THE WORLD'S DILEMMA

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 128, 1 June 1934, Page 6

THE WORLD'S DILEMMA

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l our contributor J. A. Burnett m your issue of May 22 fails' to point out or define "the entirely new angle" from which the social and economic confusion must be reviewed." He amrms "a rational civilisation to be impossible without faith." That is obvious, as all systems of civilisations past and present were, and are, built upon faith. It was faith in the present members of the Government that returned them, to power. We cannot have or do anything without faith. JNature," we are told, "works ceaselessly aiul with unerring cunning to quench the spirit." What spirit he does not say. Also, "the conflict of the natural and spiritual worlds is original and- ageless." This is an empty assertion, if true. Can the natural world exist without being animated by spiritual power? If not wherein is the conflict between the natural, and spiritual worlds? Does not the spiritual permeate the natural? Where, then, is the conflict between the natural and the spiritual? Nay, there is none, for the one cannot exist without the other. When the spirit is withdrawn the natural becomes dead. The writer tilts at Nature as the means whereby avarice and all that pertains to it was implanted in mankind, yet he tells us that "to break the laws of God brings severe punishment 'i and

associates these laws with 'the commandments, which are really calls to order, to restrain avariciousness, etc., as in the command "Thou shalt not covet." Ho tells us, "This world is a school of discipline and preparation in which we are expected to increase a God consciousness" (presumably he means a consciousness of God). Why, then, rail at Nature if it is designed for that purpose? Presumably Nature exists through and by natural laws, seeing natural laws are ceaselessly in operation, and presumably they are of God. Therefore they cannot be suspended because- people choose to infringe ' (they cannot be broken) those laws to gratify their own selfish desires »and ends; otherwise chaos would result. In their right relationship Nature's gifts are good. In their wrong relationships they are bad. In themselves they are neither good nor bad, but thinking makes them so. Hence, on the one hand we have ploughshares and pruning hooks, ou the other swords and spears. Iron, one of 'Nature's good gifts, is alike necessary for the good and the bad implements. The choice is with ourselves, not with Nature. God never punishes. Wo punish ourselves through the consequences following the invoked laws and their application to bad design, i.c;., motive.—l am, etc., ONE INTERESTED.