The Existence of God
To the Editor:
I spent every spare hour for weeks trying to compose my ideas in response to Sidney Hook’s article in the March issue. . . . I awaited the May issue, hoping some of your other readers would take up the argument. Three brief letters, a few lines in all, with a rebuttal by Professor Hook longer than all three: this was the sum total of response. By the June issue the entire matter had been forgotten. Does this mean that most of your readers, like most of our friends, have decided that God is dead; or rather, that he never existed? Or are they like me? Do they find it too difficult to marshal their thoughts and feelings into a coherent argument for God in the modern World? . . .
I certainly agree with Mr. Hook that ideas of God have varied greatly through the ages, and that many are unacceptable to modern men. . . . My [own] idea of God conforms to significant religious experience through the ages, yet I cannot see that it is incompatible with logic Or the findings of science. . . . Just as a full and Satisfying life cannot be lived without human love, neither can it be lived without personal orientation to what I will call cosmic love and purpose, to avoid use of that ambiguous word, God. . . . Direct religious experiences have varied enormously . . . but each participant has learned, first, that his existence is of supreme significance to the cosmic order; and second, that a commandment is laid upon him to value the existence of others as his is valued.
Jane K. Schwartz
Washington, D. C.
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