The managing editor of Catholicism in Crisis forwarded a letter addressed to me via his office from a gentleman in Canada. Terry Hall figured that perhaps Schall could “do” something with it. On what appears to be a photocopy, with no salutation, so the letter may be sent around elsewhere, the reader is informed that there are only two basic sorts of answers to questions, true and false. The gentleman was not into any “maybe’s.” He gave a couple of examples of his remarkable thesis, one having to do with the answer to “two and two” (even Schall got that one), the other to the question “Does God exist?” No further analysis or sign of argument was given. I was informed, then, that the proposition “two plus two equalled four” is true. (I was relieved.) However, the proposition, “God does exist,” is false. (I suspected this was where he was going.) The gentleman, then, signed off thusly, “Formerly Catholic, Now Atheist, Yours truly.”
Of course, no one can quite utter such simplicities without some attempt to let the reader know he is not completely bozo. Sure enough, there were two “P.S.’s,” evidently designed to give Schall the reasons for the falsity of the second proposition. Apparently, even he figured that Schall would have no difficulty with the two and two bit. But the writer apparently realized that there was, in spite of his boldness, something different about the status of the two questions, so that even he doubted his own thesis about the ease with which he answered his own questions. The proposition, “God does exist,” after all, is the conclusion to a prior argument, at least for us humans.
In any case, the first “P.S.” stated: “What self-respecting God, let alone an all loving and all wise one, would create a world where the basic law of life is eat and be eaten?” A couple of weeks ago, my mother and I had watched a program on lions, how the two female lionesses usually, when hungry, ran down a herd of zebras, in order to feed the family. And my brother-in-law in Milwaukee had given me a book about the Canadian grey wolf and its relation to the caribou—the wolves usually got the weak or sick ones, with the result that the caribou were always healthy and the wolves always fed. I have seen bass ponds, where little “fishies” are eaten by big “fishies,” as the old song used to go. The only way in which we could have a world in which there are lions, grey wolves, or bass, in other words, is one in which zebras, caribou, and minnows are eaten. If, in short, there are to be beings (whether rational or irrational) with bodies, then any “self-respecting God” who did not want to create a world of mere appearances and abstractions, but one in which there were real beings, would make one in which part, at least, of the basic law is “eat and be eaten.” I, for one, do not think that God, self-respecting or not, would be greater if such a world could not exist. In this, to be sure, I am only defending my possibility to be at all.
The second reason given by the gentleman from Ontario was rather ad hominem: “The Church r. c. a mighty fortress be. It survived Luther. It survived Voltaire. It will survive me. Not because it teaches truth but because people are gullible.” (I wonder if that word “gullible” comes from fish, from suckers, never to be given an even break?) On the principle that “people are gullible,” that people are foolish, it is difficult logically to see how the said writer of the letter exempts himself from his own rule. And if he too is “gullible,” “foolish,” like the rest of us R. C. clods, presently and formerly, where does that leave the “mighty fortress,” which usually teaches that God created something, lots of things, not Himself? And didn’t Aristotle say that all rational beings are “risible,” that is, subject to laughter? I am afraid all of this makes a believer out of me. The young man, like it says in Scripture, should have stuck to the “yeas” and “nays,” and forgotten the explanations.
All of this can be confirmed by an example. On a Tuesday morning at 7:45, my brother, whom I had been visiting in Reno, let me off at the bus station at Harrah’s to return to San Francisco on the 8:10 Greyhound. The sun was already bright, hot, shining full on the waiting seats, which stated firmly, “Reserved for Harrah’s Customers Only.” A man in white janitor’s suit was hosing down the place. On one of the benches, a strong-looking, rather elderly black man with a baseball hat was sound asleep in the hot sun. I sat down, but it was too warm, so I went over behind a huge column in the shade. Another elderly gentleman in blue sneakers came up to sit on the other side of the sleeping black man. A well-dressed black lady in a neat purple suit, gold earrings shaped like a cross, arrived to sit in the other seat where I had left my bag. I had been trying to read Gertrude Himmelfarb’s most perceptive Idea of Poverty. She would appreciate that this was not quite the right setting.
Suddenly, out of a casino came a rather stocky white lady, followed by a lady police attendant, who was just sort of looking on. The white lady rushed up to the sleeping black man and in about the most piercing voice I have ever heard, yelled, “Honey, wake up, I need you.” She shook him violently, as she carried two of the plastic cartons the casino gives you to carry winning coins in. “Honey, Honey,” she repeated, shaking him, “Those men you introduced me to have stolen my money. I won $300 and they took it. Wake Up!” Well, everyone sort of gathered around this scene and backed away a bit. “Honey” was not about to wake up either, but finally he slowly came to as the lady with stolen winnings yelled about his friends and led him into the casino. I must say, “Honey” was eloquent with things to say, once he got going.
Meantime, the nice black lady with the gold cross earrings came over to stand by me, as we both watched this unbelievable drama at 8 A.M. in Reno. Finally, she turned to me in one of those wonderful, deep black-lady’s voices and said, “No matter where you go, you always run into fools.” Well, naturally, I could hardly contain myself with amusement and wonderment too. I do not know what my friend in Canada, who worries about “eating and being eaten,” thinks about all of this, but somehow I cannot conclude from the fact that “people are gullible” or “that no matter where you go, you always run into fools” that there is no God. I conclude the opposite, and these are my reasons.