BEHOLD THE DOLPHIN!
Our vacation plans are reversed. We are not going to the mountains, but to the seashore. Who ever chatted with a dolphin in the mountains? Since a Navy neurophysiologist has announced that dolphins have more brains than men, it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to be a good neighbor to the bottle-nosed dolphin. The Navy doctor has not quite cracked the dolphin language, which seems to be a pattern of whistles, but he assures us that the dolphin must be the smartest mammal afloat. His brain is 40 per cent larger than Navy regulation.
The marine existence of the dolphin indicates to Navy researchers the creature’s superior intelligence. Why mortgage the ranch to build a swimming pool in a world that is three-fourths ocean?
Of course the peril of our situation is evident. What if our researchers discover that the dolphins already speak Russian? Or that Russian linguists have dolphin language records? A network of dolphin intelligence, complete with sonar techniques, may already circle our coastline. Surely, after our experiences with Red eggheads, we cannot assume that dolphins are too intelligent for Communist propaganda. Life underseas may be particularly suited to brainwashing. The strong dolphin social organization noted by the researchers is ominous.
Even if dolphins are politically neutral, the dawn of the dolphin age is upon us. When these bottle-nosed high brows begin to take college entrance exams the Ivy League standards should make a dolphin school of Harvard.
This may be a little premature, since the dolphins are not yet speaking to the Doctor. There is an “if” in his reasoning too—“If brain size and complexity are the criteria of intelligence—and Dr, L. suspects this is the case—then …”
When the riddles of life were too much for Job, God summoned him to examine the animal creation. He marveled at God’s works, the hippopotamus and the crocodile, and his complaints were silenced before his Sovereign. Now we behold the dolphin. Yet we must bow with Job to know what man is. Even T. S. Eliot’s hippopotamus cannot know himself!
EUTYCHUS
THE POST-MODERN MIND
In view of Dr. Jellema’s comments on “New Faiths” (June 6 issue), it would be wise to remember the proverb, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” Since the so-called “post-modern mind,” which is very ancient indeed, has abandoned the objective reality of God and the universe, it also has abandoned the foundation of rationality; for according to both Aristotle and Leibnitz, the second absolute intuition is that the realities conveyed to the minds of men by their perceptions are as certainly true as the reality of the existence of their own minds. Therefore, to strip the mind of the certainty of its own knowledge is to surrender any certainty of its knowledge of itself; for perception is the basis in any case: that is to annihilate reason.
And to attempt to reason with such, on the basis of their own irrationality, is to become like them; for it accepts their folly as in itself reasonable!
ELBERT D. RIDDICK
Portland, Ore.
I believe the reasons for the revolt against the older “modes of thought” in both theology and Weltanschauungen are legitimate because they were unable to handle either the complexities or the spontaneities of the human and sub-human situation. It must be recognized, however, that none of those who are attempting to wrestle with the problems of the frontier, whether they be beatniks, physicists, depth psychologists or Existenz philosophers have yet come forward with a viewpoint which adequately handles the total range of our experience, including our knowledge.
Many in France and in our Washington-New York and West Coast areas are attempting to find a Weltanschauung in Zen Buddhism which certainly makes a place for spontaneity which the older orthodoxies in science and theology did not permit; but Buddhism merely affirms the Unpattern and denies the Self. Protestant Liberalism is surely even more inadequate than the older Orthodoxies, and Neo-orthodoxy, at least it seems to me, is like Camus, only a way of living with the Absurd.
Although I do not know where the answer is to be found, I am now fairly sure that no purely intellectual answer is possible and that when an answer is found it will involve some other than Western (either Protestant or Catholic) understanding both of the Church and of worship. I am fairly confident that there is an answer somewhere within the tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly Russian Orthodoxy.…
Unless we find an answer to the problem of the Unpattern I feel fairly sure that we will all be involved in the Dance of Shiva.
ROY E. LEMOINE
Columbus, Ga.
Comdr. ChC. USN (ret.)
“Conformity” is agreed by many of the young people I have discussed the matter with to be their taskmaster and their struggle is how to break with it. The Church, I am sure, holds the answer they seek, for only in Christ is one the full, free self God created him to be, and freedom comes only when one is what he is God-intended to be.
