Gooding, David: Is there a Reasonable Hope for Humanity?

For my part, ladies and gentlemen, I have not chosen to address you this afternoon on the obscurities of my own particular discipline. I have more respect for my and your powers of endurance. I have chosen to rather to talk to you on the question, is there a reasonable hope for mankind? Because I thought that you might conceivably be interested. If a fellow mortal, uh, should be courageous enough, you might think brash enough, to bear his own heart and state on what grounds he bases his own hope for himself and for the future of the human race. So now, when I turn to the task of addressing you on this topic, I might well find the prospect too daunting if I did not reflect for a moment on the nature of your profession and on the skill and the gracious tact with which you are accustomed to go about your professional duties. You see, in the course of my remarks here this afternoon, I shall be obliged to touch on gloomy topics, to probe some sore places. I shall be obliged to refer to the evil and cruelty of our world. To speak of our sense of guilt and alienation. To talk, for instance, of the end of the world and on such unpopular topics as the final judgment. You may well find such topics irritating and unpleasant, if not positively painful. And I run the risk, therefore, of being decidedly unpopular. And then I reflect on the nature of your profession. You too, I remind myself, have to probe behind the fair surface of things sometimes, to expose unpleasant decay. You too, in spite of your astonishing dexterity and professional skill, have on occasions to hurt people, or at least to give the impression that you are about to hurt them. With the result that in the public eye, I think I tell you no news at this point, the image of dentist is not always surrounded with the aura of the highest popularity. You have, of course, I know, very nobly disregarded the shallow unpopularity in which sometimes you are held. You've gone ahead with your healing ministrations, for which, of course, all of us are profoundly grateful. As I reflect on that, I reassure myself with the thought that I have your sympathy and understanding if this afternoon I am obliged at certain moments in the course of my remarks to touch on sensitive and painful topics. My chief worry is not that I may appear to you to be too gloomy as I discourse on the future of mankind, or too pessimistic. As I present the grounds which the Christian faith gives me at least, or hope for the future of mankind. My worry is that I shall appear to you far too optimistic, far more certain and hopeful, far more buoyantly joyful even, than I have any right to be. You may in the end be worried that I am naive. I think you will not be worried that I am too pessimistic. Now, your worry will be perhaps in part because I shall not attempt this afternoon to rehearse all the massive and detailed evidence that the Christian faith is true. I do not have the extensive time that would be necessary for that. What I wish to do, however, is to argue that to be reasonable, any hope for the future of mankind must be able to answer satisfactorily certain basic questions. And as I consider these basic questions, it seems to me at least that Christianity, and Christianity alone ultimately, is able to answer these questions satisfactorily. The first question that we must ask, if we are to have any reasonable hope for the future of our world, is, I think, the question of the origin of our planet and of our universe and of ourselves upon it. For one thing, at least, is incontrovertibly clear. Man is not the source of his own existence. We derive our being from some source outside of ourselves. Man is a derived being. We are not self-existent. Can we then turn our hearts to some rational, self-existent creator? And say with the Jewish psalmist, it is he who has made us and not we ourselves. Or say with the Christian apostle, thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they are and were created. Or are we inescapably driven to believe that our universe and we ourselves on it and in it are the chance result of Of blind blind forces forces, work working purposelessly on blind matter. Are we, ladies and gentlemen, simply a magnificent accident of chance? You see, if this latter is true, if we are simply the blind results of blind accidental chance, then we must certainly abandon all rational hope for the future of mankind, for the obvious reason, that what blind chance has blindly produced, blind chance may equally well blindly destroy. We might, we may hope that by some fortunate stroke of luck, the human race may survive. Such a hope cannot be reasonable if the whole affair is from the very beginning merely the result of blind forces working by chance on blind matter. It is the fact, however, is it not, that many people feel that they are driven to take this gloomy view of things, that blind chance controlled our beginning and will determine our end. Some indeed find it preferable to believe that, rather than to believe in a rational creator, to whom one day conscience would then tell us that we might be answerable. But many others are driven to this gloomy view of the future because there weighs heavily with them the burden, the massive burden of suffering in the world. They cannot reconcile the existence of this suffering with the idea of a rational and a loving creator. They find it easier to believe that everything has come about by blind chance, and hence all the imperfections, the evil, and the suffering, they are simply the accidental results of accidental chance. I see that problem. I trust I have have humanity enough to feel it, as well as seeing it. I do not profess to have the answer, the full and complete answer to the grievous problem of human suffering. But I do observe this, for my own part. If you abandon faith in a rational creator, you will certainly get rid of the problem of suffering. You won't get rid of the suffering. You will get rid of the problem because now, uh, you don't have to reconcile pro- the evil around the place with the existence of a loving, rational creator. You can attribute