“I was brought up to be an ardent believer in the religion of the day—utopianism.” So begins Jesus Rediscovered, a personal confession from the distinguished journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge. No doubt, when he penned this opening line, he must have chuckled to himself. How could he ever have believed in a religion so utterly silly–a perfect world engineered through the hands of imperfect men. He recalls, with wry amusement, those youthful hours when he father read aloud to him from the pages of William Morris’s Earthly Paradise.
Muggeridge’s life was a gradually weaning of that curious illusion that sinful man could construct a sinless society. The achievements of science had convinced many that science would be a more beneficial religion than any of the traditional varieties, Christianity, for example. But science created the atomic bomb and has provided the armamentaria for wars more that have been increasingly horrifying.
In the Preface to Utopia, the Perennial Heresy, author Thomas Molnar makes the following comment: “From time to time the belief spreads among men that it is possible to construct an ideal society. Then the call is sounded for all to gather and build it—the city of God on earth. Despite its attractiveness, this is a delirious ideal stamped with the madness of logic.” Mad as the passion for a perfect society may be, it lingers on in the human mind.
Muggeridge saw something in the abortion mentality that would inevitably lead to euthanasia. If the prevention of the deformed and unwanted from coming into the world could make the world, on the whole, a better place, why not apply the same calculus to euthanasia? In other words, the notion of a perfect society consisting of people who had a better “quality of life” should apply equally to euthanasia as well as to abortion. Muggeridge’s “prediction” back in the 70s that abortion would lead to euthanasia was less prophetic than logical.
Utopia on earth, though a tantalizing idea, is impossible to implement. The first thing needed in a utopian society would be the elimination of death. Yet, even if that improbable feat could be accomplished, the problem of over-population would be greatly exacerbated. At a certain point in time, the law would proscribe the birth of new citizens, thus depriving parents of joy and new progeny of life. Such a utopia would produce a dystopia, a world more hellish than what George Orwell depicted in 1984. It would also spell the end of human rights.
Christianity is realistic in that it accords a lower place in the scheme of things to the City of Man which is grounded in nature, than to the City of God which is elevated by the supernatural. The City of God, where love has conquered hate, is our only hope for a perfect society. But entrance into this world is not achieved by science or social planning but by faith in God, love and good works. The Russian existentialist, Nikolai Berdyaev has made the comment that “The meaning of death is that there can be no eternity in time and that an endless temporal sequence would be meaningless.”
Muggeridge adamantly opposed abortion, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Nonetheless, he was not an advocate of an unreasonable prolonging of life. With this in mind, he quoted an uncle of his who also possessed a flair for writing. Shortly near the end, he penned the following words: “Like a prisoner awaiting his release, like a schoolboy when the end of term is near, like a migrant bird ready to fly south, like a patient in hospital anxiously scanning the doctor’s face to see whether a discharge may be expected, I long to be gone. Extricating myself from the flesh I have too long inhabited, hearing the key turn in the lock of time so that the great doors of Eternity swing open, disengaging my tired mind from its interminable conundrums and my tired ego from its wearisome insistencies. Such is the prospect of death.” Death, then, is a prospect, not a choice, a destiny, not a right.
Dr. Donald DeMarco is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, CT, and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad and Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart are available through Amazon.com.
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