf per- 
 son cannot think in terms of sound, for he has never 
 heard sounds. It follows, then, that, if a person ac- 
 quired no sensory data, he could not think. Moreover, 
 we know that a child learns the meaning of speech, 
 printed words, distances, and dangerous objects. We 
 are also certain that he discovers, through experience, 
 that fire burns, that water can destroy, and that cer- 
 tain snakes are poisonous. Furthermore, the pages of 
 abnormal psychology and mental hygiene are filled 
 with illustrations of facts that support the position of 
 the empiricist. I need to mention only such matters 
 as senile dementia, alexia, and total amnesia. It is, 
 of course, proper here to remember that a person 
 learns through direct experience and by instruction 
 from other persons. It must also be understood that 
 there is no such thing as the public mind or the social 
 mind, for the only human mind is the mind of a 
 person. 
 
 You readily see, therefore, that there are numerous 
 problems springing from empiricism. For example, 
 
 33 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 can sensation ever reveal reality? Do colors, tones, 
 odors, and pressures correspond to physical substance 
 as such? Does sense perception, even when assisted by 
 the finest instruments of precision, reveal life itself? 
 Are combinations of thought, such as ideas or reason, 
 able to expose reality? Where is the reputable physi- 
 cist who claims to know what matter is? What great 
 biologist dares offer more than a provisional definition 
 of life? What psychologist gives more than a working 
 definition of mind? Now, if the great scientists confess 
 that their observations and inferences are empirically 
 derived and, therefore, that they do not know what 
 physical substance, or life, or mind is, who can prove 
 that soul, immortality, justice, and truth are not de- 
 rived from sensation and sense perception? Who can 
 know that they are more than creations of the human 
 mind? If the physicist humbly confesses that he has 
 no absolute metaphysics, how can we establish con- 
 vincingly the objective reality of God, the human soul, 
 and ethical principles? In the face of such problems, 
 the difficulty of our work and the seriousness of our 
 Christian obligation are clear. There are, of course, 
 meanings, values, definitions, logically derived ab- 
 stractions, and necessities, but is it not possible that a 
 logical inference or an abstraction may be nothing 
 more than refined opinion? 
 
 Concepts are acquired, and they vary as widely 
 as do social groups and time and place. Then, what 
 of ultimate reality can be found in them? Heraclitus 
 could have said: “All human beliefs flow.” Some peo- 
 
 34 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 ple would state that Omar was correct in saying: 
 
 Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
 
 Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument 
 About it and about: but evermore 
 
 Came out by the same door where in I went. 
 
 The third point of view of knowledge is the ideal- 
 istic. I shall use the word idealistic somewhat arbi- 
 trarily. It here means that the knowing person, using 
 the data of sense perception, can discover the exist- 
 ence of transcendent reality, that he can know of its 
 existence even though he cannot define it or ade- 
 quately state its nature. It is assumed that a person, 
 by his very nature, possesses capacity to know; that 
 states of consciousness, empirically acquired, are valid 
 evidences within proper limits; that logic conforms 
 to mental law and, properly used, does establish aware- 
 ness of the existence of transcendent-immanent reality. 
 
 We must here caution ourselves against subjectiv- 
 ism. Of course, the mind uses sensations, images, af- 
 fection, and percepts in forming concepts and ideas. 
 Moreover the lawful nature of the mind is an amazing 
 fact, whether in producing 3 x 3 = 9, or a great idea. 
 Such concepts as horse, man, justice, right, and truth 
 are produced. But the concepts themselves are not 
 basic reality; they are abstractions produced by the 
 mind, and in many instances they may themselves be 
 as insubstantial as fairies and Santa Claus. Genuine 
 idealism, however, assumes that abstractions at their 
 best represent the existence of transcendent reality 
 and, perhaps, reveal attributes of reality. Although 
 
 35 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 idealism agrees that, in practical matters, the mind is, 
 of course, indispensable, it also claims that the mind is 
 a means of becoming aware of ultimate truth. 
 
 But obstacles remain. For example, one hears a 
 great deal about self-evident truths, a priori judg- 
 ments, and intuition. Moreover, to what valid ends 
 can logic reach? Perhaps so-called self-evident truths, 
 a priori judgments, and intuition are only swift em- 
 pirical thinking. Do we not learn that 1 + 1 = 2, and 
 that a circle is not a square, just as we learn other 
 things? Perhaps logic is valid only within the bounds 
 of the empirical; who, after all, has proved anything 
 for which there is no observable basis? We define the 
 mathematical point and the perfect circle, but do they 
 have objective existence? Perhaps the objects of faith, 
 and even faith itself, are only nice abstractions pro- 
 duced by an empirical mind. But, then again, how 
 can the finite ever be used in satisfactorily proving the 
 infinite? 
 
 FRUITS OF THE CONCEPTS 
 
 What are some conditions resulting from such 
 theories of knowledge? Behaviorism claims to make 
 an objective study of a person. It says that it would 
 rid us of archaic notions about the mind—foolish be- 
 liefs that should follow the soul and other such super- 
 stitions into discard. Behaviorism prefers to stress the 
 structure of the organism, the functional unity of all 
 parts of the organism, and the proper maintenance 
 and discipline of the organism from birth to maturity. 
 
 36 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 It also emphasizes the various conditions of a person’s 
 environment. It claims that training, or conditioning, 
 from infancy to maturity, must be such as will result 
 in the most wholesome type of personality. It uses the 
 study of dogs, cats, rats, mice, and other animals under 
 the assumption that such work reveals valuable facts 
 related to human behavior. 
 
 For any facts about the human organism and for 
 any valid inferences about human behavior we are, 
 of course, grateful. But we must realize that anatomy 
 and physiology are not consciousness and do not ex- 
 plain awareness, memory, foresight, or meaning. We 
 know that the nervous system cannot evaluate an ob- 
 ject, interpret time and space, or even show that 1 + 
 1 = 2. We also know that behaviorism is self-con- 
 tradictory and untenable, for the behaviorist relies 
 upon the mind which he discredits. Nevertheless, the 
 impact of behaviorism persists; and, whether it is a 
 result of behaviorism or not, we feel that man con- 
 tinues to regard himself all too seriously as only an 
 organism. The tangible body, with its wonderful 
 structures, is real, whereas the mind is intangible and 
 elusive; but great physicists and biologists know better 
 than to yield to materialistic behaviorism, and real 
 psychologists resent any discredit of the mind. Never- 
 theless, a host of people, including in all probability 
 many college students, are influenced by the assump- 
 tion that physical substance and anatomy and physi- 
 ology are real and fundamental, but mind is not. 
 
 It is my belief that behaviorism is a weak, sterile, 
 
 3 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 and unwanted child of biology, paradoxically named 
 psychology, the offspring of a strained effort to have 
 psychology classified as a natural science. In relation 
 to religion, behaviorism discredits the mind, denies 
 the existence of the soul, and reduces man to the status 
 of an animal. I believe that behaviorism is untenable, 
 and I feel that it is a degrading influence upon man 
 and his finest concepts and devotions. 
 
 In many respects empiricism is factual, construc- 
 tive, and progressive. For example, it urges a careful 
 examination of the mind in order to discover its na- 
 ture and its limits. It questions the competency of 
 a person to think without restriction. Scientific psy- 
 chology undertakes to describe states of consciousness 
 and formulate laws of mind. It is concerned with such 
 important matters as the growth of a person’s mind, 
 the formation of his habits of thought, the basis of his 
 interests, and causes of his conduct. Scientific psy- 
 chology properly studies the healthy mind and the 
 unhealthy mind, just as the physician studies condi- 
 tions of health and of illness. Of course, an informed 
 person appreciates the need for the most serious study 
 of the human mind, for he realizes the value of know- 
 ing something about good training and poor training, 
 the clean mind and the polluted mind, selfishness, im- 
 morality, and criminality. He knows that a person’s 
 thought plays a major role in directing his conduct. 
 An informed person applauds the empirical examina- 
 tion of mind, therefore, just as he approves the ad- 
 vancement of medical science. Moreover, psychology 
 
 38 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 can be of invaluable assistance to religion, for it offers 
 an abundance of facts that can be used constructively 
 in relation to clean thinking and right conduct. 
 
 Empiricism is also essential to progress. ‘The 
 stated, or implied, demands of Locke, Hume, James, 
 Dewey, and Schiller that beliefs and dogmas be ex- 
 amined, that meaningless, outmoded, and untenable 
 concepts be discarded, and that we adopt a plan of 
 realistic treatment of human situations, somewhat in 
 the mood of science, are plausible, fruitful, and hu- 
 manitarian. There is sense in the statement, whether 
 made by Protagoras or Francis Bacon or William, 
 James, that man must turn from impotent idols to 
 helpful facts and useful meanings. Reason does not 
 occur in a vacuum. Facts are essential to great ideas, 
 inventions, and developments. Modern science and 
 technology offer convincing evidence that empirical 
 knowledge is indispensable to human progress. Science 
 and technology are only one major example, for pro- 
 gress in any field—law, government, religion itself— 
 depends upon the use of the mind in observing facts, 
 forming meanings, discerning values, and solving prob- 
 lems. In one sense, the mind is an instrument—a su- 
 perlative one—for exposing a realistic and highly intri- 
 cate world and for enabling man to find his way 
 through its maze of situations. Our accomplishments 
 prove the worth of empiricism, and the very fact that 
 a person is endowed with capacity to observe, to inter- 
 pret, to discriminate, and to invent justifies proper 
 reliance upon empiricism. 
 
