Peace in the Face of War

that the catastrophic End of the world is drawing nigh. This would be a
spineless response, a betrayal of the task set before us. Each human being is
sentenced to death. When ill-health or old age strikes, a person may not have
the prospect before them of extensive time. But it does not follow from this
personal eschatological awareness that a person should refuse any kind of
activity or effort. Creative activity can even be heightened by it. The creative
works that a person achieves are linked to existential time, not to worldy,
historical time.
Eschatology Realised: Divine-human Co-operation The idea of inevitable
progress and the idea of inevitable regress are equally false. No such law of
progress or regress exists. This is the product of a false, deterministic worldview,
transposed into the the spirit of naturalistic categories. The problem
of progress is a problem of the spirit and not a problem of natural processes.
Progress, i.e. the task of improvement and ascent, is one set before the
human spirit, not some inherent, natural and historical process. In empirical
history, progressive and regressive elements exist in equal measure, and
there is no infallible rule by which one must gain the upper hand over the
other. The 19 th century theory of progress, which in itself turned into a kind
of religion, is false and does not correspond to reality. It is merely a theory.
But this in no way means that the reactionary opponents of progress are
right. ‘Eschatological pessimism’ frequently serves the aims of reactionaries
and misanthropes. This is the negative side of an apocalyptic outlook, and
its destructive aspect. Here we must clear up an ambiguity. Such people tell
us that Christian truth, the Kingdom of God on earth, is unrealisable, that
no progress is possible, that evil only grows in the world, that freedom only
gives rise to evil. And so we ask ourselves: why do they say, Christian truth
is unrealisable? Is it because they are aware of this unrealisability through
experience of grief and affliction, or because they do not wish it to be
realised, and take a perverse delight in its not being realised? I am convinced
that, at the basis of all the reactionary attitudes lying behind ‘eschatological
pessimism’ persists a wish that the truth should not be realised, that man
should not move forward or upward; that in the life of humankind there
should be no increase in freedom, justice, humanity.... Whenever people
tell me that a more just, human social order is unrealisable, I always ask
them whether they would like it to be realised, or whether it is unrealisable
because they are doing everything they can to prevent its being realised. I
think that, in the majority of cases, the latter is more probable.
We must remember that the very idea of progress – however much it may
have been used against Christianity – is of Christian origin and is connected
24