Professor Caird describes in his Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, his Gifford lectures of 1900-02, in his last Chapter, how at Nicaea the worthy fathers of the Church discussed the relationship of God to Man as it concerned Jesus, but did not go on to consider the relationship as regards God and normal Man. What a pity we have all had to wait 2000 years, and endure the German Wars of the twentieth century, before an Englishman had this vision and the audacity to put it into practice, even though he foresaw, correctly, that he was likely to fail in his attempt. How wonderful it would have been if the early fathers of the church and the early Popes had not been so idle, and had put the kingdom of heaven before their own paltry careers. They might even have created a society which men and women were thrilled to join, a society that did not need to be preserved from error by persecution, and which certainly would not have gone to war with itself. In my opinion, the delegates at Nicaea should not be commended for their efforts, but be held largely responsible for the evils that followed their dereliction of duty.
However I cannot escape the question: why did I fail? Was it that the vision was faulty, that I was attempting the impossible, that I was tilting at windmills? Was the vision fundamentally right, though I will have been wrong about much of the detail, and was failure due to my blunders and incompetence? After all, many first attempts fail. Magellan managed to get himself murdered half-way round his attempted circum-navigation of the world; and it was one of his captains who completed the voyage. Drake, superb seaman though he was, managed to run his ship aground; and for a few hours the safety of his ship, the success of the entire voyage, and the lives of himself and his crew, were balanced on the knife-edge of a coral reef. Fortunately when the tide had risen, his ship slid safely back into deeper water without damage; but it all hung by a thread during those few hours. I too was bound to make mistakes. Or was it due to the defects of character in the woman concerned? Of the last reason, I prefer to say only that she was faced with an entirely novel situation, and it is hardly surprising that she said, “No”. The vision itself depended on communication and trust operating at a distance, and maybe I hopelessly overestimated the extent to which they do, or maybe they do not do so at all? This last objection cannot be valid. One finds out in Court, even if one had not discovered it before, that a certain telepathic contact between advocate and judge or jury is needed to present a successful argument. Goethe in one of his lyrics expresses the view that this is especially so, when there is the bond of affection between people. Every lover boasts that love is stronger than death. They cannot all be wrong! I have known people who have said they understand perfectly what I mean by an indwelling between people. There was nothing wrong with the vision, even if I got details wrong. But perhaps God does not speak through the subconscious? Or even worse, perhaps He does not exist?
One of the most significant events of my childhood was Hitler’s Order to halt his panzers for 48 hours, after General Guderian’s panzers had broken through the French armies in May 1940. Guderian was furious, as he knew he could get to Dunkirk before we could. Had he done so, the whole of the British Expeditionary Force would have been taken prisoner, and marched off to a prisoner of war camp; and Churchill or no Churchill, Britain would have had to surrender. This is not just my opinion; I have read recently that it is the opinion of a General who distinguished himself in the Falklands War. And so Hitler would have won the War, and the light of freedom would have been put out in Europe, and possibly in the whole world. As things turned out, in that 48 hours delay Hitler lost the War. Why did he give that Order? Nobody really knows. General Martel’s counter-attack at the neck of the German breakthrough may have influenced Hitler, though the counter-attack could never have achieved much as Martel only had an armoured-brigade under his command. Hitler may have wanted to preserve his panzers, (he did not have all that many, and the French had more tanks and better tanks) for the final defeat of the French. But in practice the French resistance was negligible.