 39 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 But, with all of its merits, empiricism offers no 
 complete solution of the problem of knowledge. For 
 example, it does not offer a satisfactory metaphysics or 
 theology. No science, scientific psychology included, 
 pretends to define a person or to have anything to say 
 about such matters as soul, moral law, and God. The 
 inferences of physics and biology must be derived from 
 experimentation and observation. Likewise, the in- 
 ferences of scientific psychology must be derived from 
 observable states of consciousness and their lawful 
 nature; and, if he were pressed for a statement, the 
 scientific psychologist would likely agree with Hume 
 that sensation and sense perception never penetrate 
 to reality, not even to the essence of mind itself. 
 
 We must realize, furthermore, that empiricism 
 lends itself to dogmatism. ‘This arbitrariness is no 
 more the fault of empiricism than scientism is the 
 fault of science. The plain fact, however, is that some 
 prominent leaders—I do not say, our greatest scholars 
 —claim that empirically derived concepts are our only 
 form of knowledge, that all one can know he learns 
 through sense perception. In view of the achieve- 
 ments of science and technology, they suggest that 
 man himself is competent to work out his salvation 
 and that he must do so. They also say that cherished 
 ideas, such as those of religion, should be discarded. 
 Time permits me to offer only two plain illustrations. 
 
 The first is the movement started by Sigmund 
 Freud. Now, I hasten to say that Freud is neither fish 
 nor fowl. He is no part of a scientist; he is not even 
 
 40 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 a good empiricist; his theory rests upon a preposterous 
 hypothesis. He is no behaviorist, for he does not re- 
 strict his claims to the organism. He is no psychologist, 
 for he does not describe states of consciousness, and 
 some of his interpretations of thought are as senseless 
 as they are disgusting. It is not difficult to understand 
 why some people lean upon Freud, but it is a mystery 
 why some religious leaders look upon him as their 
 patron saint, for he calls religion an illusion. Freud 
 says that religious doctrines “are all illusions, they do 
 not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to 
 consider them as true or to believe in them.’* He re- 
 fers to religion as “the universal obsessional neurosis 
 of humanity. It, like the child’s, originated in the 
 Oedipus complex, the relation to the father.’’* Freud 
 does not even understand Greek tragedy; it would 
 seem, at least when he wrote The Future of an IIilu- 
 ston, that he had never read Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. 
 He calls the illusion of religion an opiate, and says 
 that men will suffer when the long-used drug is re- 
 moved; but, of course, according to his point of view, 
 as stated in the book to which I have referred, 
 man should not become an addict to the illusion of 
 religion. 
 
 Freud has many disciples. Some of them are less 
 offensive than he is; others are more repulsive. Some 
 of them realize their relationship to him, while others 
 do not appear to have the remotest notion of the 
 
 ‘Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, trans. W. D. Robson- 
 Scott (London: The Hogarth Press, 1928). See pp. 55, 57, 76. 
 *Ibid., p. 76. 
 
 41 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 nature of his doctrine. Obsessions, neuroses, compul- 
 sions and complexes, instinctive urges, primitive drives 
 and social inhibitions, hate, love, repulsion, and apathy 
 —all such terms have become popular and are used as 
 lures for the gullible public. The charlatans and the 
 quacks, to say nothing of other addicts of this pseudo 
 psychology are a travesty upon medical science, psy- 
 chology, and real psychiatry. But another amazing de- 
 velopment puzzles a layman. It is the apparent sub- 
 stitution of various modes and implications of this 
 pseudo psychology for religious truth. Read religious 
 and semireligious publications that claim to offer 
 means of relieving insomnia, tensions, and fears. Note 
 the advice about muscular relaxation, regular breath- 
 ing, music, pillows under one’s knees, hot baths, de- 
 vices of autohypnosis, and other nice aids in psycho- 
 therapy. Witness the current emphasis on sex. Are 
 organic relaxation and induced peace of mind sub- 
 stitutes for truth and faith? Does the church possess 
 a great body of knowledge of spiritual reality? If so, 
 why are laymen subjected to so many things that are 
 plainly secular but carry a spiritual label? Many lay- 
 men are perplexed. Does a popular novel, a scientific 
 discovery, a social trend, or some psychosomatic prac- 
 tice become an object of religious character, and 
 should it ever appear to be a substitute for the Gospel? 
 Expressions of a thoughtless nature and evidences of 
 disrespectful familiarity with sacred truths puzzle us. 
 In fact, when some of us laymen hear and read cheap 
 and cheapening statements made in the name of re- 
 
 42 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 ligion, we have mixed feelings that somehow remind 
 us of words which Goethe, in Faust, has Mephistoph- 
 eles utter just after he has talked with the Lord: 
 
 “T like, at times, to hear the Ancient’s word, 
 
 And have a care to be most civil: 
 
 It’s really kind of such a noble Lord 
 
 So humanly to gossip with the Devil!” 
 
 The second type of empiricism is respectable and 
 widely influential. It is the type of doctrine made 
 popular by William James, advocated so effectively by 
 John Dewey, and adapted to religion by F. C. S. Schil- 
 ler. The purpose of the doctrine is to adjust concepts 
 of the mind and of knowledge to the spirit and prog- 
 ress of science and thus to make knowledge progres- 
 sive and practical. For example, proponents of this 
 doctrine claim that intellectual devotion to such con- 
 cepts as the absolute, the universal, and the eternal 
 often results in situations that are static and reaction- 
 ary. They say that reason is not empty speculation 
 but rather that it is experimental intelligence applied 
 to human affairs to enhance human welfare, and they 
 claim that the purpose of reason is the liberation of 
 man from the bondage of the past by resorting to ob- 
 servation and experimentation in the province of prac- 
 tical human needs. A person should use his mind, 
 therefore, to observe changing social conditions and to’ 
 create new truths and not to speculate about ultimate 
 truth or absolute principles, for, they claim, there are 
 no absolutes, no fixed principles, and no unchanging 
 values. Concepts, ideas, and ideals are only psycho- 
 
 43 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 logical productions which arise in view of social prob- 
 lems, which are retained as long as they are useful, 
 and which, when they become obsolete, must be dis- 
 carded. In regard to ethics, there are no absolute 
 standards, no permanent moral sanctions, and perhaps 
 no divine spirit. God is a synthesis of the best modes 
 of human imagination and abstraction.° 
 
 If there are no absolutes and no fixed principles, 
 it follows that man is the author of morality and that 
 he formulates moral law at will, retains it as he wishes, 
 and discards it when it pleases him to do so. For ex- 
 ample, a moral situation exists only when alternative 
 modes of action present themselves to a rational being. 
 Morality thus enters under the duress of making a 
 choice between alternatives. Man, as a rational being, 
 looks for safety and evaluates possible alternative 
 choices. He therefore formulates a working moral 
 standard, retains it as long as it is useful, discards it 
 when it is out of date. It follows, then, that we must 
 have ethical standards for the same reason that we 
 must have the standard yardstick. There is, of course 
 no absolute yardstick in the nature of things. More- 
 over, if present moral criteria prove inadequate, let 
 us discard them for more useful standards, just as we 
 may substitute the meterstick for the yardstick. Like- 
 wise, the doctrine suggests that we should make hu- 
 manity the object of devotion in religion and that we 
 should substitute the concept of the State for the idea 
 
 5 John Dewey, 4 Common Faith (New Haven: Yale University 
 Press, 1934); Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt & 
 Co., 1920). 
 
 44 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 of God. 
 
 Now, no sane person can object to the use of the 
 mind in areas of discovery and the promotion of hu- 
 man welfare. It is, therefore, not what empiricism 
 properly achieves that makes it inadequate, but rather 
 what it does not include and, by omission, discredits. 
 It builds magnificent superstructures and disregards 
 sound foundations. It assumes that “man is the meas- 
 ure of all things.” It reduces right and wrong, truth 
 and justice to the status of opinion. Honesty is the 
 best policy. Nothing is right except as thinking makes 
 it so. It leaves the impression that the church is only a 
 fine source of personal and social therapy. From such 
 concepts of knowledge developed a Machiavelli, a Hit- 
 ler, a Stalin. It is easy to see why some of us cannot ap- 
 prove this statement which the late Mr. Chief Justice 
 Vinson made in an opinion: “Nothing is more cer- 
 tain in modern society than the principle that there 
 are no absolutes, that a name, a phrase, a standard has 
 meaning only when associated with the considera- 
 tions that gave birth to the nomenclature. To those 
 who would paralyze our Government in face of an 
 impending threat by encasing it in a semantic strait- 
 jacket we must reply that all concepts are relative.’’® 
 
 Now, carry the doctrine that all knowledge is de- 
 rived from sense perception to its logical conclusion. 
 It leads directly to agnosticism, and it points to moral 
 anarchy and political tyranny. It makes opinion the 
 
 ® Eugene Dennis, et al. v. United States of America, Supreme Court 
 of the United States, No. 336, October term, 1950, p. 14. 
 
