PEACE THROUGH' FEAR OR . . . ?
SIR,—When I had read Canon Roger Lloyd's article "Peace through Fear or ...?" I remembered what Jowett said to Margot Tennant (Asquith) in her girlhood: " My child, you must believe in God in spite of all that the clergy tell you." Here is a highly-placed clergyman likening God, to a father who should say to his small children: " Do as. you please. Exercise free-will to its fullest extent," and then, when they had set the house on fire by playing with matches, should produce a hosepipe and subdue the flames, but not before some of the family had been burned to death. Such a man would rightly be convicted of manslaughter and sent to gaol.
To speak of God " acting within His own laws " and having " presented to Him a human situation upon which it is morally possible for Him to intervene " is sheer anthropomorphism (endowing God with human attributes). This is not so surprising when we. learn that Canon Lloyd believes in a personal devil. Can anybody wonder that Churchianity fails to appeal to people who try to use their intelligence and hold with joubert that " it is not hard to know God; provided one does not force oneself to define Him."
It would, may I add, interest me very much and I am sure many other seekers after truth to know whether Canon Lloyd thinks the devil sends the caterpillars and slugs and snails which I have, most unwillingly, to kill in my vegetable garden, or whether God created them to be destroyed by people trying to grow food for the coming winter. This killing business is never touched on by the clergy, though it lies, it seems to me, at the root of all their doctrine. They deliberately disregard it, as they do other difficulties ; and perhaps they are wise if tackling them means increasing instead of diminishing their complexity, as Canon Lloyd has done—for
Previous page
