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bers aboard the
Enola Gay,
he was
moved that very day, while still
aboard the B-29, to explain in writ–
ing how the bomb had made a giant
contribution to world peace. l n a
letter to his young son, he set down
the hopes of most of the men who
had worked so hard to make the
atoro bomb successful:
Dear Walter:
This is the first grown-up
letter 1 have ever written to
you. and it is really for you
when you are older .... Today
the lead plane of our little for–
mation dropped a single bomb
which probably exploded with
the force of 15,000 tons of high
explosive ....
What regrets 1 have ... a re
tempered with the hope that
this terrible weapon we have
created may briog the
countries of the world together
and prevent further wars. Al–
fred Nobel thought that his in–
vention of high explosives
would have this effect, by
making wars too terrible, but
unfortunately it had just the
opposite reaction . Our new de–
structive force is so many
thousands of times worse that
it may rea l ize Nobel's
dream....
Dr. Alvarez's hopes have never
been realized. The peace that was to
have grown from the rubble of
Hiroshima never carne. World War
JI
was quickly followed by the Ko–
rean contlict , numerous smaUer
wars, the decade-long debacle in
Vietnam, and continuing Middle
East crises.
If the people of Hiroshima died
for the cause of peace, their demise
was in vain. It is indeed a cruel twist
of irony that the very mission which
ended in their destruction was be–
gun by asking God's blessing in the
name of Jesus Christ - the one
hailed as the Prince of Peace!
One wonders if the people of
Hiroshima that day could have
28
taken comfort in the knowledge that
the same Jesus who was asked to
bless the bom b had previously
shown God's concern for man by
saying, " ... one [sparrow] ... shall
not fall on the ground without your
Father [knowing]. But the very hairs
ofyour head are all numbered. Fear
ye not therefore, ye are of more
value than many sparrows" (Mát–
thew 10:29-31 ).
Did that scripture also apply to
the Japanese in Hiroshima? Why, if
it did, did God seemingly turn his
back while approximately 200,000
human beings were instantly
burned or exposed to fatal radi–
ation? God is love, so why did he
allow the bombing of Hiroshima?
15,000 Recorded Wars
No historian, it seems, can ade–
quately explain why God, suppos–
edly the epítome of merey, allows
war. V iew in g his tory d is–
passionately, it appears that God
must not mind watching humanity
devise new and ever more effective
methods of self-destruction. He has
yet to calla halt to any arms race.
Not even most clergymen, who
claim to be God 's representatives,
and therefore reaUy ought to know
God's wilJ better than anyone else,
can give a satisfying answer.
Whether the qucstion arises over
the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945
or over the dea th of a young soldier
in Southeast Asia in 1973, about the
best explanation organized Chris–
tianity has yet been able to offer is
the funereal stock-in-trade, "We just
don't know why God permits these
things to happen ...."
That, of course, is hardly a satis–
fying reply to the bereaved, those
groping for a measure of comfort in
the vague unreali ties of a weekend
religion.
However, the blame for war falls
squarely on the shoulders of man,
not on God. The unavoidable fact
of the matter is that God has not
forced meo to fight history's nearly
15,000 utterly futile confiicts over
geographical, religious, or ideologi–
cal differences. Most people, deep
down, will realize this is true. And
what ao outcry of resentment there
would have been if God had forced
them
not
to fight! But the mystery
still remains: Why does God ,
though he is not at all to blame for
what is obviously man's own folly,
allow the s laughter to continue
without interference? Couldn't he a t
least have done something about it?
Why has he given men the freedom
to destroy each other?
To Cheat or Not to Cheat
Go.d certain ly has the power todo
something about war, and in the not
too distant future, he is going to
take an active role in doing just that.
But why isn't he doing anything
about
it
a t present?
To understand the answer to that
question, it is necessary to grasp the
ultimate purpose God has given
man in life.
The achievement of that purpose
is absolutely dependent on the fact
that alJ men are
free moral agents.
God the creator determines what is
right and what is wrong. Free moral
agency means that all roen have the
inherent prerogative to choose
which course of action they will take
- the right or the wrong. For ex–
ample, the Japanese military lead–
e rship in World War II freely chose
to join forces with the Axis powers
in Europe against the Allies. A Pres–
ident of the United States freely
chose to use the atoro bomb in retal–
iation. God stopped neither party.
Likewise, each of us, individually,
has the freedom to choose our own
personal conduct. We can choose to
obey the law or to break it. l f you
want to cheat on your income tax,
you may - and freely risk the
chance of getting caught. But, in the
meantime, no one is going to swoop
down from heaven and plead with
you to exercise the kind of godly
willpower it takes to pay today's
higb taxes.
God could, of course, force men
PLAIN TRUTH September 1973