 45 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 criterion of truth. Since opinion is as variable as time 
 and place, then, what a man thinks is right is right for 
 him; so there is no enduring principle, no moral ab- 
 solute, and justice and temperance and honor are right 
 only because thinking makes them so. By the same 
 logic God is good or exists only because thinking makes 
 him so. It becomes plain, then, that the doctrine is a 
 source of skepticism and moral relativism and that it 
 is a seedbed of communistic atheism. If opinion 
 makes a thing right or wrong, every person is his own 
 authority. In a larger way, the state becomes a cor- 
 porate authority; and, if the state enacts laws making 
 it legal to lie, to steal, to commit rape, to murder, then 
 it is right to do such things. Then, too, if the doctrine 
 is true and fully comprehensive, our theological 
 schools and pulpits can properly substitute materialis- 
 tic, utilitarian, and humanistic interests and devotions 
 for foundational spiritual verity. 
 
 The idealistic concept of knowledge does not 
 escape criticism. A Christian leader must prepare him- 
 self to answer by sound argument and by right living 
 serious skepticism and agnosticism about religious 
 knowledge that transcends sense perception and its 
 derivatives. Is reason, at its best, able to exceed its 
 components, or does it only appear to exceed them? 
 Sodium is a metal, and chlorine is a poisonous gas; in 
 combination, they are salt. Hydrogen and oxygen are 
 gases; in combination, they are water. A person’s train- 
 ing is long and involved. He usually does not examine 
 the formation, the nature, or the source of his stand- 
 
 46 
 
Man and Knowledge 
 
 ards and ideals. He relies upon hearsay, tradition, and 
 accepted authority. He also uses various beliefs and 
 practices as idols and as escapes. 
 
 A severe critic of idealism asks penetrating ques- 
 tions. For illustration: How can a person establish as 
 fact his knowledge of ethical principles? How does 
 he know that this is a moral universe? How can he 
 distinguish between faith and reason? What is his 
 evidence of personal immortality? How can he show 
 that prayer is more than personal therapy? One has 
 noble urges, magnificent ideas, great convictions, and 
 unselfish devotions. Are they only the product of 
 psychological experience, or do they arise from a 
 spiritual entity in man that enables him, through the 
 medium of his mind, to become aware of an infinite 
 spiritual reality, God, the human soul, and moral law? 
 
 In my opinion, it is our enormous responsibility 
 and our high privilege to discover and to teach the 
 fact that genuine knowledge is a person’s awareness 
 of God and God’s love for man. However valuable 
 other types of intellectual accomplishment may be, 
 awareness of God and of the imperishable human soul 
 is the keystone of wisdom. 
 
 47 
 
MAN AND CONFLICT 
 
 MAN HAS DISCOVERED the tiny place he occupies in the 
 realm of physical space and time. Alongside the physi- 
 cal universe, the human family itself seems trivial. 
 Moreover, he is aware of the dependence of the or- 
 ganic upon the inorganic, and he is unable to find a 
 clear line separating animals from plants. He also 
 knows that he is a member of the order of biological 
 organisms, and he can discover no unique distinction 
 between the human body and that of the brute. 
 Furthermore, man finds that he is a member of 
 a line of conscious animals. Casual observation, as 
 well as experiment, shows a vast difference in degree, 
 but no clear distinction in kind between the mind of 
 a brute and that of a man. Comparative psychology 
 lists numerous evidences in support of the trouble- 
 some claim that man is only the highest type of think- 
 ing animal. Moreover, the problem of knowledge is 
 extremely perplexing. Are we only thinking organ- 
 isms, restricted, as are brutes, to sensory experience 
 and its derivatives? If man is only a thinking animal, 
 
 48 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 and if his needs and interests are limited to organic 
 satisfactions and those psychologically created stand- 
 ards of temporal existence and progress, then perhaps 
 we should say that man is only a hedonistic creature 
 whose material and social progress furnishes him the 
 means of the highest possible satisfaction. But we 
 know that man’s achievements in sociology, govern- 
 ment, science, technology, or any other such field, 
 however fine, never actually satisfy him. In some re- 
 spects, the more man thinks and the larger his success, 
 the more serious his problems and the more intense 
 his restlessness become. He thus often becomes tragic 
 in his struggle to resolve his problems. 
 
 It is said that the proper study of man is man him- 
 self. Let us, therefore, look at man, especially at man 
 in conflict. I call your attention to three things: first, 
 man in conflict with nature; second, man in conflict 
 with man; and, third, man in conflict with himself. 
 
 MAN IN CONFLICT WITH NATURE 
 
 For ages, man has assumed that he is unique and 
 that, by divine sanction, he exercises dominion over 
 the natural world. He observes physical things, plants 
 and animals, and, as they pass before him, he names 
 them, bridles them, and harnesses them in his service. 
 He has confronted the atom and the microbe, con- 
 tinents and seas, the subterranean reservoirs and the 
 stratosphere, and made them bow to his will. 
 
 The road from the primitive cave to the modern 
 home was long and hard. The journey from the no- 
 
 49 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 mad’s tribe to modern society required serious and 
 constant struggle. Democritus in science, Hippocrates 
 in medicine, Franklin and Galvani in electricity, Pas- 
 teur and Jenner and Lister in bacteriology, Madame 
 Curie in radiology, and Hertz in electromagnetics are 
 a few pioneers who blazed one trail. It is trite to men- 
 tion things so familiar to us, for, of course, man has 
 harnessed streams, captured and used the thunderbolts 
 of Zeus, opened the beds of coal and the lakes of oil 
 deep in the earth, caused mountain range and deep 
 sea to give up their treasure, and made deserts convert 
 their dormant wealth into food and beauty. 
 
 Man’s accomplishments are now amazing. He 
 causes plants and animals to make rapid growth in 
 structure, quality, beauty, and usefulness. He travels 
 with the speed of the morning; he speaks with the 
 velocity of light; he brings the remotest human affairs 
 to his living room. He has so mastered time and space 
 that his world has become very large, and the world 
 has become very small. 
 
 Moreover, at man’s orders heavy burdens are lifted 
 from human backs. For example, man has invented 
 the internal combustion engine, the dynamo, and a 
 thousand other machines which relieve him of much 
 hard labor, and he is now harnessing nuclear energy. 
 Man has, also, so successfully sought out causes of 
 diseases and found remedies for so many of them that 
 we must now rely upon Thucydides and other his- 
 torians for reports about epidemics of typhus, black 
 death, yellow fever, typhoid, and smallpox. 
 
 50 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 Thus, man has revealed his ability, initiative, and 
 constructiveness. He has accepted the command to 
 have dominion, and he can point with pride to his 
 achievements. 
 
 But, I remind you, man has dominion only in 
 secondary matters. He controls nothing primary. The 
 seasons still come and go. The sun and moon still rise 
 and set, and the stars somehow manage to exist. Time 
 passes, age advances, bridges must be crossed, tolls 
 must be paid. Whatever man earns, nature eventually 
 collects. The fate of all is death; the final goal of 
 the human family is death. However successful man 
 seems to be in his struggle with nature, nature finally 
 prevails. Seneca knew this when he said: ‘Whole 
 kingdoms with their kings and peoples with their rulers 
 have met their fate; all men, nay, all things, look 
 toward their last day.’’’ Voltaire was aware of nature’s 
 exacting claim when, in agony, he wrote: 
 
 I am a puny part of the great whole. 
 
 Yes; but all animals condemned to live, 
 
 All sentient things, born by the same stern law, 
 Suffer like me, and like me also die. 
 
 The vulture fastens on his timid prey, 
 
 And stabs with bloody beak the quivering limbs: 
 All’s well, it seems, for it. But in a while 
 
 An eagle tears the vulture into shreds; 
 
 The eagle is transfixed by shafts of man; 
 
 The man, prone in the dust of battle fields, 
 Mingling his blood with dying fellow men, 
 Becomes in turn the food of ravenous birds. 
 
 “Seneca, Moral Essays, trans. John W. Basore (3 vols.; Cambridge, 
 Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935), II, 389. 
 
 5l 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 Thus the whole world in every member groans, 
 All born for torment and for mutual death.® 
 
 The grave is silent. Science offers no proof that 
 man in his struggle with nature is, in the ultimate 
 sense, ever the victor. 
 
 MAN’S CONFLICT WITH MAN 
 
 Every living organism fights for existence. Hera- 
 clitus realized the scope of conflict, and said: ““War 
 is the father of all things.’ Charles Darwin, out of his 
 vast store of observations, suggested that progress oc- 
 curs through the survival of the fittest. Decisive com- 
 petition between plants occurs in field and forest. 
 Then, too, microbe preys upon microbe, fish upon 
 fish, insect upon insect, bird upon bird, beast upon 
 beast; almost every class of organism attacks other 
 classes. From amoeba to man life threatens life. A 
 system of checks and balances may thus obtain, but 
 a cruel state of claw and fang persists everywhere. 
 
 Now, man is no exception. He fights for food, for 
 shelter, for his family, and for his country. In some 
 instances, as in crime and in intemperance, he preys 
 upon his own people. In other cases, on an enormous 
 scale he destroys millions of people in order to enlarge 
 his power and to enhance his reputation. The beast- 
 man of human society—a Domitian, a Hitler, or a Sta- 
 lin—with mental power and selfish motives far excels 
 the most voracious brute of the jungle in cruelty and 
 slaughter. 
 
 ® Selected Works of Voltaire, translated: by Joseph McCabe; with an 
 introduction (London: Watts & Co., 1921), p. 3. 
 
