CHAPTER V

THE WORTH OF LIFE

OUR estimate of the worth of life depends upon our belief in God and the immortality of the soul. Postulating the true Theistic conception of God and the existence of the soul after death, our views of the present life will naturally differ toto cælo from those who deny the existence of a God who created, sustains, and loves the world, and hold that death ends all. Such an individual must almost necessarily be a pessimist, or one who believes that life is illusion, without meaning, and irremediably bad. "Of all possible worlds," said such an one,1 " that which exists is the worst. Its only excuse is that it tends of itself to destruction. The hope of the philosopher is that reasonable beings will shorten their agony and hasten the return of everything to nothing." The horrible doctrine that the world is the product of blind will naturally tends to kill all hope, consolation, and faith. Then follows melancholy, despair, and suicide.

1 Bahnsen, quoted in Amiel's Journal, 1892, p. 191.

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Of course, not all pessimists proceed to such extremes, but such doctrines are all in the

Atheistic germ. No Theist, certainly no Christian Theist, can logically be a pessimist. Amiel lamented that it seemed to him that everything was left to his own responsibility, and declared "it is this thought which disgusts me with the government of my own life. To win true peace, a man needs to feel himself directed, pardoned, and sustained by a supreme power, to feel himself in the right road, at the point where God would have him be,-in order with God and the universe. This faith gives strength and calm. I have not got it. All that is, seems to me arbitrary and fortuitous."1

Kant's estimate of the worth of life was that it is "a perpetual contest with sheer hardships," and "a trial time wherein most succumb, and in which even the best does not rejoice in his life." Fichte says that men "pine and fret their life through; in every situation in which they find themselves, thinking if it were only different how much better their lot would be, and yet, after it has changed, finding themselves no better off than before."

Schelling says "The veil of sadness is spread over all Nature, the deep indestructible melancholy of all life." "Certainly it is a painful way the Being which lives in Nature traverses in 1 Amiel's Journal, p. 128.

THE MISFORTUNE OF EXISTENCE"

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his passage through it; that the line of sorrow, traced on the countenance of all Nature, on the face of the animal world, testifies. . . . But this misfortune of existence is hereby annulled that it is accepted and felt as non-existence, in that man seeks to bear up in the greatest possible freedom from it. . . . Who will trouble himself about the common and ordinary mischances of a transitory life, that has apprehended the pain of universal existence and the great fate of the whole?" "Anguish is the fundamental feeling of every living creature." "The unrest of unceasing willing and desiring, by which every creature is goaded, is in itself unblessedness."

Schopenhauer says-" We feel the wish as we feel hunger and thirst; as soon, however, as it is fulfilled, it is with it as with the enjoyed morsel, that ceases to be for our feeling at the moment that it is swallowed. Pleasures and joys we miss painfully as soon as they cease; but pains, even when they disappear after long presence, are not immediately missed, but their absence has to be brought home to us by means of reflection. In the degree in which enjoyments increase, the receptivity for them diminishes; the accustomed is no longer felt as enjoyment. For that reason however, the receptivity for suffering increases; for the omission of the customary is painfully felt." "As we do not feel the health of our whole body, but only the little part where the shoe pinches

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PESSIMISM IN THE BIBLE

us, so also we do not think of all our perfectly satisfactory affairs, but of some insignificant trifle that vexes us." "We commonly find joys far below, pains far above our expectation." "Deserving of envy is no one, of commiseration numberless." "Before one declares with such confidence that life is a desirable or thankworthy good, let any one calmly compare the sum of possible delight which a human being may enjoy in his life, with the sum of possible suffering which may afflict him in his life. I believe the balance will not be difficult to strike."

The Hebrew people started from simple optimism-"God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good." The chosen people never looked upon the evils which befell them as sent by cruel gods and evil spirits such as the surrounding nations worshipped; but they recognized that the evils of life were just punishments for transgressions, and the means of purifying the people of God. This was all very well for the nation considered as a whole, but the theory failed when applied to individuals. Job's friends tried to apply the doctrine to his case, but he rejected it.

The author of Ecclesiastes absolutely despairs of the justice of God and of the righteous government of the world, and concludes that "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." In the

CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM

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Post-Exilian period the Jews developed the idea of Satan contending against God. This theory doubtless originated under the influence of Persian dualism, Ahriman, the Evil principle, eternally warring against Ormuzd, the Good principle. In the last century before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jewish thinkers looked on the world as the kingdom of Satan, and resigned themselves to a pessimistic despair. Christianity began in pessimism; yet the theory was used only as a foil for its doctrine of redemption and salvation through Christ. Our Lord never ignored the power of evil; we find no trace of shallow optimism in His teaching; He declared suffering to be His own lot and that of His followers. He taught that by means of suffering we achieve victory over evil, but ever insisted that the battle must be fought and won internally before it can be won for the world. It is a foolish and shallow optimism which ignores the power of evil; but it is a noble, wise, and Christian optimism which recognizes the power of God to overcome evil and dominate the world. In true Christian optimism there is no hardness, no unfeeling casting out of sight the sorrows and the sufferings of others. The Christian optimist sees in all things God's power always at work ameliorating the hard things of life, and using them at the same time as the means of developing and strengthening souls struggling