What do you do in Heaven on Monday morning?
What do you do on Tuesday afternoon?
-Rabbi Sherwin Wine
Birmingham, Michigan
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While short-range, mundane speculations are both pleasant and important,certain whithers
and whys of our Long View remain to be clarified, and if possible to be reconciled with
religious philosophy.
Since I have no religious beliefs or training, it may seem insincere or presumptuous to offer theological opinions and religious advice. Yet I intend to do so, in appropriate places, for reasons which should become obvious if they are not already, and which I hope will be acceptable.
Since Christianity and Judaism are life-affirming religions, it is not surprising that initial clerical reaction to cryonics has on the whole been friendly. For example, when Professor James Bedford, a cancer victim, was frozen in 1967 and stored at
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first in Phoenix (symbolism coincidental, several clergymen in that city were interviewed by Marie H. Walling, religion editor of the Arizona Republic. According to the Associated Press, most of the theologians were generally in favor of the experiment.
The Reverend Howard MeBain, minister of the First Baptist Church, said, "If he were later revived, I would regard it as one of the many miracles God works through medical science."
(There was also some understandable skepticism: another Baptist, the Reverend Wesley Darby, said, "I have never had a funeral that failed.")
Catholics and Jews have expressed even fewer reservations than Protestant clergymen; as remarked elsewhere, on at least one occasion a cryo-capsule was actually consecrated by a Roman Catholic priest, with the approval of the bishop. (12)
To be sure, this climate may change when the cryonics movement becomes larger and its deeper aims more apparent. When clergymen begin to comprehend that we are seeking to shed not only our mortality, but also our humanity, they are likely to become much more uneasy. Superman may not threaten God, but he does threaten the church, primarily by questioning its relevance. The main weakness of the churches--beyond the philosophical level of the grade school--is not that they fail to make Heaven and Hell understandable, but that they fail to make sense of the world.
Although "relevance" is a popular topic these days in church circles, for the most part only its trivial aspects are discussed, e.g., whether ministers should become involved in politics or race relations. Such questions show only the penumbra of the deepening shadow over modern theology, especially Christian theology. The umbra, the core question, concerns the ultimate worldly mission of man and of men.
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What is the goal of the human race? What is the duty of the individual? What is the purpose of life? What is Christianity for?
The more naive Christians, taking a narrow view, consider the answers pat: humanity's goal is to achieve Christ's kingdom; a man's duty is to lead a devout awl respectable life; earth is the testing place of souls: Christianity is called to save souls. More highly educated, thoughtful Christians are less assured. But there remains a pervasive reluctance to ask the hard questions or to face the hard answers.
Specifically, the churches have concerned themselves almost exclusively with short-term, negative goals. They want only to eradicate sin, not to fabricate greatness; they perceive good principally as the absence of evil. They focus on transient social problems--poverty, war, bigotry, and so on. They seldom ask: After the Global Great Society--what? Will the only remaining significant task be the conversion of unbelievers? And would success in this task signal the end of history?
It is obvious that there is more to life than most Christians recognize. We need merely ask: What does the "folk Christian" do after his soul and his own community have achieved peace? (After all, many believe they have come to terms with God, and many small communities are reasonably serene.) Do you play canasta until death and reward? Are your further activities no more than hobbies? Does the secular world consist only of tinker toys? Or are there other roads and different horizons apart from traditional religion? In short, is Christianity (as narrowly conceived) all that is really important in life, or is it only a part? In slightly different terms: Is it enough to "lead a Christian life?" Would a collection, say, of Amish communities constitute a Christian utopia? Can we settle for peace, faith, and virtue, and forego the stars? Can we rest content
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to be good men and relinquish or subordinate the drive to become supermen?
My own belief is that we cannot. Is it conceivable that God created the awesome galaxies just for scenery? Were our cunning brains, clever hands and restless glands designed to no purpose beyond the plow and altar? Can homo sapiens be the realized image of God? No and no, assuredly not.
The Paradoxes of Radical Theology
The obvious weaknesses in traditional Christianity, some of them recited above, have always tormented theologians, and lately have forced some into paths nearly parallel to the cryonicist's. The radicals include the "Christian atheists" and death-of-God theologians, although some of their ideas have already passed the zenith of fashionability and appear inadequate in any case.
