Whilst the desire for life must be paramount, if the human race is to continue; it is not enough. The simple desire to survive, and to be happy, is surely too timid a desire? To thrive there must be the desire to dominate life. Now that we can view creation as a whole, now that we understand that the consciousness of human beings can influence, to some extent, the future of evolution, we must desire to steer that evolution in the way life would have us go. If human beings find they have a certain power to do good, it is no good their attempting to renounce that power. They must be willing to use it; although some will use it to do evil. And so with the desire to influence the direction of evolution, we are back with the “final causes” of Aristotle and the medieval schoolmen. A final cause was the purpose for which something was created. We are all adventurous when young; and implementing the purposes of evolution should be the supreme adventure.
Expressing it differently, life only takes wing when one finds one loves someone, and knows that she loves you. So is one sorry for suicide bombers, because they are outside the mainstream of evolution, which is this zest for life? Hardly, because it is so obvious that the three mono-theistic religions should try to compose their differences, and be reconciled if at all possible. And suicide bombers dramatically obstruct any reconciliation. Maybe Teilhard de Chardin was right that only Christianity will ultimately be able to accommodate itself to modern knowledge; or maybe all three religions will be able to accommodate themselves to it. What matters is to avoid the desire for death, which is the antithesis of life. Sometimes death is to be preferred to dishonour. Sometimes death is to be welcomed as a friend; but this is exceptional, and usually only at the end of a long and useful life. Generally our view must be the one in Deuteronomy, to which all three religions subscribe; namely, that God has placed before us life and good, death and evil; therefore we must choose life! It is utter folly to seek to destroy your enemies utterly. You will never succeed, because you will turn many of your former friends into enemies. So your enemies will multiply far faster than you destroy them; a lesson which mercifully the Christian West had learned by the end of the Second World War, with the result that a massive effort was made to rehabilitate Western Europe. But if you are attacked you have to defend yourself; and if that means ruthlessly killing your attackers, nobody can say they did not ask for it. Though possibly out of date, the theory of counter-insurgency used to be that if you killed the leaders, the rank and file would melt back into the crowd, reflecting perhaps that there was much to be said for a quiet life.