 52 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 Some of us who live somewhat sheltered lives are 
 disposed to overlook grim facts. For example, we of- 
 ten disregard the prevalence of domestic tragedies and 
 major crimes. We often lure ourselves into false op- 
 timism and parade claims of wonderful moral advance- 
 ment. In the field of religion we are especially dis- 
 posed to employ highly exaggerated, if not spurious, 
 claims of progress. I need to remind you of only one 
 unsavory condition in our paradoxical civilization, for, 
 with all of our humanitarian motives and institutions, 
 the twentieth century is the bloodiest period of human 
 history. In this century two world wars have cost per- 
 haps 100 million lives. A war is in progress. Recent 
 blood purges in eastern Europe and Asia seem to have 
 claimed from 15 to 20 million lives. Then, too, there 
 is the colossal preparation for another war with planes, 
 ships, bacteria, gas, A-bombs, and H-bombs. 
 
 Now, it must be pointed out here that various de- 
 vices have failed to subdue man’s predatory and bellig- 
 erent nature. For example, Horace Mann felt that 
 universal education would greatly reduce crime. In 
 the United States we have placed schools within reach 
 of almost every youth. About go million students are 
 enrolled in our elementary and secondary schools, and 
 about 2 million attend colleges and universities. Al- 
 most every person in America has access to the screen, 
 the radio, and numerous other agencies of educational 
 influence. But the increase of education and of edu- 
 cational facilities has not reduced crime. One could 
 say that education has actually been a means of devel- 
 
 Oe 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 oping cleverness and of multiplying ways of lawlessness 
 and forms of intemperance. Moreover, I remind you 
 that, in the larger sense, no other people, within the 
 last thousand years, have been as effectively educated 
 in information and techniques as those of modern 
 Germany, France, England, and America. At least 
 from some points of view, it would seem that educa- 
 tional discipline has not reduced conflict, but has in- 
 creased information, intensified desire, and incited 
 combat. 
 
 Again, some people claim that sensuous gratifica- 
 tion would guarantee good will and harmony. They 
 seem to believe that if we produce and distribute, and 
 satisfy desire for food, shelter, and other material 
 things, we shall remove the cause of conflict. Science 
 and technology have transformed the modern world, 
 but one would be reluctant to say that physical abun- 
 dance has brought about a moral Utopia in America 
 or elsewhere. Prosperity did not prevent the First 
 World War. Moreover, more than 50 billion dollars 
 in aid to Europe within recent years has not produced 
 universal good will there, even toward us. Western 
 nations carried science and technology to the Orient 
 and the Near East and awakened there powerful drag- 
 ons. In reality, science and technology, however won- 
 derful, have crowded people and nations together, 
 given them physical resources, and excited their pas- 
 sions before they developed a sense of superior values, 
 learned to control themselves, or became prepared to 
 live together. The twentieth century offers abundant 
 
 oe 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 evidence that physical resources and pragmatic de- 
 vices alone furnish no complete means of allaying ma- 
 jor forms of human antagonism. Political covenants 
 become scraps of paper. Military allies become ene- 
 mies, as illustrated by the present enmity of Russia 
 and China toward the United States. A plain fact is 
 that economic aid to persons or nations often causes 
 a sense of dependence that becomes translated into 
 jealousy or hatred. 
 
 It must also be noted that religion, as variously 
 conceived and adapted, has not removed human strife. 
 Too often a religious organization has become self- 
 centered, has become primarily interested in saving its 
 own life, and has adopted pragmatic devices as a chief 
 means of saving and promoting itself. When a re- 
 ligion becomes thus self-centered, it can be a central 
 motive in human tragedy. Religion has also been used 
 by secular interests in order to support secular motives 
 and even to intensify secular combat. You will recall 
 how Machiavelli advised that, when necessary, reli- 
 gion should be used as a means of unifying the people 
 of the State and thus enhancing the authority and the 
 efficiency of the ruler. You will agree with me that it 
 is not difficult to recognize evidences of the Machiavel- 
 lian use of religion in such matters as political conven- 
 tions, holy wars, the declaration of the divine right of 
 kings, and the claim of the infallibility of certain re- 
 ligious authorities. One also recalls such semi-reli- 
 gious slogans as: “Make the world safe for democ- 
 racy,’ the “Four Freedoms,” and “Christian democ- 
 
 55 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 racy against atheistic communism.” When a war is in 
 progress, it is, of course, a struggle to victory or to 
 defeat, and all types of evils are employed. Sherman’s 
 definition of war is very conservative. But Christians 
 in less tense and tragic days must recognize the ways 
 in which religion becomes prostituted to the level of 
 expediency and opportunism. We must face squarely 
 the fact that whenever and however religion becomes 
 lured into devoting itself to materialistic-pragmatic 
 interests and political agencies, it thus becomes a tool 
 of secular conflict. 
 
 We must look beyond the physical clash of man 
 with man if we would find the source of human con- 
 flict. Perhaps a major cause exists in the realm of ideas. 
 
 A person’s mind directs his conduct. The scope 
 and quality of his information, concepts, and ideas 
 determine the nature of his interests and devotions. 
 The conflict of man with man, as in crime and in war, 
 is in a real sense, therefore, a conflict of concepts and 
 ideas. As a high fever is a symptom of a deep-seated 
 infection, the struggle between people is often a symp- 
 tom of a moral virus. We must, therefore, identify — 
 ideologies that produce conflict. 
 
 The most effective present-day ideological malig- 
 nancy is the so-called sensate culture.* This concept 
 of life is all the more dangerous because it is a‘plausi- 
 ble half-truth which parades itself as indispensable to 
 material progress and as the essence of intellectual ac- 
 
 ® Pitirim A. Sorokin, The Crisis of Our Age (New York: E. P. Dut- 
 ton & Co., 1942). 
 
 56 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 complishment. A sensate ideology usually promises 
 quick relief, fine results, and rich rewards. It appeals 
 strongly to poverty, dissatisfaction, unrest, ignorance, 
 irresponsibility, insecurity, and fear. It operates with 
 enormous effectiveness when it fastens its grip upon 
 government, education, and religion. For example, in 
 Italy Fascists seized the government and seemed to 
 bring about great agricultural improvement and in- 
 dustrial reforms. German Nazis quickly transformed 
 the German nation from a condition of economic 
 bankruptcy into one of apparent prosperity, political 
 prestige, and military power. Communism has led 
 Russia out of chaos seemingly to such resources and 
 unity as enable her now to threaten to dominate the 
 world. Furthermore, we must not overlook the preva- 
 lence and influence of pragmatic motives and devotions 
 such as scientism, types of social security, and the pro- 
 gressive delegation of authority to the government in 
 other countries, including the United States. 
 Education is a medium in which sensate ideologies 
 can flourish. In informal education the press, the ra- 
 dio, and television shape attitudes, cultivate desires, 
 and establish standards of devotion. In formal educa- 
 tion elementary schools and institutions of higher 
 learning are primary agencies in the development of 
 the concepts and the objects of culture. Music and 
 art also reflect and accentuate concepts and ideals. For 
 example, we remember the Nazi discipline of German 
 children, the control of German universities, and the 
 use of Wagnerian music in establishing fanatical de- 
 
 a7 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 votion to the State. Russia now employs similar de- 
 vices. 
 
 To a significant extent in America the fascinating 
 half-truth of pragmatism now permeates public schools 
 and institutions of higher learning. As Sorokin, Sheen, 
 Hutchins, and Bell so graphically point out, our in- 
 stitutions stress the materialistic and the utilitarian to 
 the extent that ethics, metaphysics, and theology are 
 neglected and thus discredited. A multiplicity of cir- 
 cumstances causes increasing State support and control 
 of our public schools and many of our universities. 
 These secular schools have led, if not forced, private 
 and sectarian schools to modify their standards, prac- 
 tices, and central devotion. The curricula have pro- 
 gressively become devoted to the materialistic, the 
 scientific, and the pragmatic. A result is that a great 
 many teachers and students now feel that the real and 
 the valuable are the observable and the useful. Science 
 uses the telescope, the microscope, the micrometer, 
 and the computing machine; it dissects, analyzes, meas- 
 ures, and formulates laws. Sociology counts, prepares 
 charts and tables, and generally treats human beings 
 not so much as persons but as objects subject to graphs 
 and mathematics. Psychology, even in its better mo- 
 ments, describes states of consciousness and formulates 
 laws of mind. Psychology also devotes itself to such 
 matters as the examination of the organism, measure- 
 ment of sensory acuteness, detection of galvanic phe- 
 nomena related to thought, and means of proper disci- 
 pline of mind and body. Much so-called psychology, 
 
 58 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 however, has become the servant of commercial groups 
 or has let itself become the tool of popular and, often, 
 mercenary fads. While valid educational methods are 
 indispensable and invaluable, it must be understood 
 that they alone have nothing to say about the enduring 
 values and spiritual verities that give unity to the 
 universe and permanent worth to persons. My sug- 
 gestion to a medical student that he must not become 
 merely a high-class plumber-electrician perhaps 
 should be made to other students. A technician in any 
 field—mechanics, medicine, education, religion—can 
 become so obsessed by details that he does not observe 
 basic values and relations with respect to man, moral 
 law, or God. 
 