Several years ago, William Hamilton and Thomas Altizer were making waves as leaders of the "death-of-God" move- ment, and if the waves have subsided it is not so much because they shocked the traditionalists as because they have simply run out of steam. How quaint it seems already to read Professor Hamilton's statement, "One of the most pressing intellectual responsibilities of the Negro student and minister today is that of working out some of the ethical and theological clues that the Negro revolution is teaching him and us all." (67) How easy it is to sympathize with the condescending recent dismissals of "mood theology!" Surely the meaning of religion cannot shift with every political breeze! And yet, there does seem to be something authentic in "Christian atheism."
On the Christian side--distinguishing them from ordinary atheists or agnostics--is a will to cling to Jesus, to
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Christology as distinct from religion and God, and also a residual longing or hope or faith that somehow, some day, God will reveal himself and "live" again; it seems almost a mysticism devoid of content, little more than a wistful ache. Yet these nearly inchoate yearnings are not altogether without force or direction.
In fact, they tend to provide psychic fuel and compass (however wobbly) for the "atheistic" or humanistic aspect of the movement, which is a commitment to the world and a groping forward, a search for growth and meaning in the here-and-now. In some respects this is closer to the cryonicist feeling than is humanism, because it contains a vaulting aspiration that the plodding humanists seem often to lack. Other modern theologians, more "respectable" than the death-of-God people, are hardly less radical--Niebuhr, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmarm, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the German expatriate Paul Tillich. If the average parishioner or "folk Christian" does not revile Tillich, it is only because he does not read or does not understand him. Tillich retains use of the Gospel and of Christian mythology and symbol- ism--but he rejects literalistic interpretations of the biblical witness, he rejects any distinction between the sacred and the profane, and be rejects the notion of "eternal law" in favor of situational or evolutionary ethics. (169) For Tillich, there seems to be only one world--this world--and religion boils down to a sense of "ultimate concern;" again, aside from labels and phrases, radical Christianity seems to come very close to humanism.
The difference is that the radical Christian, while sometimes vaguer and more muddled, is also gutsier, more vital; he is charged with a higher voltage, and shares with the cryonicist--or with other cryonicists--a vision of something higher, something qualitatively different. If I had to choose one or the other as companion or colleague, I should much prefer
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the radical Christian over the humanist. The latter, limp and pallid of spirit, typically pays lip service only to radical change, and has sold out cheap: settled for humanity, with minor improvements. The Christian, while perhaps nearly indistinguishable in his actions, is always goaded onward by the inner conviction that somewhere there is meaning, sometime there will be greatness, somehow man can find the means to transcend himself.
But the road of cryonics is wide, and it is our hope that humanists, almost every stripe of Christian, and indeed nearly every mother's son can walk it with us. There will be quarrels along the way; it remains to be seen how much conflict, in practice, will result from the philosophical clash between Christian morality and the ethics of self-interest. The important thing is that our initial goals lie in the same general direction, which is pointed out below.
The Purpose of Life
At last one of the central questions can be dealt with: What is the purpose of life? Answer: To discover the purpose of life. This is not a play on words, but a recognition of the obvious truth that since ultimate answers are not within view we must make do, for the foreseeable future, with uncovering and pursuing a succession of intermediate goals, and that this requires a program of growth and development.
The universe is vast and mysterious, its qualities and values hidden either in distance, smallness, complexity, subtlety, darkness or dazzlings that bewilder eye and mind. To attempt to fathom its depths in the manner of the traditional philosopher is a task which may be likened to that of a dog trying to build a bridge over the Mississippi.To begin with, he needs tools; working only with jaws and
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paws, he finds the job hopeless. But even if he had the tools and could handle them, he would not live long enough to make a dent in the task. And even if he had greatly extended life or the help of many others, he could neither handle the tools nor organize the work. In short, he must fail simply because bridging the Mississippi is not a job for a dog.
