NEW FAlLURE OF NERVE
13
false, the world would be a terrible place: therefore they must
be true. Or since the beliefs of faith are consoling, they cannot
be false. Sometimes the argument rises a little higher. Because
not everything can be proved, since even science must make as–
sumptions, some faith in something is unavoidable if one is to
believe or do anything. Therefore faith in the absurd is justifiable.
But only our faith, not the other fellow's! On its most sophisti–
cated level, faith is defended not as a specific belief but as an
attitude of wisdom and resignation towards the human situation.
When it is realized that such faith is not distinctively religious at
all, either there is a relapse into metaphysical double-talk about
faith also being a form of knowledge or religion is defined so that
all people who have faith or passion, i.e., who are not yet dead,
are regarded as religious and committed to religious beliefs. But
when religious belief is a universal coefficient
of
all other beliefs,
it is irrelevant to them. This may be seen most clearly in the
theology of Reinhold Niebuhr.
Reinhold Niebuhr is one of those men of whom Emerson
said they were better than their theology. A radical and
honest intelligence, he brings to bear upon specific problems of
social change a scientific attitude and rare courage, that make
his discussions always illuminating. But not a single one of the
positions that Niebuhr takes on the momentous issues of social and
political life is dependent on his theology. One may accept his
rather reactionary theology, which is an eloquent combination of
profound disillusionment in human action and a violent belief in
human ideals, and deny all his secular views. Or one may accept
the latter, as so many of his friends do, and regard the former
as moving rhetoric that breathes passionate conviction about some–
thing whose very sense is in doubt. Indeed, if we look closely
at Niebuhr's theology, and take it out of the language of myth
and paradox, we find that whatever is acceptable in it
to
critical
thought is an obscure retelling of what was known to the wiser
unbelievers of the past.
Consider, for example, Niebuhr's conception of religion. It
is "lhe primary and ultimate act of faith by which life is endowed
with meaning. Without that act of faith life cannot be lived at all."*
To be alive is to be religious, and the atheists, the irreligious, the
•Modern Monthly,
Vol. 8,
p.
712.