FOREST TRAYLOR, JR.
First Presbyterian Church
Bay Minnette, Ala.
THE FUTILE WAIT
Truly enjoyed Fred E. Luchs’ article … “Waiting for Godot” (June 6 issue). It certainly is refreshing to see a religious magazine take up such a thought-provoking subject as Beckett has produced for us. Mr. Luchs’ interpretation is mature and well-founded.
There is one basic difference between the play’s two acts. Several persons I know have failed to catch it. At the opening of the play the tree stands in the stage barren. At the opening of the second act, everything is exactly the same with the exception that anywhere from three to eleven leaves are strung along the still near-naked tree. Strange? Very. It does further Mr. Luchs’ point about futility, however. It reaches into untold stretches of time.
JOHN HUSAR
Church Editor
The Clovis News-Journal
Clovis, N. Mex.
THE CHESSMAN CASE
Your editorial on Chessman (May 23 issue) gave us Britishers a new and authentic slant which was sorely needed in view of our press which failed to bring out fully the man’s criminality.
FREDERICK S. LEAHY
Reformed Presbyterian Manse
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Would you be willing to act as the executioner of condemned men?… Your stand, and the stand of those who agree with you, is all that prevents us from doing away with this medieval, barbarous, and unchristian practice by which we are all made murderers.
JOHN A. BAXTER
Turn of River Church, Presbyterian
Stamford, Conn.
[This] is to congratulate you on the Chessman editorial (May 23 issue)—which came too late to use in my course in criminology. I am going to copy a part of it … and send it to our daily paper.
ROBERT L. WENDT
Salem College
Winston-Salem, N. C.
Those who are advocating abolition of the death penalty on the ground that it is no deterrent to crime need to be reminded that this is not even the main issue. The fact we dare not forget is that “retributive justice” … is divinely vested in human government. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” (Genesis 9:5–6).
When we here cast aside the revealed will of God as being too “cruel,” we are not only showing more concern for the criminal than for his victim but are also flying in the face of God’s principles of absolute justice without which the universe would be chaos.
P. W. SIMS
First Baptist Church
Helena, Ark.
MISSION NEGLECTED
May I confirm Mr. Conlon’s comments on the present-day importance of reaching African nationals while in this country (News, May 23 issue). However, I must say in addition that at the present time we are also losing out with the African students. They come to the United States with high expectations but are soon disillusioned. In both North and South they feel they are discriminated against. Reacting against actual or imagined affronts they tend to cloister together, brooding with others about their pathetic situation here and the inequalities in their homelands. Most Africans return home quite bitter, far the worse for their experience here. For the most part, this is not their fault. Very few Christians will open their homes and churches to minister in love without prejudice. The Lord Jesus ministered to persons of all backgrounds and nations.
The foreign students in this country, without doubt, represent one of the most significant missionary opportunities of our generation. But only relatively few Christians have thus far responded to this challenge.
R. MAX KERSHAW
Area Director
International Students, Inc.
Chicago, Ill.
PROBABILITIES AND PERILS
The hub of Brunner’s argument (April 25 issue), it appears, is that “the expansion of bolshevist control … is … an absolute certainty” while “the eruption of nuclear war … is pure possibility.” The argument may carry the force of a certain logic. But is it historically and, above all, theologically valid? If we are to argue on the level of historical probability, the evidence points at least as strongly in the opposite direction. Despotisms always come to end, by digging their own graves, or otherwise. Continued expansion is hardly an “absolute certainty.” On the other hand, a race of arms typically leads to a military explosion. Hence the likelihood of nuclear war at the end of the present contest is higher than a mere “pure possibility.” That is, if we are to argue in terms of historical probabilities, one can with more logic advance the conclusion opposite to the one drawn by Prof. Brunner.
