The Church's Message

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 14050, 3 May 1946, Page 4

The Church's Message

BY, LORI) ELTON

is IT SUICIDE?

The news of the coming of atomic power sent a. momentary shudder round the world. But there had been five years of hair-raising headlines, nerves,were jaded and imaginations over-worked, and in little more than a fortnight the portent had been relegated to the already crowded ranks of “post-war problems" which “they” will have somehow or other, at some time or other,to solve. The desultory fusilade of comment died away. It had followed one or two well-worn channels. Numerous correspondents had observed that mankind was now, more obviously than ever, being offered a choice between prosperity and rapid extinction. . The optimists drew vague pictures of effortless wealth, and universal peace guaranteed by a new world authority which, though discreetly unparticularised, was obviously to be a close relation of the long succession of Grand Projects. Holy Alliances and Leagues of Nations which have been attempted after every great war, and which have invariably collapsed. The pessimists, who, possibly owing to editorial prejudice, were distinctly less numerous, mainly confined themselves to obviously uninstructed speculation as to the destructive power of the. atomic bomb when further developed. Meanwhile, more sinister, in their weekly columns the military correspondents seemed to have taken the new weapon virtually in their stride, and were already coolly discussing its probable effects: upon present-day strategy and the existing services; while the sole comment proffered by one responsible publicist was that it might be advisable to substitute village for town life. He forebore to explain how this not inconsiderable resolution 'was to be effected.

The First Question

And there, in the familiar and disheartening phrase, the matter rests. The inevitable first question is still unanswered. Are we within a decade or two of the end of the human experiment? Humanly speaking, there seems, at present no very impressive reason why the answer should not be Yes. We know from experience that a new lease of power over nature ,is apt to be exploited and extended with great rapidity; not many decades separated Stephenson from the Flying Scotsman, fewer still Bleriot from the Super Fortress. It is difficult for the apprehensive but unscientific layman to persuade hiinself even that the processes of research or manufacture may not occasion some vast unintentional disaster. 1 Indeed, it is said — I cannot say with how much truth — that the scientists of the United Nations did discover how atomic energy could be used to turn the whole world into flaming gas, two years before they discovered how to canalise an infinitesimal fraction of it in a bomb —and during these two years they were haunted hy the fear that the Germans, too, might also have possesses themselves of the mpre terrible powers and at the eleventh hour might use them. Can we be confident that the Great Powers, or some supra-national authority-to-be will indefinitely retain exclusive control of the new weapon And even if we could rely on this does history suggest that we can rely on either the great powers, or a supra-national authority, to prevent its use?

The Pattern Of History

May we, then, he within a few decades of the end of the jhuman experiment? Such a consummation would not be altogether inconsistent with the pattern of history. In the centuries of Faijth men did not invent such weapons, not only because they did not know how to, but because they did not wish to. The well-known legend of Friar Bacon is not the only indication that mediaeval thinkers may have approached the threshold pf modern science — and turned away. But for tiyec centuries now man has sought and acquired povjer over nature, while proclaiming with growing confidence that power over nature will eventually solve all his- problems; and that he himself is the lord of the Universe. Self-destruction would net seem an unnatural conclusion to such a process. In the life of the individual after all it is the normal fate ’of those who acquire power and shed wisdom. Nor is this hy any means the only reflection on the pattern of history suggested by . the possibility that man ymay be about to pull down his house about his owns ears. Thus it was one of the stock arguments, if it can be called an argument, of the Victorian atheist that it was unreasonable that the Incarnation should have come so early in the story of man, with his expectation of'life of so many milliens of years. To-day tnis particular thesis wears a somewhat less persuasive air. And it is possible to see a new significance in the passages in the New Testament which speak of the end of the world as something to be expected,in the near future. Or even perhaps in the account in Genesis of God’s, wrath before the flood— the end of aft flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; ami behold I will destroy them with the earth.