it all to the vagaries of blind and therefore unfeeling chance. You will get rid of your problem. You will not get rid of the pain. You will, of course, by getting rid of a rational creator, make the burden of that pain infinitely more intolerable. Or if there be no rational creator, then ultimately our pain is meaningless, as are our joys. Our suffering is pointless. No good could conceivably come of it. The heroism and dedication of the nurses and the doctors that tend the sick, noble as that may be, if there be no God, will itself ultimately be meaningless as blind chance once more reduces all their joys and their sorrows to oblivion. There be a God, a rational creator. While we may not understand here and now the mysterious reasons for all of our sufferings, we have adequate reason for hoping, as Saint Paul puts it, that our light affliction, which is but for the moment and temporary, is somehow working for us an eternal weight of glory. That God will use the very sufferings of this world and work them together for good to them that love God, that are the called according to his purpose, using e- using even the fires of suffering to perfect the diamonds of our character. What grounds then have we for believing that there is such a rational creator? And what is more, what grounds have we for trusting that such a rational creator is not only rational but loving? I answer as a Christian, you will already have perceived. We have abundant such grounds. And supremely and chiefly in that self-revelation of God that we find in Jesus Christ, his son. I do not stay to develop the evidence for that. I move to my next question. The next question that our hope for the future of mankind must be able to answer satisfactorily, if our hope is going to be reasonable. Man is, let it be firmly said. Man is and obviously is evil and cruel. In saying so, I'm not being rude to any particular man, nor am I overlooking the vast amount of kindness and altruism and compassion in the world. But alongside of that love and compassion and altruism, there exists an evil and cruelty in mankind that we would be blind not to see. And who of us has not been appalled as from time to time he has caught sight of the lamentable selfishness and cruelty and peevishness of his own heart? Who of us would not give much to undo the damage we have done, sometimes to those we love most, by our ingratitude and thoughtlessness and positive cruelty. And I haven't yet spoken of the cruelty that comes from the power blocks into which men organize themselves for the sake of politics. Our question, therefore, must be, as we face the realities of man's evil and cruelty, if man is cruel and evil, is he essentially so? Is it part of his nature, as it is the nature of fire to be hot? Or does man's evil stem from some primeval fall and alienation, there is hope for mankind. Hope that the alienation shall be overcome. That man shall be reconciled to his creator. That the prodigal may return to the father's home and find his true self and be reconciled both to his creator and to his fellow. I'm aware that in many quarters the doctrine of the fall is appallingly unfair. Why should I be blamed, they say, for some, for what some remote Adam did? But of course, the Bible, by its doctrine of the fall, isn't blaming anybody for what somebody else did. It is merely diagnosing whence our basic trouble comes. In fact, the Bible doctrine of the fall is exceedingly kindly. It tells us that our nastiness, while in part our own fault, isn't totally our own fault. That is to be traced to that primeval fall that changed the very nature of humankind and altered his relationships with God. I say therefore again, the Bible is not blaming us by its doctrine of the fall. What it is doing is giving us a profound diagnosis that prepares us for a treatment and a salvation that shall be reasonable and realistic. For a good deal of popular religion along this line is unintentionally cruel and unrealistic. Pull up your spiritual socks, my would-be advisors tell me. Do your best, old fellow, to improve yourself and give yourself a chance for the future. As though my nastiness and evil could be accounted for easily by the simple fact that I accidentally let my spiritual socks fall down. As though by giving attention to the matter, like some schoolboy under the eye of his mother, I could, by my own effort, pull up my spiritual socks and make for myself an adequate salvation. That is unrealistic. It is cruel to lay me thus and all humanity with the total responsibility for the present chaotic state of the world. We are in part responsible. But the Bible, it seems to me, is merciful when it, uh, points us to the fact that we as a human race have long since been estranged by this primeval rebellion against God. The Bible is exceedingly kindly when it, in consequence, informs us that if we have been ruined by what somebody else did, then can we also be saved by what somebody else did? The Bible puts it this way, that if through the disobedience of one, that is our forefather, the many were constituted sinners, so not by their own effort, but by the obedience of one other, namely our Lord, shall the many be made righteous. I am aware, however, that many people reject this idea that human evil is to be attributed to some fall. Some people reject it vigorously. They hold that it is an insult to man, his dignity, and to his endeavors. So they reject this doctrine and base their hope in some kind of scientific humanism. They would tell us that man had his origin, as I say, by blind chance working on matter. But by some incredible stroke of luck, chance has accidentally produced human intelligence and mind and reason. Of course, there are many defects, else would happen if all is the result of chance. There are many defects in man's psychological and physical makeup, but if man will only learn to grasp his opportunity and use this chancey gift that chance has given him, namely reason, he may have hope to mend the defects, to master his psychological mechanisms and biophysical processes, to eliminate human cruelty and evil, to master the world and the universe, and so bring in the