The real issue, of course, is theological. Not to raise here the difference, ethically speaking, between “suffering evil” and “inflicting evil”—what I miss throughout the article is the dimension of grace.…
I consider highly injudicious the slogan that has been circulated in some pacifist quarters—better a communist occupation than a nuclear war. But let us keep our bearings when we evaluate historical alternatives. Nuclear holocaust is definitive in a way that communism is not. And if the former comes because of Christian unbelief and disobedience, that finality is infinitely greater.… Might it not be that the form of the antichrist in our time is not the blandishments of Moscow but rather the absolutization of the choice between East and West with which we are all constantly tempted? What would it mean if it suddenly were to become clear that Christianity, rather than being the spiritual rationale which undergirds the “defensive posture” of the West, flows from the redeeming, transforming power of God, accepting yet judging and seeking to redeem East and West alike?… Is it not, in the final analysis, a form of idolatry and unbelief to hold that despite the clear contradiction of all that the Gospel entails by the whole notion of nuclear war or deterrency, God loves the West so much and needs our help so badly to defend it, that we are entitled to destory the East to accomplish it?
PAUL PEACHEY
Mennonite Central Committee
Tokyo, Japan.
I knew Hromadka while he was here at Union Seminary, and on my visit in 1950 to Czechoslovakia I heard nothing but praises by our Congregational ministers about Hromadka and his humanitarian work for peace.…
The progressive pastor Martin Niemoeller is a personal friend of Dr. Hromadka. They both work for the peace and not for war among all nations. Yet when Dr. Niemoeller was in America, the American Presbyterians and other denominations welcomed him, except some of the Augustana Lutherans.
Listen to what the Cleveland capitalist Mr. Eaton says after his visit to Hungary not long ago, namely: “The Hungarian people are grateful that the Red Army is standing close by them because they are in terror of the German army which they feel the U. S. is building up.”
ANDREW J. MONCOL
Cleveland, Ohio.
With the exception of the fundamentalists and a few others, American Protestantism will not lift its hand to … oppose the rapid spread of communism-atheism.
LEE A. SOMERS
Champaign, Ill.
WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE
I spent a week at the White House Youth Conference (Apr. 25 issue) and could not help thinking the results would have been far more substantial if the same effort went into separate state conferences.
GEORGE C. WILSON
The Evening Star
Washington, D. C.
THE CAMPUS NEWSPAPER
Would you pass on to your pastors and Christian leaders the need to encourage able youth who are on secular campuses to try to serve on the staff of the campus newspaper.
This semester at the University of California, Berkeley, the writer submitted three letters on timely issues from the conservative viewpoint which were not published because liberally minded students controlled the editorial staff of The Daily Californian. Upon inquiry, a staff member stated, “One left-winger controls all that goes on the editorial page.”
Most of the letters which are printed are of extremist views, and many of the conservative letters printed are those with anemic arguments, making the conservative position look ridiculous. In one edition (May 16) ten of the seventeen non-sports articles had a strong anti-conservative bias.
WARD WILSON
Oakland, Calif.
WHICH RELIGION?
I was one of the 3,000 who accepted membership in the 5-year-old Academy of Religion and Mental Health, and have been asked to renew my membership. After reading Director George Christian Anderson’s New York City address of January 14, 1960, I see that when he uses the word religion, he does not mean the Christian religion, but something less definable, something sub-Christian.…
We desire to help the individual in need before he is sick mentally, emotionally, physically, and this is the noble aim of this Academy and the alert Church. But my question is this: Can we Christians truly help individuals without recognizing and stating the finality and uniqueness of Jesus as divine Savior and healer, and the Bible as our divine authority when we talk about religion? This may be implicit in Mr. Anderson’s thought, but is this too emotional or divisive to put into language? Is this too spiritual for the behavioral researcher and scientist?
ROBERT W. YOUNG
North Presbyterian Church
Pittsburgh, Pa.
THE PAGANS ARE RIGHT
Ever since you turned down and refused to print the article I wrote to you, about the basic, very foundation of Christianity, the Love Commandments that Jesus said were the greatest and first, I have felt you do not practice as you preach, and that the pagan and many people in other nations are right when they call us Americans hypocrites.
EDWIN BRUSH, SR.
San Francisco, Calif.
