But is Martin Buber right? He is clearly right for those people who lack confidence, because that lack of confidence will tend to get greater as time goes on. Friendships in which there is an element of distrust will tend to become stereotyped, as it becomes clear to the two friends that they cannot altogether banish distrust; the friendship will tend to become I-It. But is Martin Buber right for people who really have confidence, or for friends who have absolute confidence in each other? (By “confidence”, I do not mean confidence in an ability, which was how I used the word in Part I; I mean confidence in facing life as a whole). There is no answer, except to try and see; and the attraction of the idea of a personal God is that here at last is the possibility of an Thou-I relationship which does not degenerate into I-It.
But if the idea of an I-Thou relationship, which does not degenerate is attractive, it must also be real if it is to have any lasting influence on our lives, and be more than a mere daydream. If a man believes he has an I-Thou relationship with God (say); but because he values this belief as something precious, dare not hazard it in his daily life, the belief will remain an intellectual belief, and never qualify as a belief verified by experience. “Feelings” and occult experiences may convince the person concerned for a moment; but the force of their persuasiveness rapidly evaporates, and of course they do not convince anyone else. For such beliefs to become real-beliefs, they must help to mould a man's relationships with other people into the same mould; then a man's belief that he has an I-Thou relationship with God does not remain sterile in a water-tight compartment in his mind, but is fertile in producing new relationships like itself, and of course is hazarded in the market place of experience. Whether the belief survives, or is smashed, will depend on how those people behave with whom “similar relationships” have been formed. The obvious example is the one I have already considered at great length, the woman…