The theory would be too repulsive if it were put in this plain form, and
it is more usual merely to point out these good results and hint that
war is not absolutely and in every respect an evil. As if any person
ever said that it was. The point is simple, and ought not to be
obscured. A few incidental advantages do not reconcile us to this
colossal misery, suffering, and waste, and do not in the slightest
degree alleviate the position of the man who thinks that God directed
human events to this awful consummation. If an earthly ruler employed
such agencies to educate his subjects, with such an extraordinary
disproportion between the suffering inflicted and the results attained,
what should we think of him?
The parallel reminds us that of infinite wisdom we expect infinitely
more than of a human ruler. Once unintelligent nature had a crude,
wasteful, hard method of producing new and higher types of life. Man,
having intelligence, produces the same result without waste or
suffering. We expect immeasurably higher procedure of such an
intelligence as Christians ascribe to God. One can understand the man
who says that the plan of such an intelligence might be beyond human
ken, but I am discussing the opinions of people who contend that they
bring it within human ken.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132