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PARTISAN REVIEW
belief in omnipotence by a fairy tale about a creature that is
absolutely omnipotent. The humility it induces is one of fear,
not the humility which is fostered by knowledge of human limita·
tions and ignorance. His wisdom does not carry further than the
caution that no claim is completely justified, but he is helpless
before the problem of determining the degree and exten\ of its
justification, so necessary in order to get on with the problems
in hand. Whenever Niebuhr tackles these problems, he deserts
his theology.
It is true that intellectual pride is an expression of "original
sin" insofar as we make a claim to know what we do not know
and overlook the natural and historical origins of reason. Niebuhr
is very eloquent about the dangers of intellectual pride. "Fanati–
cism is always a partly conscious, partly unconscious attempt to
hide the fact of ignorance and to obscure the problem of skep–
ticism." And again: "The real fact is that all the pretensions of
final knowledge and ultimate truth are partly prompted by the
uneasy feeling that the truth is not final and also by an uneasy
conscience which realizes that the interests of the ego are com–
pounded with this truth."* True, but Niebuhr should address
these words not to naturalists but to theologians, for in the history
of thought it has been the naturalists who have exposed the pre–
tensions of final truths and who have uncovered the nerve of
interest behind the absolute values of church, state, and con–
science. Science has known its dogmatism, too. But the cure of
bad science is better science, not theology.
On many specific issues of scientific inquiry Niebuhr is one
with us. Despite his extravagant rhetoric, he does not believe in
blowing out the candle-light of intelligence and wallowing in the
dark night of the soul in an effort to make mysteries more mys–
terious. The only point at which Niebuhr seems to use his theology
is in situations where values and partial interests are locked m
mortal combat.
But does an appeal to the absolute really help us here? Is
any war so fanatical and bestial as a religious war in which the
conditioned values of social and personal interests take on the
awful authority of unconditioned claims? Is might right when
it is divine might? Is not the God of faith always the God of
limited, erring and · partial men?
If
we must have an absolute,
•The Nature
tmd
Destiny of Man,
p.
196.
