Dr. Northrop, Technology and Religion

DR. NORTHROP, TECHNOLOGY AND RELIGION I HIROSHIMA terrified the world with its evidence that man had a machine potent enough to annihilate himself , his works, terrestrial life and possibly the earth itself. Wherever the significance of the atom bomb (and bacteriological warfare should not be forgotten) was appreciated, many men's thoughts turned, as the forlorn soldier's in the fox holes of Battan, to the divinity, and the sole hope of saving, not so much one's immortal soul, as the mortal things of time. This is Dr. Northrop's approach to religion and morality. As any reflecting person must be, Dr. Northrop is impressed by roan's prodigious harnessing of nature to produce instruments of destruction. Of course, these products need not be engines of war; with control they can be guided into ways of peace. But how control them? What forces can shackle atomic bombs? The answer is, that controls must be sought outside of the physical. Only religion and morality, Dr. Northrop submits/ can furnish the absolutely essential control . He insists that the world, since technology is a world problem, must have a religion and a morality capable of exercising enough control to save roan from his handiwork. Since man needs religion and morality to survive, religion and morality are necessary. 1 The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 864. · Hereafter this work is referred to as Logic. It is a collection of treatises, originating between 1985 and 1947, when they were published as arranged and amended by the author. Since this work benefits from the author's previyus publications, it is largely the basis of this critique. Dr. Northrop's "The Complementary Emphases of Eastern Intuitive and Western Scientific Philosophy,'' though published in Philosophy-East and West, in 1944, really goes back to the EastWest Philosophers' Conference held in Hawaii, 1989. The Meeting of East and West, Dr. Northrop's probably best known work, appeared in 1946 and has had four printings. This is referred to as East and West (New York; Macmillan, 1947). 886 DR. NORTHROP, TECHNOLOGY AND RELIGION ~37 This argument has similarities with Lindbergh's plea in his recent book, Of Flight and Life/ which, obviously, does not make it more valid. It only shows that Dr. Northrop's approach is not an isolated instance of putting the cart before the horse. Right order gives God first place, and then men. Whether Dr. Northrop would agree to this is doubtful. For, as will appear, it is difficult to say just what is Dr. Northrop's belief in God. But from the point of view of reason, it is evident that, granting God's existence, man's obligation of religion follows not from man's need of God to keep himself safe in this world but from the relationship which issues from God's transcendence and man's dependence.3 This criticism is valid, of course, chiefly for those who accept the existence of a sovereign God distinct from the world and its manifold beings. Religion is not just a life-preserver for drowning men. Yet it may be doubted that such considerations carry much weight against Dr. Northrop on his own premises or postulates, since it is not clear that he grants in any real sense the existence of a transcendent supreme being. To begin with, he stresses the need of religion if man is to survive. Precisely what he means by religion is never stated. Apparently it stands in general for man's thinking about God and his relations with Him. But of what sort must man's religion be in order to control, as Dr. Northrop says it must, man's technological achievements? Two qualities, at least, are essential: religion must be intimately associated with science and it must be capable of unifying man the world over. Dr. Northrop is not in the least uncertain about whether or not such a religion actually exists. He is sure it does not.4 On the 2 New York: Scribner, 1948. 3 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, 81, 1: ... religio proprie importat ordinem ad Deum. Ipse enim est cui principaliter alligari debemus tanquam indeficienti principio...