 Religion has not escaped the impact of modern 
 pragmatic culture. For example, central and endur- 
 ing truths of our faith include the reality and father- 
 hood of God, the reality of the human soul, and the 
 sacredness of every person. Without faith in trans- 
 cendent-immanent spiritual reality, life becomes futile 
 and appears to be reduced to a conscious moment be- 
 tween two nights of oblivion. Religion is, therefore, 
 the most vital of man’s interests and needs. Neverthe- 
 less, many religious groups now so emphasize size, 
 numbers, organizations, and other necessary but pe- 
 ripheral matters that the heart itself of religion is neg- 
 lected. The authority of persons, the nature of or- 
 ganizations, material resources, and standards of effi- 
 ciency often seem to be prior in importance. More- 
 over, the eagerness and pleasure associated with the 
 
 59 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 adoption of some “ism,” or fad, or mode of exhibi- 
 tionism, or escapism make laymen and many clergy- 
 men wonder. The frequent substitution of human 
 opinions and practices for the Gospel itself reminds 
 us of what Zarathustra said about the saint in the 
 forest: ““Could it be possible! This old saint of the 
 forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead.’ 
 
 In the final analysis, there are two major ideolo- 
 gies, Godliness and Godlessness. A godless culture, 
 whenever and wherever it exists, produces conflict and 
 tragedy. It builds a tower of Babel that eventually 
 leads to confusion and chaos. For when men live and 
 think as animals or when men presume to substitute 
 themselves for God, rather than regard themselves as 
 children of God, struggle is inevitable. Plato states 
 it thus: “Like cattle, with their eyes always looking 
 down and their heads stooping to the earth, . . . they 
 fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love 
 of these delights, they kick and butt at one another 
 with horns and hoofs . . . and they kill one another by 
 reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves 
 with that which is not substantial, and the part of 
 themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and 
 incontinent.’** How true the great pronouncement, 
 “That man shall not live by bread alone. . .”! 
 
 10 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans. Thomas Com- 
 mon (New York: Random House, n.d.), p. 6. 
 
 11 The Republic, 586, in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. Benjamin 
 Jowett (grd ed., 5 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1892). 
 
 60 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 MAN S CONFLICT WITH HIMSELF 
 
 In a letter to the Romans, Paul makes this reveal- 
 ing statement: “For the good that I would, I do not: 
 but the evil which I would not, that I do.” We our- 
 selves do evil when we know better, but can we ex- 
 plain why? How is it that a man is, within himself, 
 so contradictory? His own nature—mind, will, person- 
 ality, practices—is in such conflict with itself that often 
 a man appears to be a multiple personality. We often 
 quickly and freely place the blame on Adam, heredity, 
 environment, and the Devil, usually because we want 
 a convenient scapegoat. What actually is the seat of 
 inner confusion and turmoil? 
 
 Some would say that it is a clash between one’s ani- 
 mal nature and his unique human character. For ex- 
 ample, instinct often opposes reason. Now, powerful 
 instinctive urges do occur. They are necessary to per- 
 petuate the human race. Also, there is a close rela- 
 tionship between instinct and emotion. Emotion and, 
 in large measure, animal impulses are directly related 
 to the so-called old brain, whereas reason is associated 
 with the new brain, or the cerebral cortex. Perhaps, 
 then, conflict occurs between the old brain and the 
 new brain. At least, when by surgery or by alcohol 
 the centers of reason, whatever they are, become sup- 
 pressed, animal instincts often become dominant. 
 Also, when emotions become intense, good judgment 
 is likely to vanish. 
 
 A person’s education is another source of conflict. 
 In this relation it must be understood that one’s edu- 
 
 61 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 cation begins on the day of his birth, includes all 
 types of experience and all modes of development of 
 his mind, and the relation of his mind to his behavior. 
 It therefore involves all information, meanings, con- 
 cepts, ideas, ideals, moral standards, loyalties, devo- 
 tions, and habits. Education even affects the sensi- 
 tivity of a person’s conscience and often selects the ob- 
 jects of his conscience. What a mass and maze of di- 
 verse information, opinions, standards, and habits be- 
 come established in a person! Multiple personality is 
 not restricted to the mentally ill. Observe a person 
 who is gruff and harsh and unkind in business but 
 gentle and refined and benevolent at home. Note a 
 man who is a martinet at home but gracious and cour- 
 teous in public. Watch a man swerve a car to avoid 
 crushing a dog, and then slaughter our wild-life 
 friends for the sheer pleasure of killing. Observe a 
 neighbor who, in complete kindness, never hesitates to 
 help a person in distress, and then becomes his own 
 worst enemy. Do not overlook the student who wants 
 an education and struggles to avoid learning, the 
 teacher who seeks the truth and lapses into authori- 
 tarianism, the administrator who alternately stresses 
 principle and resorts to expediency, or the pastor who 
 in all sincerity proclaims divine love and then adopts 
 opportunistic and selfish devices. We, too, not infre- 
 quently see a man who, without a twinge of conscience, 
 feels a deep sense of loyalty, say, to his church but 
 conducts a business that aids in wrecking homes, cor- 
 rupting minds, and destroying lives. 
 
 62 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 What a jumble of contradictions one’s education 
 includes! In some cases, a person’s conscience seems 
 to be so fully suppressed that evil schemes and prac- 
 tices never appear to cause discomfort. Occasionally a 
 person achieves saintly serenity, but with most of us 
 conflict does occur. Although I believe there are more 
 good people than bad people, and although I also 
 believe there is good in the worst of men, our training 
 is such that we become drawn so strongly in diverse 
 directions that we often suffer a tug-of-war nervously, 
 mentally, and morally. In its large sense, then, educa- 
 tion can be a source of indecision, diverse impulses, 
 fears, neuroses, psychoses, and insanity. In this rela- 
 tion, some forms of religious training must not be 
 ignored. When we consider gruesome and horrifying 
 types of beliefs, we are disposed to say that Lucretius 
 was correct in stating that religion makes men grovel 
 in fear and enslaves them, and, therefore, should be 
 discarded;** and we understand how a psychiatrist had 
 some cause for stating that religion is a primary source 
 of mental illness. In view of the fact that experimen- 
 talists have produced neurotic cats and dogs by means 
 of conflicting habits, we can understand why certain 
 persons advocate the elimination of all beliefs in moral 
 standards. Such a thesis is, of course, materialistic, ani- 
 malistic, and sophistic, but it reveals plainly one no- 
 tion of how unity of personality can be had. Socrates 
 and Plato emphasized wholesome education from the 
 
 12 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, trans. Cyril Bailey (New York: 
 Oxford Press, 1910), pp. 29, 107 f., 135. 
 
 63 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 day of a person’s birth with serenity as a supreme goal. 
 But for them knowledge leads to serenity only be- 
 cause genuine knowledge is awareness of God and 
 requires loyalty to God. 
 
 Let us not assume, however, that the problem of 
 man’s subjective conflict is solved. The problem is so 
 difficult that it does not lend itself to naive treatment. 
 Let us observe two characteristics, from the human 
 point of view, which are at the very center of man’s 
 conflict with himself. 
 
 First, it is man’s struggle to understand the con- 
 flict itself. He strives to make himself understand the 
 problem of conflict. He tries to understand pain, 
 tragedy, injustice, and joy, success, justice, and hope. 
 Why is it the good suffer, and the evil prosper? Why 
 is it that man seems to be caught between continu- 
 ously grinding upper and lower millstones? Is it some 
 power—good or evil—that made those stones, placed 
 man between them, and grinds him throughout life 
 —perhaps forever? Is there any human will, any free- 
 dom, any possible escape, any source of divine love 
 and mercy and salvation? The struggle, then, is in the 
 very heart of a person—a struggle to understand; a 
 struggle to know the nature of the conflict and one’s 
 own self in its own condition of inner turmoil. 
 
 This form of inner conflict is as old as human 
 history. For example, in religious history the Book of 
 Job, at length and with profound insight, portrays a 
 man inwardly tortured by his lack of understanding 
 and his desire to understand. Job’s problem was not 
 
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Man and Conflict 
 
 that of loss of property, of family, and of health; his 
 conflict was that age-old plaintive cry of the human 
 heart itself: Why? Why? Why has this happened? 
 Even, Why has God let this happen? In his desperate 
 effort to resolve the conflict between his lack of knowl- 
 edge and his desire to know, Job was tortured by the 
 suspicion that a battle exists between God and Satan 
 and that man is an object on which they test their 
 strength. 
 
 It is also man’s struggle to adjust himself as 
 he finds himself in a web of exacting circumstances. 
 Greek philosophy reflects this type of man’s 
 inner struggle. The Apology, the Crito, and the 
 Phaedo show us how Socrates faced this problem. 
 With him it involved much more than personal com- 
 fort or discomfort, friends or enemies, freedom or 
 execution. It was the will to do the right thing fight- 
 ing the impulse to do the wrong thing. It was the will 
 to be humble in combat with the urge to be tyrannical. 
 It was the desire to be merciful grappling with the pas- 
 sion for vengeance. Plato states the problem vividly 
 in the allegory of the charioteer who drives two winged 
 horses, one noble and rising upward, the other of 
 ignoble breed and pulling downward. The second 
 characteristic of this inner conflict, therefore, is a per- 
 son’s struggle to make himself live up to the best there 
 is in himself. 
 