longed for paradise. This hope, it seems to me, is unrealistic on at least two counts. Just suppose now we could succeed and perfect ourselves by our own effort and master our universe without a self-existent creator to serve and worship, we should remain forever unsatisfied and unfulfilled. But I recur to my observation that man is not a self-existent being. We did not make ourselves. And though we improve ourselves out of recognition, it remains true we didn't make ourselves. We do not carry within ourselves the purpose and reason for our existence. And it is evident that all of us search around for purpose, for existence. Some adequate purpose that will give meaning to life. We look outside of ourselves simply because oneself is not an adequate goal and purpose that can give a man adequate reason for existence. Simply to fulfill themselves, to give meaning to life. Men set up other goals outside of themselves, their family, their career. Success. The race. Their ideology. And find fulfillment in the serving of these other goals. As subsidiary goals under the criticism of an all-wise and moral creator. These subsidiary goals can be, in their way, satisfied. But without a creator. Set up now as substitute gods. History has shown that these substitute gods prove false gods, and not seldom become tyrants that, instead of improving mankind, destroy him amidst much cruelty. Ideologies that have been set up as absolute gods. Pride of race that has been set up as an absolute god. Mere success in one's profession or business set up as an absolute end in itself, and even one's family, and how much more oneself. Made absolute goals and gods. Prove not only unsatisfying, but wa- quite commonly productive of competition and selfishness and aggressiveness and cruelty. Our world at this present moment bids fair to be destroyed and pulled in pieces. As thousands of men adopt ideologies and make of them absolutes in the place of faith in a self-existent creator. And there is another reason why this atheistic, humanistic hope seems to me to be unrealistic. And that brings me to my next question. Is this world on which we live going to last forever? The answer, of course, you were more qualified to tell me than I to tell you, is a most definite no. Not only is it true that individuals die, our very world will one day die. That is not a story invented by Christians to scare people into being religious. That is a truth of the same nature as the truth that the sun shines because it burns. And because it burns, it will one day burn itself out. And our world, in the process, must be destroyed. Matters not how remote in the future, then, you place the end of our world. Philosophically, it has an exceedingly important implication for us. Reminds us that human life on this planet is a temporary phenomenon. Perfect it if you can. And it is certainly the biblical command to man that he shall attempt, and seriously attempt to improve his world and develop its potentials. But in the end, we must recognize that the thing is temporary, and human life in the form we have known it will cease. That was a gloomy prospect. From which I see not how we could rescue ourselves or have any rational hope. Without faith that behind this temporary world, there lies an eternal creator. The Bible itself then preaches the end of the world, but it does so without excessive gloom and certainly with very few tears. For it tells us that the world was never meant to be anything other than temporary. It informs us that the point in God's creation of this temporary world was that he might put man upon it as his creature, so that in the course of man's temporary stay in this temporary world, he might have the opportunity of developing into something infinitely higher, namely a child of God. But at this moment, as I use that term, a child of God, I- I am aware I must rescue the term from the fate it has suffered at the hands of popular religion. Popular religion very sincerely reminds us that we should be kind one to another, and very frequently is inclined to urge its exhortation upon us on the ground that, after all, all men are children of God. But that isn't true. Not at least in the biblical sense of that term. In the sense that we are creatures of God, the Bible will describe us as the offspring of God, as creatures of God. All men, therefore, are creatures of God, and we must treat them with that dignity and love due to a creature of God. What the Bible means by a child of God is something different. Men are automatically creatures of God, not automatically children of God. A child of God is something that we have to become. As Professor Lewis was never tired of reminding us, there is a difference between a chair that a carpenter makes and a child that the carpenter begets. We come into this temporary world as creatures that God made. It is Christ's magnificent claim, unimaginable in its implications, that he has the authority to give us creatures of God the power to become children of God, to be born of God with that life that the Bible describes as the very life of God, eternal life. You perhaps say to me, but look, if it was God's purpose to have what you call children of God, why did he not proceed to produce them at once? Why go round about this roundabout way of first producing a temporary planet and putting upon it creatures that are temporary? Why not proceed at once to produce children of God? You might as well ask, why not arrange for people to be born married? For all I know, someone of my clever colleagues in biology or genetics may arrange it one of these days, that people shall be born already married. But if they do so, this much will be certain, marriage will not mean then what marriage means now. One essential part of marriage now, is it not? That two independent personalities shall, of their own free will, consent to cede their independence and become joined one to the other. None can do us- do it for us. It must be done by our own free will. And thus it is, I understand, with God's purpose. You can, or at least you can't, but God can. You can, God can produce a creature and give the creature free will without asking that