Niebuhr on History

And step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man.

When John Greenleaf Whittier wrote these lines, he believed, with most of his 19th Century fellow optimists, that mankind was slowly but surely working its way through history to a better world. Science, statecraft and scripture, they thought, were leading men together to the same goal--the establishment of God's kingdom upon earth.

Today, midway in a bloodier, more dangerous century, there is widespread skepticism about "the steady gain of man." Most notable spokesman for this view among U.S. Protestants is Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. In his newest book, Faith and History (Scribner: $3.50), Professor Niebuhr struggles with his own tortuous prose to present his pertinent views on what kind of progress, if any, man can hope for.

"Unanticipated Disaster." The Classical Greek and Oriental idea of the progress of man, says Author Niebuhr, was that there was no such thing. Like the endless cycles of nature, the projects and enterprises of men and nations were thought to flourish and die again & again in an eternal circle of recurrences. Man's only hope, Plato taught, was to free his spirit from imprisonment in the living death of the bodily world. When the Biblical-Christian conception of history replaced this classical view, says Niebuhr, "the dynamism of Western culture was made possible." Christian teaching viewed and still views history as a meaningful interplay of God's purpose and man's free will. Armed with his new sense of freedom, man was able to launch upon a prolonged era of creativity. But the "unanticipated disaster" of modern times, says Niebuhr, was that man, forgetting that his power for evil was as great as his power for good, began to identify his own creative activity with the will of God.

The remedy, according to Niebuhr: let mankind return to the Christian concept that history is a drama "of God's contest with all men, who are all inclined to defy God because they all tend to make their own life into the center of history's meaning . . .'

The Luther Error. Theologian Niebuhr says that Historian Arnold Toynbee's monumental effort to discover the pattern of history "belongs to one of the most impressive intellectual ventures of our age." But he does not hold with Toynbee's daring hypothesis that religion may be advancing onward & upward with the rise & fall of civilizations (TIME, April 5, 1948).

What can save a civilization from perishing? Does the Christian Gospel of Redemption apply to nations as well as individuals? Here Niebuhr wades into a cut & thrust theological controversy, armed with a two-edged blade of paradox. Human society, he concedes, is maintained by push-and-shove competition and balance of power; the very instruments of social justice tend automatically to become unjust. But, he says, such teachers as Martin Luther are in error, when they "exclude the possibility of redemption and a new life in man's social existence, and confine redemption to individual life." The structures of society cannot be perfected, but they can be improved. And this the Christian must try to do as part of his responsibility for his neighbor.

Niebuhr finds still further possibility of Christian redemption on an international level. The most powerful groups within nations and the most powerful nations in the world can, he thinks, behave enough like individuals to earn themselves rebirth. This can happen when their power and pride are challenged by new social forces. Then they "face the alternative of dying because they try too desperately to live, or of achieving new life by dying to self." When the latter occurs, he claims, it establishes "the validity of the Christian doctrine of life through death for the collective, as well as for the individual organism." As an example, he cites the replacement of absolute monarchy in certain countries by constitutional monarchy. But he significantly fails to mention any example of "dying to self" on the part of a great nation.

The Final Virtue. Professor Niebuhr is careful to remind his readers that the redemption which takes place within history is necessarily limited. God's final judgment can only happen outside history altogether--at the end of the world. "Thus mystery stands at the end, as well as at the beginning of the whole pilgrimage of man. But the clue to the mystery is the Agape of Christ . . .

"To understand, from the standpoint of the Christian faith, that man cannot complete his own life, and can neither define nor fulfill the final mystery and meaning of his historical pilgrimage, is not to rob life of meaning or responsibility. The love toward God and the neighbor, which is the final virtue of the Christian life, is rooted in an humble recognition of the fragmentary character of our own wisdom, virtue and power . . ."

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