ORIGINAL SIN, NATURAL LAW, AND POLITICS
219
though I am not always prepared to defend the actual letter of their
texts. I do not share Niebuhr's faith, nor do I admire his Hegelian
way of dealing with contradictions; I cannot accept the historical
inevitability of
sin
which is such an important part of his view; I
deplore Lippmann's revival of the ancient and obscure theory of
essences and natural law. And, in general, it seems to me a sad com–
mentary on the thought of
1956
that two of our most popular social
thinkers can produce nothing more original or natural than original
sin and natural law as answers to the pressing problems of this age.
2.
Niebuhr, Dewey and Human Nature.
It has been main–
tained1 that Niebuhr's reflections on human nature have provided a
new generation of liberals with insights that transcend the limita–
tions of Dewey. On the one hand Dewey is pictured as a disciple
of the Enlightenment, confident of the intrinsic goodness of human
nature, one of the latter-day
illuminati
who see man everywhere in
the chains of ignorance and who hold that scientific knowledge will
usher in
.a
millennia! era of social happiness through democratic
planning. On the other hand Niebuhr is seen as a shrewd Pauline,
aware of man's selfishness, and
his
inevitable incapacity to free him–
self from the effects of original sin through his own unassisted efforts.
Supplied with this more accurate picture of human nature, Niebuhr
is supposed to see the folly of placing too much trust in any central
group of social planners, while Dewey, it is argued, was ineffectually
innocent, a child of light in Niebuhr's biblical phrase, but unable
to illuminate this wicked world of gas chambers and mushroom
clouds. Niebuhr becomes the symbol of tough, Christian realism,
while Dewey represents soft-headed, complacent, dreamy secular
liberalism.
What we must consider, then, is the relation between Dewey's
and Niebuhr's views of human nature, the grounds offered for them,
and their political consequences.
1 For example, by Professor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., with whom I should
like to agree on this matter more than
I
do. H e has read this article with
the kindness of a friend and the objectivity of a scholar, and has made many
helpful suggestions in spite of disagreeing with the main points of my criticism
of Niebuhr. For his own views see his forthcoming brilliant essay "The Revalua–
tion of Liberalism"; also his review of Niebuhr's
Irony of American History
in
Christianity and Society,
Vol. 17 (1952) .
