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to say a few words on this contrast between the necessary and the
inevitable, especially in the light of what was said earlier about
Niebuhr's views on history.
The problem of necessity is one of the most difficult philosoph–
ical problems, and therefore one can never be sure of understanding
even what the most clear-headed philosophers say on this subject.
But there is a usage according to which what happens necessarily
happens inevitably. Thus Webster, when he explains the meaning of
"inevitable," quotes Burke as saying: "It was inevitable; it was neces–
sary; it was planted in the nature of things." That is to say, we
sometimes take "inevitable" and "necessary" as interchangeable, even
if as philosophers we are not altogether sure of what they mean.
What, then, does Niebuhr want to bring out by distinguishing them?
So far as I can see, that we do not sin necessarily in the sense of
being determined by what he calls
natural
or physical causes, be–
cause we transcend nature. But Niebuhr says that we cannot avoid
sinning. His point is that we are driven to sin, not by physical events,
but by other things which are equally beyond our control. Niebuhr
is therefore free to demarcate a certain kind of unavoidable act,
namely that which is caused physically, and call it a
necessary
one,
while he calls another kind of unavoidable act- the kind produced
by our finitude, freedom, and lack of
faith-ine vitable.
The impor–
tant point is, however, that he believes (a) that we commit certain
evil acts which are unavoidable, and (b) that we are morally respon–
sible for them, that is, subject to blame for them.
Now there have been philosophers who have tried to make the
inevitability of an act consistent with praising or blaming it. And
there are others, like Mr. Berlin in the essay I have cited, who think
that inevitability and blame are incompatible. But Niebuhr is a very
different kind of thinker. He agrees that there is a contradiction
between them but, in his Hegelian and Whitmanesque way, accepts
it. The doctrine of original sin, he says, "remains absurd from the
standpoint of a pure rationalism, for it expresses a relation between
fate and freedom which cannot be fully rationalized, unless the para–
dox be accepted as a rational understanding of the limits of ra–
tionality and as an expression of faith that a rationally irresolvable
contradiction may point to a truth which logic cannot contain.
Formally there can be, of course, no conflict between logic and