Just so with the philosopher. To begin with, one cannot unriddle the world simply by reasoning it out, as the Greeks thought; one has to go out into the world and tinker with it. One needs tools--microscopes and telescopes and oscillo- scopes and spectroscopes and much, much more that we have yet to imagine. Nor is it other than arbitrary and un- reasonable to suppose that an ordinary lifetime could suffice for the work; much more likely, millennia of effort by the entire race will be required. Finally, it seems also arbitrary and unreasonable to imagine that merely human intelligence can operate at the required levels; instead, we shall probably have to improve the very physical structure of our brains before we can expect to make important progress.
We must, in fine, become immortal supermen--not to gloat over our accomplishments and strut among the stars, but to do our work, the only work there is.
Super-Christian
Such perspectives are unsettling even to sophisticated theologians, many feeling that Christianity is put on the defensive or elbowed rudely aside. Their forebodings may to some extent be justified, especially if religious leaders take a reactionary stance. Yet it seems to me, although I am not a theologian or a Christian, that there are many intimations in Scripture and tradition that would allow embracing the larger view.
For example, most churches have accommodated them-
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selves to Darwin's theory of evolution. Dr. E. C. Messenger has written, ". . . many think there is good reason to sup- pose that the 'dust of the earth' of the Scriptural text need not and should not be taken to signify that the immediate source of the first human body was in fact inanimate matter. They see no reason why, on the contrary, the first human body may not have been fashioned by God from some animal organism, and this hypothesis has now been officially recognized by the supreme authority in the Catholic Church as open to discussion.
There is every reason to think the churches can also accommodate themselves to the idea of future evolution, natural or "artificial." In fact, it seems to me, they must, since it were surely blasphemous to assert that present-day man is made "in the image of God," whether that "image" be taken as physical or spiritual. We obviously have a long way to go; man is still being created; he must develop into the image of God. And did not Jesus say, "Greater things than I have done, shall ye do"?
For those committed to Scripture, yet prepared to interpret it liberally, there are also many other possibilities. The teaching of "resurrection of the body," and eternal life for the resurrected, need not conflict with cryonics. Perhaps our medical revival is the promised resurrection, at least for some, and Heaven is not a different realm, but this world after we have improved it and ourselves. Somewhat similar doctrines, mundane interpretations of Revelations, have already been espoused by the Jehovah's Witnesses and others.
Such ideas have been entertained, at least tentatively, by some clergymen of the major denominations; and some have preached or written in favor of cryonics. Perhaps the most vigorous "Christian immortalist," however, seems to be A. Stuart Otto, a maverick who has written a book, How to Conquer Physical Death, and publishes The Im-
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mortality Newsletter. (134)
The book seems to reflect Christian Science as well as cryonics influence, and to contain major errors; but it also shows remarkable insights and interesting biblical interpretations. Mr. Otto advocates a double-barreled attack on death, spiritual and physical, and stoutly maintains that "Death is not a friend but an enemy and must be overcome.. . Jesus made no mention of resurrection after death as having any part in the new birth. The new birth is a change that comes here and now.. .'The world to come' (mentioned in Mark 10:30 and Hebrews 2:5) is the world of tomorrow--this world as it is to be."
There are still many who worry about the sin of pride and about the futility of dreams of heaven on earth. But most of us who intend to go forward do not dream of any simplistic heaven on earth; indeed, we explicitly recognize that mere material comfort, even universal peace and good will, constitute only a starting point, not by any means a final goal. We go forward into the unknown because there is nowhere else to go. Is the past so beautiful that we should dust it off and wear it? Is the present so precious that we should preserve it in amber? Shall we walk with downcast eyes in circular ruts? For us this is not possible--and some of us are Christians.
We aspire to be supermen not necessarily because we are vain and arrogant; rather, our dissatisfaction with present endowments and attainments reflects a realistic humility--we are painfully aware of our shortcomings. The Christians- among us are not rebelling against God nor aspiring to equality with him (if such a thing were conceivable); they seek rather to become his more effective tools, his worthier stewards. Neither do we seek endless change just for the sake of change; we pursue intermediate goals on what we hope will be an ascending road, a road perhaps some day leading to the Celestial City--wherever and whatever that may be.
Does not Christianity need supermen? Can any but a
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superman be a complete Christian? Can the highest spiritual merit be built on less than an adequate intellectual substrate? We have got to grow, and growth requires more than formulas or incantations; it requires changes in the biological structure, changes which in all probability those of our generation will not experience except after freezing, storage, and revival.
