Doublethink about God
LETTERS
From: Quintin Hogg, IAP , 'God,' John Bradley, A. J. S. Innes, Mary Renault, the Rev Canon D. F. C. Hawkins, Angus Buchanan, Onyekaba Nwankwo, Anna M. Cienciala, Gordon Evans, Professor John William Ward, Madeau Stewart, L. E. Weidberg, David M. Daniel.
Sir: It would perhaps be kinder if I allowed Mr Kenneth Allsop to simmer down after his rather excitable outburst last week (Letters, 28 June). But lest it be assumed that I have deliber- ately permitted his assertions of fact to go un- challenged I feel I must be allowed to put the following on record.
1. On what possible ground does he assert, perhaps a little offensively, that I consider my- self in 'God's good books'—whatever that may mean? I am a sincere and educated but not a particularly devout or spiritual Christian. I have never claimed more. It would be dishonest in me to avow less.
2. His article certainly did not make me feel 'splenetic.' Why should it? I found it extremely disappointing and I found it difficult to take his argument (if there was one) seriously.
3. I was not unfamiliar with any of his some- what strangely assorted list of 'authorities'— except Dr Schonfield's Passover Plot, which I read, with great enjoyment, before my reply was published. But Dr Schonfield who, one gathers, is a believing Jew who simply rejects the specific- ally Christian thesis, is hardly a witness for Mr Allsop, though Mr Allsop's attempt to use him as such was an excellent example of what I meant by `name-dropping.'
All this is very tedious. I did not write my piece to become involved in a competition in personalities with Mr Allsop or his other vari- ously abusive supporters. You do not confound a serious philosophical argument by criticising your opponent as `splenetic,' spluttering,"in- tellectually vain,' or 'supercilious.' I may be the latter, but, in the circumstances, have I not something to be supercilious about?
I cannot avoid the feeling that what Mr Allsop really cannot put up with is being made fun of.
Previous page
