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action. But Niebuhr cannot accept this because it is a cure worse than
the disease, an attempt to deplive man of that very freedom which is
his glory as well as his disaster. What, then, is left? The answer, not
directly given, is in the theological essays: we must rely on grace,
which will yield Christian love.
Why doesn't Niebuhr make this answer in the context of his po–
litical essays? I think he cannot do so unless he commits himself to
some social use of grace: a religious revival perhaps, or at least a
revival of faith; yet his own test of experience keeps him from this pro–
posal because he knows that ages of faith have exhibited as much human
evil as other ages. Thcre is still another alternative: God's grace falls on
us mysteriously and He may resolve our difficulties in His own good
time. But if this is what Niebuhr believes, what is the use of all this
political writing? Why not wait and have faith?
The most penetrating essay in this book, for me, is the tenth, "Love
and Law in Protestantism and Catholicism." (It is also the best written,
as it should be, for the material is better grasped.) Here Niebuhr deals
with the anguish and perplexity of man's personal situation. His special
quality, perhaps, is that he never thinks of man as entirely a transcendent
creature trapped in the coils of mortality and society, from which it is
his appointed task to extricate himself. Rather, he treats man's social
character as an essential p art of his nature. So he does not, like Luther,
think of man as totally depraved and completely reliant on grace; nor
does he, like Saint John of the Cross, treat ordinary human love as a
subordinate step on the way to Universal Love. He sees filial and pa–
ternal love, and sexual love, as different in degree, but not in kind, from
love of the Cross. So he escapes the mystic's disavowal of society as
well as the collectivist's disavowal of personality.
One can generalize from Ni ebuhr's strength and weakness: this
kind of theological speculation is at its best when it deals with the
person and with those interpersonal relationships which are at the
heart of daily living and make community. But it fails in its trafficking
with the large problems of society, and it offers for political life no
solution at all.
Ralph Gilbert Ross
the hans hofmann school of fine art
52 west 8th street
new york city
phone gramercy 7-3491
morning • afternoon • evening