If one construes biological engineering as a threat to the churches or to the peace of mind of individuals, he must be careful not to misdirect his resentment. The threat comes not from any person, or even properly from any school of thought, but from the world itself, which is to say from unresolved contradictions in the threatened churches and philosophies. At one time Moslem conservatives held that the Koran contained all wisdom and that to read or write another book was blasphemous; this ostrich attitude succumbed not to the malicious attacks of unbelievers but to the incontrovertible facts of life. Likewise, religion today must regard the biological revolution not as a threat, or even an annoyance, but as an integral and extremely important part of God's gift and continuing revelation-mind-wrenching though such a change of view may be for some.
The Long View vs. Alienation
Superman and the Long View are needed, among other things, to cure the alienation so celebrated in current American and Christian life--the malaise that afflicts even affluent segments of our society and our younger generations, the lack of adequate feelings of identity and destiny. This disease is not restricted to unbelievers or back-sliders; many pastors are close to panic in their failure fully to reach their people, in their inability to make religion satisfying.
The issue is obscured by the fact that the alienated often turn from the institution that has disappointed them, only
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to seize upon another and perhaps even less promising ideal. The despairing Christian may become a Communist, and vice versa; the switch may be from a liberal to a conservative denomination; or a Marxist may turn to anarchism. This is like the restless and vacant man or woman wandering from one lover to another, when the real problem is another realm altogether. The real problem of alienation is that the traditional institutions--Christianity, Judaism, Marxism, and humanism, in particular--would be unsatisfactory even if they succeeded in all their ambitions--especially if they succeeded in all their ambitions. That the institutions sometimes betray their own credos is only a secondary problem.
It should be obvious that Christians also require mundane challenge and secular purpose, that religion as narrowly conceived is not enough, that earth must be more than the anteroom to Heaven. There is a very simple reason why many parishioners are impatient or bored with constant preaching against sin, viz., in many communities most individuals are already honest, decent, and pious, even though there is room for improvement. It may not be to the point to overemphasize various social problems, since most parishioners may already be doing about as much as their talents and resources permit. If the average, decent Christian is to improve himself and his contribution to any notable extent, it is not likely to be by nagging exhortation but by a complex process of education, growth, and biological change.
As already noted, it is not only the churches but other institutions as well that are missing the point. Among the other institutions are those quasi-religious bodies, the communist states, which to instill spirit and assure support rely on that old standby, the martyr syndrome. This gives the individual both happiness and usefulness--but the happiness may be brief and illusory; the usefulness may accrue
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only to a false ideal. (It should not be necessary to elaborate on the possibility of "illusory happiness," in which category I would include, for example, that of the contented cow, the euphoric acid-head, and the kamikaze.) In parts of the more advanced communist countries such as Russia, where material wealth has increased and revolutionary fervor subsided, idealism is failing to satisfy the restless young, just as Christianity is failing here. (The "Jesus freaks," even aside from their small numbers, can scarcely be counted successes.)
The necessary change in outlook cannot and need not be either sudden or universal. Many will lack the time or the flexibility to modify their philosophies; presumably God's mercy will provide for them, as for the nameless myriads throughout pre-history. But those able to understand the questions and vigorous enough to accept the duty must face the issue.
That issue is whether Christianity (and the other religions) will be universal and evolutionary or narrow and static. Merely to phrase it so nearly removes any choice; a narrow and static religion can end only in impotence and decay. The practical question is whether Christians will be followers or leaders, whether they will sullenly and grudgingly submit to change or eagerly and gratefully seek to guide it.
The Ultimate Ecumenism
That traditional religion should adopt the Long View and welcome superman is a disturbing suggestion for theologians, but it will not panic even the conservatives among them; they are very canny, tough and shifty customers. They will soon see that we are really asking for an ultimate ecumenism, a final rapprochement between science and
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religion. I think such a rapprochement is possible, and that its necessary condition--an end to religious dogma--can be made acceptable to the churches.
