God Arises
Religion and Society
~ 403 ~
space, are to all appearance so accidental, so far
removed from the whole scheme of the universe,
that it is
a priori
all too probable that any meaning
that the universe as a whole may have, would
entirely transcend our terrestrial experience, and so
be
totally
unintelligible
to
us”
(p.112).
Existentialism too convinces us that man, with his
limitations, does not know how to discover a norm,
which is beyond him.
“Man is an ethical animal in a universe which
contains no ethical element.” This is an often-
quoted statement of Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-
1970) who writes in his best-seller,
The Modern
Temper
, that no matter how great an effort a man
makes, the two halves of his soul can hardly come
together. And he does not know how to think as his
intellect tells, or how to feel as his emotions tell him.
And thus in his ruined and divided soul, he has
become a laughing stock.”
In this, Krutch is in error. And this is because he has
stepped out of his domain. The basic point that I
feel needs stressing here is that what has been
proved is not that values do not exist, but that man
