Justification of Justice

A solemn questioning of the optimistic view that human evil is due merely to human ignorance is being conducted by Protestant Reinhold Niebuhr of New York City's Union Theological Seminary. In Vol. I (Human Nature, TIME, March 24, 1941) of his work The Nature and Destiny of Man, Dr. Niebuhr found the roots of sin in pride and self-righteousness. In his second volume, Human Destiny (Scribner; $2.75), Dr. Niebuhr examines past and present interpretations of history.

Question, Stumbling Block. To the Greeks, the coming of Christ was not expected. Thus the Greek thinkers looked upon Him as "foolishness," since "nothing is so incredible as an answer to an unasked question." Materialistic Greeks believed that the laws of nature were the final reality to which man must adjust himself.

Idealistic Greeks thought otherwise. To them, human reason, wisdom, was the highest peak that man could reach. But, says Dr. Niebuhr, this belief did not help them to fulfill themselves in the everyday things of life.

To the Jews, Christ was a grave disappointment, a "stumbling block," because He was not "the kind of Messiah who was expected." The Jews wanted their Messiah to be not only good but a national and triumphant hero who would fulfill history from their special point of view. Instead, Jesus shocked the righteous by teaching that they were, in the final judgment, unrighteous.

Church and Rebels. In the Middle Ages, says Dr. Niebuhr, the Church decided that the holiness of the clergy placed them above historical error, and by putting the Church Militant in the same place as the City of God they fell into the sin of pride, which expressed itself in the violent exercise of power politics. The result was revolt against Catholicism. The revolt took two forms--the Reformation and the Renaissance.

To the Reformers, the very idea of anyone being free from sin was objectionable. Sin, they believed, might be overcome in principle, but not in fact. The just could be saved by faith alone.

The dangers of this belief, says Dr. Niebuhr, are threefold: 1) to believe that nothing is perfect tempts man to become defeatist toward culture and politics; 2) the frivolous are tempted to "sin that grace may abound," and 3) the rich and powerful are tempted to believe that God has ordained social inequalities.

Triumph of Optimism. To the Renaissance thinkers, the faults of the Catholic Church called for other remedies. They could not agree that the Church should control all cultural life, demanded that reason and culture should also be considered sacred, acquired the idealistic belief that progress was the root of history (optimism).

From the 18th Century until very recently, says Dr. Niebuhr, the strongest influence has been that of the Renaissance. But today, he believes, its failure has provoked a reaction which may destroy not only its errors but the very tolerance and faith in justice and reason which have been its great achievements. In this new reaction two men have been prime movers --Marx and Hitler.

Collapse of Optimism. The Renaissance-Liberal belief that by making the individual sacred all people would in the end become free of sin was exposed as a pretension by Marx. Hitler has shown that, once the state is made sacred, all individual rights are denied. And he has forced the layman of today to take the problem of evil seriously.

There May Be Hope. Faced with historical tragedy, says Dr. Niebuhr, we are learning that history is not "its own redeemer." Under the wrath of God we are relearning the truth of the Reformation insight into faith: we know that to be an individual means to walk in fear and trembling. In the shadow of death we can no longer reject all ladders to Heaven because all are dangerous and because "pride may ascend the ladder which was meant for the descent of grace." Nor can we persuade ourselves we are only suffering from a new failure of nerve.

Suffering renews contrition, and out of contrition may be born a hope which is free of both "realist" and Utopian illusions. It must be a belief that history moves toward the realization of the Kingdom, but with it must be consciousness that "the judgment of God is upon every new realization." The new world will be built by "resolute men . . . who will neither seek premature escape from the guilt of history, nor yet call the evil, which taints all their achievements, good"--or it will not be built at all. For the intellectual foundations of such a world, Dr. Niebuhr has already laid a firm, essential stone.

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