Most of the supposed conflicts between science and religion have been resolved or left behind. The twentieth-century scientist is less confident and more puzzled than his predecessors, and so is the contemporary theologian, who is very respectful of science. Typically, the philosopher of faith not only acknowledges his duty to interpret religious doctrines in accordance with "scientific facts," but he also tends to apply the critical standards of the scientist to his own work-even though often protesting, all the while, that his realm is entirely different and apart from that of science.
This is a major cause of confusion: the tendency to smile at the scientist's supposed concern only with those things that can be "seen and felt, weighed and measured," the tendency to ask such questions as: Can you put beauty tinder a microscope? Can you put love on an oscilloscope' These people have been misled by the fact that the scientist does indeed, when feasible, prefer to work quantitatively, and by such dicta as that of Lord Kelvin: ". . . when you can measure what you are speaking about ... you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers ... you have scarcely advanced to the stage of Science. . . ." This kind of attitude, combined with the diffidence of most scientists in the face of truly slippery problems, has produced the widely credited notion that science and religion have different "provinces," that they do not share the same "universe of discourse," that they meet only tangentially and that, fundamentally, one is irrelevant to the other. Nothing could be sillier.
The fact is that when a scientist cannot find accurate data, he makes do with less accurate ones; and when he cannot define a concept sharply, be works with a fuzzy
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one, applying, nevertheless, all the honesty and resource- fulness at his command. These, in the end, define the "scientific attitude": honesty and resourcefulness. Paul W. Bridgman, the eminent physicist, has made this explicit by saying that the most important part of the scientist's procedure is simply "to do his utmost with his mind--no holds barred."
In this larger sense, then, clearly the province of science is universal, not excluding art, human relations, or religion. But while this statement may at first seem both vague and innocuous, it packs a punch. Now comes the crunch.
The gut issue, to use the current argot, concerns the validity of "spiritual insights." The argument from such insights is presented in crystalline purity by Billy Graham, who says, "I know God exists... I have talked with Him ... I have walked with Him." That is, he has experienced a direct perception, and needs no further evidence; he feels only pity for the blind man who has not seen, and who requires mountains of indirect evidence to allay his doubts.
But if Dr. Graham were scientific he would acknowledge the well-known fact that there is such a thing as delusion, and entertain the possibility that his "insight," convincing as it seems, may nevertheless be delusory. Many others-- possibly most others--do entertain this possibility. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to cite an eminent example, occasion- ally voiced such doubts. The root question is how much weight to give to personal visions, and how much to other kinds of evidence.
Most theologians, I believe, have the scientific attitude in some measure. They make every effort to be reasonable, and they admit the possibility of error. After all, absolutely convincing visions have frequently occurred under grossly discrediting conditions, e.g., through the use of drugs, as well as through diverse faiths.
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Perfect faith is only for perfect fools. it requires the most foolish arrogance to assert, "I cannot be mistaken." To be sure, those who say this will assert that they are humble, not arrogant, and their claim is that Jesus cannot be mistaken; but this is specious.
It will be only a partial digression here to comment on the remark often made by Dr. Graham and others, to the effect that "faith" is necessary in everyday life--that all of us must have faith that our spouses are loyal, that the food in the can will be fit to eat, etc. The error is profound: there is a world of difference between "faith" on the one hand in the sense of a reasonable degree of confidence, based on experience, and on the other, the kind of religious faith that brooks no questioning of dogma.
Many theologians, even of conservative denominations, come rather near being scientists and monists, rather close to agreeing that essentially there is only one kind of truth-seeking and one set of rules; the well-known Dutch Dominican, Eduard Schillebeeckx, speaks of "truth without adjectives." But the churches as institutions mostly fall much farther from the mark: they tend to emphasize conformity rather than honesty for the rank and file, and they tend to make exaggerated claims as to the certainty and finality of their "answers;" yet in this they differ only in degree from the recognized branches of science. While a full discussion of this aspect of the church would have to be lengthy, I believe the churches could purge themselves of their taint of irrationality without losing much of substance.
My principal suggestion, then, is that the theologians recognize themselves as scientists, and accept the discipline of science. Such a "one-world" movement would not necessarily be one-sided: for example, while the theologians might learn something about discipline, the natural scientists might learn something about responsibility, and stop
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pretending that their only duty is to their sense of curiosity. This would be ecumenism with a vengeance-but could it work?
