Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tt00015)

[The previous forwarding of Tim Maroney's posting appears here.]

In response to the above, I find it fruitless to try to justify
anything that happens when there is not a completely neutral
observer present at all events (even if simultaneous); let alone
what happened over 100 years ago.  One has to accept the
situation as the facts stand, or not.  No one should be trying to
convince anyone of facts they were not witness to.  I believe
Albert Einstein put it succinctly (analogously in this case) when
he said in his address titled "Science and Religion" (from Ideas
and Opinions, pp.  42-3) (Italics mine):

"But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no
part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments.  When
someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means
would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end.
Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and
ends.  But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate
and fundamental ends.  To make clear these fundamental ends and
valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the
individual, seems to me precisely the most important function
which religion has to perform in the social life of man.  And *if
one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends,
since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one
can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful
traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and
judgments of the individuals;* they are there, that is, as
something living, without its being necessary to find
justification for their existence.  They come into being not
through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium
of powerful personalities.  One must not attempt to justify them,
but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly."

In other words, we accept as true for ourselves certain things
which we may not be able to wholly 'prove' to someone else.

Cordially, Scott Osterhage