 Nowhere else in secular literature is this conflict 
 in the soul of man so graphically stated as it is in 
 Greek tragedy. Greek tragedy is tragedy in the mind; 
 
 65 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 it is agony of the soul; it is personality on the rack. 
 One who reads Aeschylus’ Prometheus, Agamemnon, 
 and Eumenides; Euripides’ Medea, Trojan Women, 
 and Electra; and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, finds the 
 human heart laid bare and torn by every diverse ma- 
 jor impulse. There, painted with matchless strokes 
 of genius, one finds love pitted against selfishness, rea- 
 son against passion, freedom against slavery, the spirit 
 of righteousness against the venom of hell. There one 
 finds the uttermost limits of horrors, of perplexity, and 
 of temptation when a person becomes enmeshed in an 
 endless web of circumstances fashioned by man and 
 fate. Suffering is intensified when the victim realizes 
 his own responsibility and his error. When Oedipus 
 let passion overcome reason, he committed deeds so 
 offensive to himself that he tore out his eyes in the 
 utter horror of shame. But no device, not even self- 
 inflicted blindness, resolved his conflict; for, later, 
 Creon said to him: 
 “Thou art an enemy to thyself, both now 
 
 And in time past, when in despite of friends 
 Thou gavest rein to passion, still thy bane.’’?% 
 
 In certain cases, the victim adds evil to evil and makes 
 wrong promote wrong, vengeance call for vengeance, 
 and tragedy breed tragedy. When Medea is debating 
 two courses of action—complete vengeance upon Jason 
 or mercy to her children—she chooses the bloody 
 course of full vengeance, but says: 
 
 13. Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, trans. F. Storr (New York: G. P. 
 Putnam’s Sons, 1909), ll. 853 ff. 
 
 66 
 
Man and Conflict 
 
 “Now, now I learn what horrors I intend: 
 
 But my passion overmasters my reason; 
 
 And this is the cause of direct ills to men. 
 
 .. + Why delay 
 
 To do these dreadful deeds of evil... ? 
 
 Come, wretched hand of mine, grasp the sword... 
 
 Do not turn coward! Do not remember that they 
 are your babes! 
 
 How dear they are to you, how you bore them; 
 
 For this short day forget they are your sons, 
 
 And thereafter mourn for them. For, although I 
 slay them, 
 
 Yet they are dear to me, and I—I am a wretched 
 woman.’14 
 
 But in other instances, with grand sublimity, the 
 victim became victor. Socrates met injustice and 
 death in faith and with complete serenity. Prome- 
 theus, nailed against a lofty crag where midday fire 
 would scorch his flesh, black night would freeze his 
 limbs with agonizing cold, and no human voice would 
 comfort him, defied anthropomorphic and unjust 
 Zeus. Antigone put her faith in the eternal law of 
 right which is beyond man and death, “unwritten and 
 never failing.” Plato makes this magnificent confes- 
 sion: “We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as 
 quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like 
 God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, 
 is to become holy, just and wise . . . God is never in 
 any way unrighteous—he is perfect righteousness, and 
 
 14. Euripides, The Medea, trans. Gilbert Murray (New York: Oxford 
 University Press, 1934), ll. 1077 ff., 1242 ff., 1246 ff. 
 
 67 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 he of us who is most righteous is most like him.” 
 
 Conflict persists. At times it seems to become more 
 intense and exacting. Can man solve the problem in 
 terms of his own resources of penetrating mind and 
 stoical courage? I do not think so. We must use our 
 own resources to the uttermost of our ability, but it is 
 my conviction that we must rely upon another source, 
 divine revelation, in order to solve the problem of 
 conflict. 
 
 15. Theaetetus, 176, in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. Benjamin 
 Jowett (grd ed., 5 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1892). 
 
 68 
 
MAN AND CHRIST 
 
 MAN IS EVER RESTLESS. He is never content. Food re- 
 lieves his hunger, and clothing and shelter protect 
 him. He learns the ways of nature and escapes bur- 
 dens of fear, pain, and labor. He finds that color satis- 
 fies the eye, that sound pleases the ear, and that objects 
 proper to them meet the needs of taste, smell, and 
 touch. But unsleeping curiosity drives him from rest, 
 and so he examines plant and animal, atom and star, 
 and the trackless courses of land, sea, and sky. Dis- 
 covery does not bring contentment; something impels 
 him on and on. He grasps the reins of nature’s laws 
 and guides physical forces, plants, and animals for his 
 comfort and convenience. Still impatient, he searches 
 out the beauty of gardens, music, art, architecture, 
 literature, and friendships. But none of these things, 
 however fine, nor all of them, however many, satisfy 
 his deep-seated and persistent sense of need. Some- 
 thing in a person’s very nature cries out for more than 
 material things and human accomplishments. 
 
 As strange as it may be, it seems that a person is a 
 
 69 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 part of the infinite and that nothing local or temporal 
 can satisfy him who is endowed with the spirit of the 
 universal. He wants to know the nature of himself 
 and the universe of which he is a part. He must try 
 and try to find the what and why of existence. Some- 
 thing urges him to seek perfection in ideals and in 
 work. He also feels that he is an individual; he wants 
 respect and lasting worth as a person; he longs for 
 spiritual, personal immortality. He seeks to know 
 God and to find his place in God’s universe and his 
 relation to God’s will. He never finds in nature, in 
 mental excellence, or in his struggle in any temporal 
 arena the absolute which he craves. The universal in 
 man craves the ultimate; man is restless until he finds 
 rest in the Eternal. 
 
 How can a person know God? How can a man, 
 restless as he is, find the supreme ideal in which he 
 will have full and enduring peace? Many able and de- 
 vout people have tried to show the way. Ancient sages 
 and modern scholars have tried to find the way. They 
 have climbed to lofty peaks from which horizons have 
 been far-reaching and wonderful. Their reports are 
 wise and helpful, but none is final, none is satisfactory. 
 My conviction is that the restless human mind can 
 find peace and the hungry human soul can find satis- 
 faction only in Jesus Christ who is God’s revelation— 
 God’s revelation of himself to man. 
 
 Jesus Christ is our supreme authority concerning 
 spiritual reality. No other man ever lived or spoke 
 as he did. No other man could say: “I am the way, 
 
 70 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 the truth, and the life.” No other man could declare: 
 “And I, if I be lifted up . . . will draw all men unto 
 me.” A dictator may demand allegiance, but no other 
 man ever gave the unqualified invitation, “Follow 
 thou me.” There are saintly people, but none could 
 say: “Before Abraham was, I am”; “The Father and 
 I are one’; “If any man serve me, him will my Father 
 honour.” 
 
 It is self-evident that I can name only a few traits 
 of him who is the perfect example of truth and right- 
 eousness. I shall state only two things that our Lord 
 revealed: They are spiritual reality and standards of 
 righteousness. 
 
 SPIRITUAL REALITY 
 
 In the first place, our Master revealed spiritual 
 reality. For example, he proclaimed the reality of 
 God. In stating the existence and the sovereignty of 
 God, he did not rely upon an arsenal of scriptural 
 texts or fine devices of logic; he simply and habitually 
 reflected his own divine nature, and he used the con- 
 fidence and the authority of personal, first-hand ex- 
 perience and knowledge. Jesus had, of course, an 
 amazing store of information and incomparable insight 
 into things, values, and people. But his wisdom went 
 far beyond anything local and temporal. He knew God 
 intimately, communed with him frequently, moved 
 with him closely, and relied upon him constantly. He 
 ‘ therefore realized that God is the supreme truth which 
 is basic to every other mode of existence. He was 
 aware that the existence of God explains the origin of 
 
 pl 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 the universe and gives full assurance of enduring 
 values and valid hope. His divine relationship en- 
 abled him to understand how the Eternal God, who 
 “is perfectly true in word and deed, who changes not, 
 and who deceives not by sign or word in dream or 
 waking vision,”’ is the source of unity in the universe, 
 the author of abiding principles, the guarantee of im- 
 perishable good, and the basis of love and faith. Our 
 Lord’s knowledge of God shows why he never acted 
 in haste, never expressed uncertainty, never violated 
 his mission, and never doubted the ultimate triumph 
 of truth. 
 
 Our Master also revealed the spiritual nature of 
 man. He knew that a person—any person—is an im- 
 mortal soul. He had full respect for the natural world, 
 and he was clearly aware of the importance of health 
 of body, purity of mind, and superior standards of 
 human relationships. But he knew that a person is a 
 priceless, immortal, spiritual entity; and that is why 
 his mission was to persons. That explains the fact that 
 he never met an unimportant person. Whether child 
 or adult, poor or wealthy, ruler or outcast, scholar or 
 illiterate, mentally sound or demoniac, for Jesus every- 
 body was an important somebody, because every per- 
 son is a living soul. Marcus Aurelius would not let 
 himself become despondent when he suffered the 
 pains of organic illness, for he believed his spiritual 
 nature must remain predominant. Epictetus declared 
 that while his body might bear shackles Epictetus him- 
 self must never become enslaved: Seneca felt that the 
 
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Man and Christ 
 
 Emperor could kill his body, but he declared that no 
 despot would destroy his spirit. But Jesus knew— 
 knew that every person is a priceless soul. 
 
 Our Master, furthermore, declared the Father- 
 hood of God. It is most difficult to understand how 
 God is interested in every person. When we observe, 
 for example, the physical universe with its trillions 
 of stars scattered throughout almost infinite space and 
 timeless time, we utter the age-old cry: “What is man, 
 that thou art mindful of him?” When we look upon 
 nature with her apparently impersonal, cold, precise 
 exactness, in the thought of Omar it seems that a man 
 is only a snowflake falling upon the sea or, in the 
 mood of Voltaire, that man is only a conscious, tor- 
 mented atom. Then, too, science proves and disproves 
 man’s uniqueness with equal facility. 
 
