FATE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 27

FATE.

"Written for tlic Otago Daily Times

By tlie Rev. D, trABDXEE Miixeb,

In taking leave of this column for a month (duty demanding my presence .at the Assembly of my church and necessity forcing me to take a rest as soon as my immediate public engagements are over) I would like to express my sincere thanks to an unknown reader for the gift of a book, and especially for the very gracious inscription thereon. The post mark is Hawea Flat, and the book, “ Robbie Doo,” is one that could not do other than delight the heart of a Scot. It gave me two or three pleasant hours when I was, through indisposition, unable to face “ the daily round and common task.” It is astonishing the number of good Christian people who believe in “ Fate.” They, of course, repudiate any such suggestion but the fact remains that some very live elements of paganism poke their way through the conversation, and find a ready-made place in the beliefs, of many saints who have never taken the trouble to, think through what they say and what they believe.

It makes me wild to hear people say, in the face of some calamity, “It had to he! ” True, there is a law of retribution operating in the moral realm, but that law never operates apart from human agency. The calamities and bludgeonings of life are not “sent?” they are “results,” and as such are not the mind of God for any of His creatures, More than half of the things we piously attribute to the “ Will of God” have nothing whatever to do with Him. The “ will ” of God is goodness and mercy, not calamity. “ Every bullet has its billet ” is another saying that denotes utter paganism. Naturally a bullet will land somewhere, but to say and believe that anyone is marked for the bullet, without regard to any personal action or choice, is utter nonsense. “ His time has come ” is another statement that I hear again and again and every time I hear it I am tempted to ask “Why? and, how do you , know ? ” I honestly believe that many a man has “gone West” before his time. The idea that God has a kind of index system upon which he marks the “ time ” of any living human is to change His goodness into despotism and robs human life of its inherent impulse to strive and attain. Men are not candles to be snuffed at 'the will even, of Deity. Such a conception of God is monstrous. I once stood in the darkened room of a manse where a charming wee lassie lay cold in death. Her father, in a broken voice, told me of the large number of letters of sympathy that had poured in—nractically every one mentioning that it was the will of God to call tire little one Home. Almost fiercely he turned to me and said, “ It isn’t the will of God. My little girl is dead because S terrible disease attacked her and God didn’t send it.” I agreed. Time proved the father right. It was found that a ghastly germ in an ''id army trench-’ coat—the father had been a chaplain—had found its way, through contact, into the bocly of the child and slain her. If the coat had been burned the child would have escaped her untimely death. Those who can see the hand of God in such a calamity possess a mentality that baffles me. I believe the heart of God was as torn with grief as was the heart of the child’s father. The good Christian people who constantly use these expressions would be alarmed if you called- them fatalists. But that is what they are—Christian fatalists if you like (though the terms have absolutely no relationship)—and, in being so, are unconsciously watering down the eternal, therefore fundamental, truth of the Faith. Their attitude is negative instead of positive. See what it leads to! It leads indirectly to the belief.that the universe is governed by

BLIND FORCE. It predicates an inescapable necessity which is the direct antithesis to ■ the moral, and therefore personal, government of the world that Jesus believed in. It means that the world is “ a •drifting iceberg, not a steered ship.” To put It another way: If there is no hand on the lever then there is not hope and we are crashing on our way to doom. Such an idea is unthinkable. The world is not a spinning top without direction. Unless there is purpose behind and in all the shifting phenomenon of life, then life is not worth living. It cannot he too emphatically asserted that God does not live in a far-off heaven as one who lias washed His hands of a world that has got out of control and _is rushing onward as the sport of blind unconscious force, but that He is in the world and is shaping it to ends for human good. Alt this pious resignation to tilings as they are is not complimentary either to God or to the free living spirit which we call man. Men are not puppets pulled by a string, but are partners with the Almighty in the age-long process of bringing about a harmony between human personalties and the the inherent spiritual purpose at the heart of the world It is wrong,, horribly wrong, to adopt a fatalistic attitude. We are here to change some things, to challenge and defy everything that is wrong, not to cross the hands and say, “It had to be.’ Nothing “ has to be ” unless we will it. lam not forgetting the sudden, untoward happenings of life. These things come to pass because we are still living in an imperfect world, and we oui selves have not gone very far on the road of life, hut that does not mean lying down to them If you constantly live in a world of negation and placid resignation you c.-innot become other than bovine ip your outlook, a belief in fate, chloroforms PERSONAL FREEDOM AND CHOICE. There are two things we must never forget. The first is that God Himself, simply because He is personal, must have freedom to change. The second is that man must have freedom to thwart God. Without these two truths you cannot build up a sound philosophy of life; The eternal God offers His fi lendship to all, and that friendship stands the test of all than man can place upon it. He is the friend of each single life. An impersonal,force—which is all that fate really offers us, instead of a personal God—lias no heart. But God lias loved us with an everlasting love. °

. On the other hand, man has the terrible power of choice; he can thwart God and render His purposes of no avail. While God is constantly cliaimiii" His plans, but not Hm purpose, man can still remain obdurate. The freedom of the individual is an inalienable rmlit. It is that that makes us God-like. Now" fieedom and choice, while they may lead us into many awkward predicaments have no relationship whatever with a fatalistic conception either of God or life. Unless God be love and pitv then life is meaningless. Unless He knows and cares, death is to be preferred to mere existence. Fatalism, even Christian fatalism, kills the very nerve of our free approach to God and His approach to us. It means that faith and love and prayer on our part are utter stupidities; and that blind force is on the throne of, the universe Away with such thoughts’! It is not so that Jesus taught us. J3 e positive, trust God, and you will fiind, as Jesus found that God will not let you down.

A *' snaek bar ” in the Houses of Parliament is the latest scheme for facilitaPng parliamentary business. It. would ‘be placed at the top of the grand staircase leading to the committee room corridor in the space at present occupied as a cloakroom. The proposal has been inspired by the requirements of il.P.’s. and others who have business at Westminster during the daytime in connection with committees on private bills, etc. Provision for the now bar lias been made in the estimates of the Kitchen Committee for next year.