creature's permission. Nobody asked us whether we would be born or no. But not even Almighty God can get us to use our free will without our consent. Therefore, this planet, temporary. And our life upon it as God's creatures, temporary. That we might have the opportunity of our free will to respond to God's gracious advances in Christ, personally to receive Christ, and from him to receive that gift of eternal life by which creatures are turned into children of God. This, I know, is a far cry from mere do-goodism that Christianity is often reduced to, but to me at least it makes adequate sense of the dimensions of our temporary world. You may object that my emphasizing that the world is temporary has the result of belittling man's endeavor, of belittling our scientific endeavor, our efforts to improve the world and our lot in the world. Not so. School for most people and university for others is only temporary. It does not mean that it is not to be taken seriously on that account. The other charge against Christianity is more likely to be true. At least it is nearer the bone, that in making this life the preparation for eternity, Christianity takes our efforts here too seriously. For if life be a preparation for eternity, then that invests all of life with eternal significance. And there is another point. Our Lord taught us to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This world, for all its temporariness and evil, remains God's world. I fancy when God fulfills that prayer, he will astonish even the most ardent believers by the literalness with which he fulfills that prayer. We are told that before this world finishes, creation itself shall be delivered from its bondage to corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. When I go to the dentist in bondage to my corrupt tooth that is giving me toothache, and he undertakes to deliver me from my bondage to this corruption, he does not normally mean that he gets rid of me. Rather, does he destroy the corruption and leave me intact? When God promises us that creation itself shall be delivered from its bondage to corruption, I understand him not to mean that he will destroy creation, but that he shall destroy the corruption, and creation be delivered from her bondage thereto. Is there a hope, then, for the future of mankind that can offer hope for the individual now. There are many ideologies that hold out hope for the future, but assure us in the same breath that we of this generation shall not be there to see the paradise when it comes. Thus do our communist friends encourage us, for instance. Is my life now nothing more than the life of some little coral insect? So that when I die, along with myriads and myriads more in all the generations past, we shall together form some coral reef for the future, on which may be built a paradise for some future Elizabeth Taylor to drive her gold-plated roll from Clover. And I not be there even to see her drive it past and enjoy the sight of it. We talk glibly of mankind, but mankind is an abstraction. What there is in reality is simply individuals. And if hope for the future means merely hope for a generation or two of very favored individuals in the future, that is scarcely hope enough for us individuals now. It is here, I confess, that I find the reasoning of the Christian gospel so satisfying. That assures us that the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord, validates our hope that they who trust him shall one day likewise be bodily raised to take part in that paradise that God prepares for them that love him. Christ, by his atoning death, solves that problem. And that he, by his suffering, maintains the standards of God's law and its values upon which our happiness depends. And at the same time, makes it possible for God to remain righteous and to justify those who have faith in Jesus. And finally, what kind of a hope is it that a Christian may have? I have talked about hope, perhaps what I should have done at the beginning I must do hurriedly now. I must define what I mean by hope. When we say to one another, I hope the weather will be fine on holiday, it's generally an a- an expression of fear that it will rain almost every day. When the Christian talks of his hope, alas, too often he makes it sound as if it were some uncertain thing. I think perhaps, if a layman may say it, that the church has been inordinately afraid of being presumptuous. And certainly, if our hope is presumptuous, then it is not only sinful, but it will let us down. I am reminded of the story told me about King's Cross Station in London. Our businessman one night missed the last train to Peterborough. But hoping to get to Peterborough, he discovered that there was another train run for railway workmen, and there it was at the platform. He got in it. The officials told him he couldn't ride in that train. It was only insured for railway personnel. It was going to ride over certain parts of the track that were not insured for the general public. He couldn't ride that train, they said. He insisted on defying them, entered the train, and went to sleep in the hope that he would arrive in the morning at Peterborough. In the night, they uncoupled the carriage. He awoke the next morning full of hope to find himself in King's Cross, and what a fool his hope now made him look as he stepped out on the platform. What kind of a hope is it that Christ offers us? Not presumption, certainly, but certainly not some uncertain, feigned, dismal wish. But this kind of certainty. A certainty that's based in the very logic of the love of God. That argues that if God loved us while we were still his enemy, and Christ died for us while we were still his enemy. If then we make our peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, we may be utterly certain and unshakably confident in the logic of the consistency of the love of God, that having pardoned us for Christ's sake when we were sinners, he will not leave us until he has brought us to man's true destiny of glory. That at least is my hope. And I thank you for your patience in listening to me. Allow me humbly Humbly to to commend commend my my hope. hope to you.