The Viability of Religion Without Dogma
The premier case of contemporary religion without dogma is one that many will regard as a horrible example. The Unitarian Universalist Church is considered by many conservatives to be no church at all. Unitarians, the old joke goes, believe in one God--at most. Certainly they impose no doctrine on parishioners: their aim is "not to think alike, but to walk together." Their services, judging by the few I have attended, are rather pale and unimpressive. Church attendance appears casual, and ties loose.
Nevertheless, this church is large, widespread, and apparently vital. Its members enjoy fellowship and display dedication, which seem to be the only universal characteristics of religion. The dedication, to be sure, is somewhat vague and diffuse, relating mainly to seeking and to social consciousness, but it seems to suffice. Apparently, religious liberalism can be carried to its extreme without destroying a church.
The Jewish faith, also, seems to hold little of dogma. Even in its Orthodox branch, with its emphasis on strict adherence to custom and ritual, there seems little attempt to regulate thought and belief; I have never heard of a heresy trial in modern Judaism. In particular, there seems very little interest in the hereafter and rules for entering it. Yet, without promise of Heaven and in the face of unfriendliness and even persecution, the tenacity of Jews in their religion is well known. It may be argued that the ethnic element makes this a special case--but Jews include very di-
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verse peoples; the community created the "race," not the race the community.
It is also possible to straddle the fence on the question of dogma, in either of two ways, one exemplified by the Com- munist "religion," the other by the thinking of avant-garde Roman Catholic theologians.
The Communist approach is formally to eschew dogma, but in substance to impose it. Marx and Lenin are admitted to be humans, and idealism is spurned, supposedly; but in practice Marxism-Leninism is exalted to a jealously guarded ideal. This approach, viewed from the standpoint of a churchman, has some merit: it makes change difficult, but not impossible; the "revisionist" is reviled, but usually not burned at the stake, and revisions can make some headway if they have enough to commend them.
The approach of some Catholic theologians is in a sense the reverse: in theory, at least some elements of dog-ma are insisted upon, but in practice virtually unlimited change is gradually permitted. Consider, for example, some of the comments of the German Jesuit, Karl Rahner, concerning the recent Constitution of the Church (Vatican II) and the conciliar decree itself: "Our imagined Christian (of the future) will be living as a member of the little flock in an immeasurably vast world of non-Christians ... our future Christian will read with pleasure in the conciliary decree, 'God's salvific will also includes those who (without having yet received the Gospel) acknowledge the Creator.... For those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ's Gospel and Church but seek God with upright hearts and so in fact under the influence of grace seek to do his will, made known by the dictates of conscience, can attain eternal salvation.
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"Of course the passage quoted is not easy to harmonize with the absolute necessity of faith, of revelation and the necessity of the Church for salvation, which cannot be denied either. In order to show this compatibility a very subtle theology of the possibility and existence of anonymous Christians would first have to be worked out.... "That conciliar statement also comprises atheism of the troubled, inquiring and seeking kind, within the scope of the grace of God. " (142) Of course, Ralmer is far ahead of the "folk Catholic," or the average parishioner, or perhaps even the Pope; some of these still insist that every atheist must burn in Hell. But the direction of the march of history seems reasonably plain, and its relevance to the question of dogma seems fairly plain too. If the substance of dogma is evaporating anyway, why retain the name, with its opprobrium?
What the believers must see clearly is that the abandonment of dogma need not enervate the churches. No one pretends he is a Republican or Democrat by virtue of divine revelation, yet the political parties are full of vitality. When we go to war, there are not many claims that it is a holy war, we admit the issues are cloudy--and yet the soldiers lay their lives on the line. Likewise, a church need not prove to its adherents that it is in any sense perfect, but only that it is good.
We must also admit that giving up dogma, putting on the cloak of humility, may still entail some danger for the churches. There may still be some individuals who cannot be satisfied by anything less than assurance up to the hilt, whose insecurities are such that they will crumble at the least sign of weakness in their spiritual leaders. But if this is the price, I think it will have to be paid. In any case, the ultimate decisions will be based on principle, not short-term politics, and the new breed of scientific theologians will be standing on the firmer ground.