NEW FAILURE OF NERVE
21
equal before Him is (1) logically invalid (2) historically false
and (3) irrelevant to the pressing problem of democratic defense
and reconstruction.
(1) From the alleged fact that all men are equal before God,
it does not at all follow logically that they are, or should be,
equal before the state or enjoy equal rights in the community.
This must be justified by other considerations. Even on the theo–
logical scheme, although God is equally the creator of angels,
men, animals and things, they are not all equal in value before
him. Men are also equal before death, pain, disease and the tax–
collector. But how they should he treated often depends upon
their relative state of health, their efforts, the consequences of
their efforts, and other
differential
features of their behavior. Some
Christians have held-with as much logic as their brethren who
drew contrary conclusions-that because all men are equally sin–
ners in the sight of the Lord, their social and political inequalities
in this transitory life are unimportant. Not infrequently, pious
Christians have believed that these inequalities are our punish–
ment for the sins of our fathers.
If
men have a common origin,
biological or theological, that in itself is not logically sufficient
for asserting that they must or should have common opportunities
or common education or common citizenship.
If
we believe that
they should have, as we do, then we believe it on grounds whose
validity would be unaffected whether they had a common origin
or not.
Nor is the
all~ged
fact that man was created by God a logical
ground for honoring him. We are told both by the Pope and the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the American Institute of Judaism
that the dignity of man lies not in himself but in that he is a
child of God. In the course of a typical Catholic denunciation of
"atheistic saboteurs" who would keep the idea of God separate
from our government, Professor Manion of Notre Dame, at a pub–
lic meeting sponsored by the Con£erence, proclaims: "The only
reason why we have to respect this so-called dignity of man is
because it is God-created."* The logic would be just as bad even
if the rhetoric were better. As well say that the only reason we
have for not lying is that it is forbidden by God. Or that the only
reason for appreciating the beauty of a landscape is that it is
•Proceedings of Third Conference, p. 538.