 Man himself is a source of confusion and doubt. 
 The enormous number of people, since the time man 
 appeared tens of thousands of years and countless 
 generations ago, startles us. There are now about two 
 billion people in the world, who range from the high- 
 est to the lowest levels in mental ability, social stand- 
 ards, and moral quality. They show every type of be- 
 lief and practice. As history, sociology, and anthro- 
 pology point out, in their interests, their ideals, and 
 their religious devotions they vary about as much as 
 time and place permit. They are backward, and pro- 
 gressive; they love, and they hate; they defend each 
 other, and they slaughter each other; some are saintly, 
 and some are worse than beasts of the jungle. 
 
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Man and Christ 
 
 But Jesus knew that God loves every person. He 
 said that God loves every one of his children as the 
 Good Shepherd cares for each member of his flock. 
 He declared that God’s love is deep and abiding, long- 
 ing and welcoming, and forgiving and blessing, like 
 the love of the father of the Prodigal Son. Our Lord 
 himself spent his life in a ministry of perfect love, 
 and he made the supreme sacrifice in proof of divine 
 love. Our Lord’s love was no abstraction, nor was it 
 for humanity in general. It was for individual persons 
 —for a blind man, an afflicted youth, an outcast wom- 
 an, a troubled centurion, a fisherman, a scholar, a 
 widow whose only son was dead. It was a genuine, 
 persistent, magnetic love that held and transformed 
 any person who responded to it, whether it was a Mary 
 Magdalene, a Zacchaeus, or a Saul of Tarsus. Christ’s 
 words, and his life, and death are God’s revelation of 
 his love for every one of us. 
 
 Our Lord also revealed moral law. He knew that 
 the laws of the Living God are no fiction of the human 
 imagination. He was aware that every human situa- 
 tion rests ultimately upon spiritual reality and is, 
 therefore, a moral condition. Call God’s laws what 
 you will—justice, temperance, right, beauty, love— 
 Jesus knew that this is a God-centered universe, that 
 spiritual principles do prevail, and that man is morally 
 responsible. He knew that God is not mocked and that 
 God’s laws cannot be violated with impunity. That 
 is why he cried out: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of 
 God and his righteousness.” He showed the enduring 
 
 74 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 nature of moral law when he declared that, although 
 heaven and earth will pass away, not the least part of 
 moral law will ever cease to exist. He also knew that 
 the sanctions of moral law are inescapable. That is 
 why he spoke so plainly about secret thoughts, atti- 
 tudes, motives, and ambitions; that is also why he 
 placed the stamp of divine approval upon sincerity, 
 honesty, kindness, gratitude, humility, and love. 
 These truths—the reality of God, the human soul, 
 the Fatherhood of God, and moral law—are not new, 
 neither are they old. They are timeless; they are date- 
 less; they are placeless. It is upon these truths that 
 human dignity, hope, and faith must rest. ‘They are 
 the bedrock foundations upon which freedom-loving 
 people must live and build the institutions of free 
 people. It is to these truths which God revealed in 
 Jesus Christ that a Christian must commit himself 
 freely and without apology. They are the Truth 
 which our Master said enables us to become free. 
 
 STANDARDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 In the second place, our Master applied spiritual 
 reality to life. Jesus was no idle theorist; he was not 
 content with mere belief in truth. He made it plain 
 that spiritual truth is the most practical thing in the 
 world. His application of divine truth to human life 
 reveals the ideal standards which are the landmarks 
 of righteousness. I name four of them. 
 
 First, our Lord set the standard of wisdom. Jesus 
 grew in wisdom. Every window of his alert mind was 
 
 75 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 wide open. He knew seasons, storms, floods, and sun- 
 sets. He was familiar with soil, seed, planting, and 
 harvesting. He knew trees, flowers, and fruits; and 
 he spoke freely of birds, dogs, sheep, and cattle. He 
 understood the yoke, foundations of buildings, politi- 
 cal situations, and religious organizations. He knew 
 the Scriptures and quoted them freely. 
 
 Jesus also saw life realistically. He knew wealth 
 and poverty, health and illness, freedom and slavery, 
 wisdom and foolishness, humility and arrogance. He 
 saw homes illuminated by love, darkened with tragedy, 
 and saddened by death. He met the blind, the dis- 
 eased, and the socially outcast. He observed devout 
 worship and sheer hypocrisy. He listened to words 
 of gratitude and loyalty, and he heard fickle praise, 
 clever treachery, taunting mockery, and bitter con- 
 demnation. He knew self-righteous religious leaders 
 and political despots. He talked with a scholar on a 
 housetop, noticed a despondent man by a pool, saw 
 people afflicted by disease, watched children at play, 
 saw people having divided loyalties, listened to the 
 selfishly ambitious, was acquainted with the tyrant 
 and the exhibitionist, found a demoniac who lived 
 with the dead, and looked upon a sinner weeping at 
 his feet. 
 
 Some people have vast information but possess 
 few ideas. It was not so with Jesus. He spoke of stone 
 and sand, mustard seed and grains of wheat, a candle 
 and a coin, lilies and birds and gave them divine mean- 
 ing. He used a widow’s small. gift to reveal God’s 
 
 76 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 standard of judgment and a child’s cry for bread to 
 show God’s love and care. He spoke of the wind in 
 telling a respectable scholar that he was spiritually 
 blind. He made a cup of water a way of revealing 
 to a Samaritan woman that he was the Messiah and 
 a means of teaching her that God is a spirit who must 
 be worshiped in spirit and in truth. 
 
 In his wisdom our Master never tried to dazzle 
 his audience with words, with a mass of information, 
 subtle argument, or artificial illustrations. With per- 
 fect taste he fitted the garment of language to the body 
 of the idea. Who is conscious of language or thinks of 
 style when he reads the words Jesus uttered? Who can 
 detect in his ministry to the ill, the confused, and the 
 sinful any trace of artificiality or arrogance? With 
 divine insight he never made an error in his diagnosis 
 of a problem or in the remedy he prescribed. Noth- 
 ing ever dulled his sense of values or his appreciation 
 of spiritual truth. For example, a rich man was in- 
 terested in personal comfort and security; Jesus was 
 concerned about the man’s soul. Gadarenes were wor- 
 ried about swine; Jesus devoted himself to an afflicted 
 man. Religious leaders stressed public display; Jesus 
 was genuinely humble. A group of men wanted to 
 trick Jesus about killing a woman; Jesus made the 
 men convict themselves, and forgave the woman. 
 Pharisees were fanatically devoted to Jewish law; Jesus 
 declared that the Living Truth is superior to any 
 legal code. When Mary of Bethany broke the alabas- 
 ter box of ointment and men complained about waste, 
 
 77 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 Jesus placed the stamp of divine approval upon grati- 
 tude and graciousness and beauty. 
 
 Our Lord’s wisdom is also revealed in his mission. 
 At the outset of his ministry he reviewed three great 
 fields of opportunity for leadership and achievement. 
 But he realized that material needs, political interests, 
 and organized religion, however valuable, are less im- 
 portant than spiritual truth established in human 
 hearts. With supreme wisdom he therefore commit- 
 ted himself unreservedly to the revelation of God to 
 human souls, and he never violated his mission by 
 word or deed. He never mistook the temporal for the 
 permanent or the local for the universal. He never 
 substituted the artificial for the genuine, an opinion 
 for an idea, or expediency for principle. He was 
 genuinely kind, unselfish, and careful. He was habitu- 
 ally sympathetic, just, merciful, and helpful. He 
 never overlooked a person in need; he never denied 
 a good request; he never neglected an unknown per- 
 son in order to help a distinguished citizen; he never 
 caused a person to believe that he was worthless or to 
 develop a feeling of inferiority. His patience and love 
 were boundless. His disciples often refused to learn, 
 but his patience with them was excelled only by his 
 loyalty to them and his love for them. When the mur- 
 derous crowd milled about him on the cross, with 
 amazing devotion he said: ‘Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do.” Priests wagged their 
 silly heads, mocked him, and said: “He saved others; 
 himself he cannot save.” “If thou be the Son of God, 
 
 78 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 9 
 
 come down from the cross.”” But our Lord refused to 
 compromise his divinity or violate his mission by 
 using a spectacular method or by saving himself from 
 pain and death. 
 
 Jesus also set the standard of moral courage. He 
 knew that the way he chose was difficult and dan- 
 gerous. He saw that he would meet prejudice, igno- 
 rance, hate, injustice, and untimely death. But his 
 commission was from God, and he therefore never 
 ignored a responsibility, evaded a vital issue, or vio- 
 lated a principle. He chose the hard way of life. As 
 a result he had no home. His neighbors tried to kill 
 him. His family misunderstood him and felt that he 
 was mentally ill. Pharisees insulted him and made 
 plans to destroy him. Crowds followed him and then 
 left him. Fickle public opinion applauded him and 
 then clamored for his death. One of his disciples 
 betrayed him; three of them slept during his agony 
 in Gethsemane; one of them profanely denied know- 
 ing him; and all but one of them deserted him in the 
 hour of danger. But he was so firmly resolved to teach 
 the truth about God and man that he never faltered 
 or turned from the way that led from Nazareth to 
 Calvary. 
 