NEO-SOMETHING
Recently I came across a volume of contemporary theology with the arresting title, “Die Subjektive Wirklichkeitstheorie in der Christlichen Religion.” Its author is Prof. L. A. U. S. Indembart of the University of Entweder an der Oder. The colophon of the volume reads, “Verlag der Gesellschaft der Christlichen Religionskunde, Hameln, 1958.”
Prof. Indembart had hitherto been little known in this country and indeed in his own. His thesis, it may be assumed, will raise him from obscurity and make him the talk of the seminaries for several generations to come. In this book Prof. Indembart propounds an entirely new approach to the verities of the Christian faith, one which amounts to nothing less than a new philosophy.
The subjektive Wirklichkeitstheorie begins with the major premise that whatever is believed is subjectively true. Applying that principle to theology, the truths of the Christian religion have a validity insofar as they are apprehended and received as such by the individual. The Holy Scriptures, says Indembart, have essentially no objective reality. They exist only in the degree to which one is acquainted with them. When a person begins his acquaintance with the Word it is for him in a state which he denominates potentiale Wirklichkeit or seinwerdenmögen (potential reality or possibility of becoming). That state, through a transitional phase which he calls Wahrscheinlichkeit (probability), leads in certain cases to a state where particular doctrines have a subjektive Wirklichkeit (subjective reality) for the student.
So powerful was the impact of the volume that I felt the philosophy it contained deserved to be more widely known. Accordingly, in the summer of 1959 I flew to Germany with the purpose of interviewing its author.
As I sat in Indembart’s study, awaiting his appearance, I glanced at his library. I was somewhat astonished by the absence of the works of Kierkegaard and the existentialist philosophers generally. On his desk, however, lay an unopened volume of Kant; likewise an open copy of Berkeley’s “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” heavily underscored and much annotated in red ink.
Heavy footfalls in the corridor apprised me of the Professor’s imminent arrival. Restraining further investigation of his reading habits, after mutual salutations and the usual small talk I proceeded to question him concerning his theological views.
My first query was, “Dr. Indembart, do you accept the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God?” Indembart puffed on his pipe, gazed out of the window overlooking the medieval city of Entweder and the placid Oder, coughed and slowly said, “The Bible has a subjective truth for me.”
“Are the Scriptures then in your opinion without error?” was my next question. He scratched his bearded chin reflectively, then said, “I am completely orthodox.”
“But, aside from my own case,” I continued, “don’t you think your theory will militate against evangelical Christianity?” “It needn’t,” said the Professor, peering searchingly at me through his thick glasses. “You see, the Scriptures have a subjective reality. They become true as they are believed.”
“Doesn’t that make man, not God, the ultimate authority?” I wanted to ask, but, thinking better of it, I inquired instead, “Do you believe in the Virgin Birth?” Just then, however, Indembart glanced at his watch. “Ach,” he said, “es ist ja schon beinah halb zehn. Entschuldigen Sie mich, bitte. Ich muss jetzt zum Katheder.”
Indembart departed for his lecture, and I had no opportunity to discuss matters any further with him. Later in the week, however, I picked up a copy of Der Theologische Nebenblick, published by the theological faculty of the University of Pinkeln, lauding Indembart’s thesis as a most significant contribution to the philosophy of conservative Christianity. At this writing, several months later, I have examined the periodical literature of numerous Protestant seminaries and find that, almost without exception, Indembart’s theory has been hailed as indicating the ultimate phase in neo-orthodox thought.
Perhaps the most candid appraisal of “Die Subjektive Wirklichkeitstheorie” comes from the pen of Prof. Esopus Apfelmus, of the department of dogmatics at the University of Trügen, which hitherto has been a stronghold of existentialism. Writing in the Trügenscher Rundschau (Bd. XCI, Heft 9), he says: “Indembart has made an excellent case for removing the neo-orthodoxy from its tottering existential foundations to a much firmer base of subjective idealism. His philosophy will outmode the work of Barth, Brunner and their concomitants and followers. It is the neo-orthodoxy to end all neo-orthodoxies. One need not be a prophet to predict a great future for Indembart.”
I was particularly struck by the last sentence. Knowing the acumen of a large segment of the personnel of today’s theological faculties I am convinced that the presage is true, that the man is right.
E. P. SCHULZE
Peekskill, N. Y.
