RELIGION AND THE INTELLECTUALS
465
what experience gives us. Nor is there anything uncertain about such
statements. To state the weight of a body in a formula which in–
cludes altitude and latitude is indeed more closely related to the
truth than to state it in a formula which omits them. But the idea
seems to have arisen that in ethical and aesthetic matters there are
statements which define and measure values in utter detachment
from any human concerns. The Good is not the good as seen, felt,
desired, measured, destroyed, created, suffered for by any man;
it transcends all history, all time and space; and yet it can be used
as a standard by beings who are in essence historical creatures. How
the Eternal descends into the Temporal is, to be sure, as great a
mystery as the Incarnation, but the person who has been con–
verted would not shun it on that account.
If
the eternal standards
do not apply to human acts and artifacts, that is because of our
wickedness, our estrangement from God, our ignorance, our weak–
ness, our inherent-or inherited-sinfulness.
It
is interesting that in
scientific matters the gap between what happens and what law
prescribes is usually attributed to the frailty of the law, not to the
inherent wickedness of matter. But when it is a question of human
beings, one feels no need of adjusting the law to the facts. The facts
must be amended to fit the law.
If
this does not seem unreasonable, and if a man can be over–
come by the awe which most of us feel at the merest glimpse of the
cosmic order, then clearly a sense of humility arises. One need not be
a Roman Catholic to feel one's insignificance. Many a pagan, many
an atheist has felt it. But, if I may be permitted to slip into dogma,
most people in the Western World do not seem to enjoy this feeling.
An institutionalized theism, such as Catholicism, with a highly sys–
tematized body of metaphysics behind it, alleviates one's sense of hum–
ility by convincing one that, regardless of what science may say, Man
is
the darling of the cosmos. The crude anthropomorphism of the
Sunday School hymns may be laughed aside, but nevertheless the
universe will be related to the being of a central cause who is the
perfection of human nature. One will be permitted to communicate
either directly or through ritual with this cause. The human race will
be given cosmic status. Since the two major religions of the English
speaking world grant their adherents a certain latitude in interpreting
their theological dogmas, if not in practicing their religious rites, one
