Agnosticism

SIR,—Many people must have been impressed by the sincerity of the author of An Agnostic's Quest in your issue of January 16th.

I wonder if the following chain of " incredibles " will help: if there is a weak link in it, I cannot detect it.

It is incredible to me: 1. That the universe just happened accidentally. If someone flung in the air a handful of tiny cards each bearing a letter of the alphabet, it is incredible to. me that any of them would fall on the floor arranged as words, much less sentences. To find a single word would be evidence of an arranging mind at work. Much in the universe is meaningless to me, but there are enough " words " to show purposeful- ness, as for example the way the cells in a human embryo appear differently determined, and at the right place, at the right time, develop the right properties for carrying -out the function of their particular part of the structure.

2. That this arranging mind is not in some ways like my own. If it were totally unlike my own mind, I should not perceive the phenomenon of arrangement, or detect purposefulness to be such. So I find a kinship between the world-mind and my own.

3. That my sense of values is all wrong. ' I regard love as better than hate, kindness as better than cruelty, &c. It is incredible to me that Hitler was a better man than Jesus, a cosh-boy better than St. Francis.

4. That the world-mind asserted above—which now I shall call God—does not possess and express these values. If God does not love and is not good, then some men are better than God.

5. That God has no personality; that God is "it," but not " He," since personality (by which I mean a self-conscious centre of thinking, feeling and willing) is my greatest asset. God must be more than the word " personal " connotes. He cannot be less.

6. That this personal Planner has no purpose in humanity. Even I have a purpose directed to the highest welfare of those who owe their creation to me. Can God be less purposeful ?

7. That God has done nothing about sin and suffering, for sin is the greatest hindrance to His planning, and suffering the greatest stumbling-block to man's belief in Him. Sin—the conscious choice of known evil—seems -due to the misuse of man's freedom of choice in moral situations. Evil, due to the human family's folly, ignorance and sin, is shared by-the whole family, which gains by the family assets and loses by the family liabilities, so that the innocent suffer with the guilty. The fact that man so often misuses his freedom and chooses evil may be due to three things:—

(a) a hangover from his animal ancestry (e.g. promiscuous _ sexuality is amoral in the jungle and only becomes lust when man sees a higher way of life); (b) the invasion of man's personality by evil psychic entities (e.g. the devil and other evil spirits);

• (c) the possible consequences of man's activities in an earlier incarnation.

8. That God has not disclosed His purposes _since they cam only reach fruition by man's conscious co-operation with God. (Conscience, insight, the words and lives of others, especially the Bible, reveal God's plans.) • 9. That Jesus Christ was mentally unbalanced, wholly misreported, or hopelessly mistaken when He claimed a unique relationship with God, or that the saints were wrong when they saw in His death, resurrection and life after death facts importantly relevant to the redeeming purposes of God, i.e. that God was pledged to end both sin and suffering, having used both for man's highest. welfare.

10. That man does not survive death. The nature of God, the nature of man, the rationality of the universe and the faith of all the great mystics would be indicted if man does not survive. As the babe in the womb has ears, eyes and lips for a life. which begins at birth, so no man's possibilities are exhausted at death. He has embryonic qualities which point to a fuller life which begins at " death."

11. That Christianity is either false or irrelevant to man's problems. One only knows a few Christians, but they convince one that, if every- one were like them, man's problems would be solved; war, for instance.

12. That the mighty Planner we call God can finally be defeated. Ignorance, folly and sin can temporarily defeat His will, and bring suffering and frustration to- man. But while omnipotence does not mean that everything that happens in His intention, it does mean that, in allowing it _temporary power, God knows He can weave everything into a higher purpose for man's ultimate welfare.

These things make me want to dedicate my life to Him and to be used, however humbly, in the working out of His mighty plans. We know so little, and our doing is hampered by warring sects which emphasise things concerning which Christ said little or nothing. All we can do is to try to follow His way of life and do His will as far as we can see it. Christ never asked men to accept intellectual pro- positions. He asked them to try out a way of life. When it is tried out, it works.—Yours faithfully, LESLIE D. WEATHERHEAD, Minister of the City Temple, London.,