Doublethink about God
Sir: Science deals with the question 'How is the world constructed?' Religion asks 'How shall a man live?' It is an option open to any man to take as his example the life and teach- ings of Jesus (or the Buddha, Chairman Mao or Bertrand Russell). Faith, in the Christian context, does not require assent to any doctrine that is intellectually untenable. It consists of commitment to acting out the teachings of Jesus at personal cost, trusting one will be given the resources to do so.
Mr Allsop (21 June) has omitted any refer- ence to the fact of transcendental experience, which can illumine for someone like myself (of sceptical temperament and formerly an atheist) the meanings that lie hidden beneath the sym- bols and metaphors of the Bible. It is, of course, open to him to brand all such experience as neurotic. As Jesus himself was considered mad by many people, I am quite happy to accept the label. He might agree, though. that from the point of view of humanity, it may be better to have a neurotic Christian demonstrating out- side Porton (or Fort Detrick) than a 'mature' scientist working inside. Still, if my commit- ment to bear the Christian witness should at a future date land me in jail and Mr Hogg is Home Secretary, I shall hope to have time and opportunity to transcribe my 'theological' in- sights.
Incidentally religious experience involves a heightened consciousness, and a different per- ception and experience of time/space. So there is no use looking round the universe as we normally perceive it, for 'evidence' of God.
I think it was Karl Marx who said 'the criterion of all truth consists in its verification by means of practice.' I therefore commend to both protagonists the open-minded approach to other people's beliefs best summed up in the- words of the late Aneurin Bevan, 'This is my truth—now tell me yours.'
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