 Epictetus said that when a man enters the room 
 and you tend to become afraid, you should remember 
 that God is also present. Jesus knew that God was 
 with him; so he never acted with doubt, never failed 
 to speak the truth in love, and never expressed fear. 
 He endured slanderous tongues and heard insulting 
 
 79 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 mockery. Bigotry supported by ignorance and vested 
 interests finally killed him, but he died so courageously 
 that a Roman officer who helped crucify him said: 
 “Truly this man was the Son of God.” 
 
 Our Master also set the standard of wise and posi- 
 tive ministry to human need. He knew that spiritual 
 reality, wisdom, and moral courage belong in no ivory 
 tower. They exist in a realistic world; they point 
 directly to human need; they require means of relief; 
 they demand action. 
 
 In his ministry to human need Jesus did two 
 things. He removed burdens from bodies and minds. 
 For example, he gave sight to the blind, made the un- 
 touchable leper clean, and healed a Samaritan woman’s 
 child. He cured an epileptic youth, healed a 
 man afflicted with palsy, and made a demoniac well 
 again. Like a great physician he never hestitated to 
 give relief to any person who asked for help. 
 
 As he ministered to people, Jesus also cultivated 
 a person’s self-respect. He therefore required confi- 
 dence, initiative, loyalty, and intelligence. He told 
 a blind man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He 
 asked the man with the withered hand to stretch forth 
 his hand. He told lepers to go and show themselves 
 to the priests. He ordered the whimpering man by the 
 pool to pick up his bed and walk. Again and again 
 he said: Seek, knock, ask. In his effort to develop 
 self-reliance Jesus, furthermore, required full and 
 firm loyalty. In plain words, he said: “Let the dead 
 bury their dead.” ““No man can serve two masters.” 
 
 80 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and 
 looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.” In 
 stressing the need of good judgment, he spoke of the 
 tragedy caused by the blind leading the blind, showed 
 the utter silliness of casting the pearls of one’s life to 
 swine, and described the dismal despair of foolish 
 people who neglect resources and close doors of op- 
 portunity forever. He affirmed the high ideal to which 
 a man must give complete devotion by making clear 
 the fine sense of values of the merchant who found 
 the pearl of great price and then sold all he had in 
 order to buy the best. 
 
 Our Master, then, set up no cheap, weakening, 
 easy standard of ministry. He left no place for moral 
 opiates, quick panaceas, or devices of quackery. His 
 divine imperative was that every person must become 
 his best and do his best. It demands work and care, 
 and it never approves ignorance and carelessness. It 
 commends beauty and perfection, and it never con- 
 dones ugliness and mediocrity. Our Lord never ap- 
 proved low and easy standards, and he never respected 
 limp minds and lazy bones. His ideal requires the 
 profoundest devotion, the wisest effort, and the finest 
 achievement of which a person is capable; for a person 
 is created in the image of God, and his ministry is the 
 ministry to human souls in the name of the Eternal 
 God. That is one reason why our Lord said: “Be ye 
 therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is 
 perfect.” 
 
 Our Master, furthermore, revealed the nature of 
 
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Man and Christ 
 
 faith. I hasten to say that I cannot properly define 
 faith. I do know, however, that we must not substitute 
 credulity for faith, because unguarded readiness to 
 believe or easy acceptance of some object of thought 
 can lead to numerous pitfalls including some of those 
 listed as symptoms of mental illness. Nor must we 
 assume that mere probability, reasonable certainty, 
 logical probability, or any other empirically derived 
 condition of assurance is faith. We know how easy it 
 is to accept an idea that conforms to our wishes, be- 
 liefs, and pleasure. We know how inclined we are 
 to wishful thinking and how disposed we are to adopt 
 a belief that promises a reward of some sort. It is easy 
 for us to understand that so-called faith in business 
 transactions, mathematical computations, the efficiency 
 of means of transportation, and the daily rise of the 
 sun comes from our experience with tangible objects 
 and situations. To say that faith consists of such ra- 
 tional certainty reduces the origin of faith to sense 
 perception and leads straight to such sophistry as the 
 claim that truth is only opinion, that religion is a 
 product of fear, and that God is a logical necessity 
 springing out of wishful thinking. 
 
 How can a person know spiritual reality? For ex- 
 ample, how can one know that the soul is immortal? 
 How can a man know that he is a soul? How can one 
 know that there is a God? How can a person know the 
 reality of moral law and therefore know that there are 
 the enduring principles of right, justice, temperance, 
 love? How can one know that there is a divine plan 
 
 82 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 for his life to which his life must conform? No man has 
 ever seen God, a soul, immortality, or an ethical prin- 
 ciple. Such forms of reality do not come within the 
 realm of sense perception or any other form of ra- 
 tional observation, nor can any empirical field prove 
 their existence. I do not understand that history, 
 logic, and science either prove or disprove them, nor 
 is it clear to me that any human device, however fine, 
 can establish their existence. 
 
 Man, nevertheless, yearns for God and for im- 
 mortality. With all of his imperfections and with 
 varied forms of belief, something infinite in a person’s 
 nature makes him dissatisfied with the temporal, rebel 
 at the thought of oblivion, long for the infinite, and 
 hope for immortality. There is, then, the conviction 
 of the existence of spiritual reality. There is, there- 
 fore, an ineffable longing of the human heart for the 
 Eternal. There are those people who, through faith, 
 have such firm conviction of the reality of God, the 
 human soul, and spiritual principles, that, to the best 
 of their knowledge and ability, they will not violate 
 those truths. Such persons do what they believe is 
 right and honest and just and good, not for any hope 
 of reward but because of utter respect for the truth 
 itself. ‘That is why Plato’s righteous man would not 
 yield to the promise of temporal power and fame, al- 
 though he was misunderstood, tortured, had his eyes 
 burnt out, and was killed. That is the reason Job 
 cried out: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in 
 him.”’ Such is the lesson of the story of the old woman 
 
 83 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 who said, when she was asked why she carried a pan 
 of live coals in one hand and a jug of water in the 
 other: “I am going to burn heaven and quench the 
 fires of hell, so people will love the Lord for his own 
 self.”’ 
 
 Faith, then, is the positive conviction of the exist- 
 ence of unseen reality. It is the substance of active 
 good will. It is the means of releasing unique divine 
 power as righteousness. It is the will to do one’s best 
 in honest and honorable work and to leave one’s 
 destiny in the hands of God. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the revelation of perfect faith. He 
 knew spiritual truth so well that he always acted as if 
 he was fully aware of the presence of God, the nature 
 of the immortal soul, and the requirements of divine 
 law. His life was the perfect harmony of truth and 
 righteousness. When our Lord was on the cross where 
 evil attacked the good, failure seemed to triumph over 
 success, hate enshrouded love, despair obscured hope, 
 and death enveloped life, our Master knew that all 
 of the forces of evil cannot triumph over imperishable 
 good. So, he committed his spirit and his destiny to 
 the hands of God. 
 
 What is man’s relation to Christ? In King Lear, 
 Kent says to the King: “You have that in your coun- 
 tenance which I would fain call master.” In Jesus 
 Christ man can find every fine thing that he needs, 
 the ideal that he would become, the destiny for which 
 his soul longs. In Jesus Christ man finds him whom 
 he would fain call master, and his heart cries out: 
 
 84 
 
Man and Christ 
 
 “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” 
 It is in him that we find the perfect faith that guaran- 
 tees the validity of our faith. Jesus Christ is the Liv- 
 ing Truth which no formula of man and no tomb of 
 death can hold. He it is who would walk with us 
 when we are so despondent that all seems hopeless, 
 just as he joined the men on the road to Emmaus and 
 caused their hearts to burn within them. He is the 
 Divine Magnet who, when we recognize him, will 
 make us rush to him, as Simon Peter did when he saw 
 his Master on the shore. He is the Living Christ who 
 would transform us, as he changed Saul of Tarsus 
 when Saul met him on the road to Damascus. 
 
 It is my conviction that in Jesus Christ, and in him 
 alone, can man find the way from strife to peace and 
 good will, the truth that gives freedom, the Eternal 
 Spirit in which his restless soul finds rest. 
 
 As lovely Beatrice led Dante along the upper ter- 
 races of Paradise and found “‘a beauty which was glad- 
 ness,” the poet exclaimed: “A light there is up yon- 
 der which maketh the Creator visible unto the 
 creature, who in beholding him hath its own peace; 
 and it so far outstretcheth circle-wise that its circum- 
 ference would be too loose a girdle for the sun.” In 
 Jesus Christ man finds truth so large that it is too 
 loose a girdle for the universe. 
 
 85 
 
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 go 
 

 

 

 
“a manifesto in Christian philosophy by a m 
 of genuine maturity. I am struck by the lucidity and b 
 liance of style. I am also impressed by the work as a stat 
 ment of the Christian standpoint as it is challenged fro 
 many standpoints in the contemporary scientific, politic 
 and philosophic world view of secularism. ‘The last chap 
 does constitute a Christian answer to the perplexity 
 modern man. It is a fertile and penetrating interpretati 
 and appreciation of the person and message of Chri 
 ..amagnificent statement... .” 
 —Ropert E. CusHMAN 
 Professor of Systematic Theology in th 
 Duke University Divinity School 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Prominent Attorney in Greenville, 
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 nature of man, and the validity of moral principles will 
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 —O. 'T. BINKLEY 
 
 Professor of Christian Sociology and 
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 Seminary 
 
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