Having outlined the shortcomings of official religion that have been exposed chiefly by the relatively new science of Evolution, there is another and very different shortcoming that must be addressed. Evolution has illuminated as being absurd the old dichotomy between the spiritually good and the materially bad. The splendour of the natural world, as revealed by science, takes us back to the rapture of the poet who wrote the 19th psalm; and this rapture suggests that the obsession with sin in the august doctrines of the Church is not far removed from introspective depression. And yet there is a form of evil which the Church does not seem to have the courage to address, save by turning its face away from it, and this is the evil of War, which can only be overcome by fighting! To think that “love” solves the problem of War, one must either have very little experience, or be on the verge of being certifiable.
In my opinion Church of England Christianity must come to terms with the last war, which I remember vividly, and when Britain was fighting for its life and for world freedom as well. If the Church fails to do so, either from laziness or from cowardice, and says it is all so long ago now there is no point in going over that ground again, it will lose all credibility. In the Second World War everything that we valued in this country, which was also valued in Europe, and maybe in the entire world, was at stake; and if we had lost, a thousand years of history would have been obliterated in a few brief battles, and never perhaps retrieved. It is no good the C.of E. saying it preaches an other-worldly religion; maybe it does, but it either approves of fighting Hitler, or it does not. It is no good the C.of E. claiming not to be concerned with the things of this world; all the probabilities are that it would have been obliterated by a victorious Nazi Germany, and it must decide whether it is glad it still exists after a fashion, or whether it would have preferred to be obliterated. It is over 60 years since the end of the War; and it is perfectly obvious that the clergy, as a public body, are never going to reconcile their beliefs with the necessity of fighting. So I had better do it myself.
But how does one set about this task? By considering the nature of belief, and the nature of thought, because this is the only way of getting behind vocal beliefs and prejudices, to the reality that lies behind them. I discussed the nature of belief in my first book, “Man’s Relationship with God”; and my extensive argument was that the only beliefs you really believe are the ones you put into practice every day; intellectual beliefs to which the mind alone pays lip-service are so pale and shadowy in comparison that they hardly merit being called “beliefs” at all. I will not repeat the stages of that argument here. I am concerned here with the nature of thought, and with the increase which my Theory gives to our awareness of how reliable or unreliable our thought is, both professional thought and casual thought.
So although my book is primarily about religion, the chapter that considers chiefly the reliability of thought is Chapter 5, which sets out my Theory of Consciousness. I do not consider how we may have become conscious, which no sane person would ever try to explain; instead I set out my understanding of what the very beginnings of the discipline of consciousness are like. I have read Descartes’ Discourse on Method, and I do not remember him ever touching on this subject. And more recently, Professor Roger Scruton in one of his books on popular philosophy says that there is a tendency among philosophers to think that it is impossible to create a theory of consciousness, “as it always slips through your fingers”. Well, it did not slip through mine; and it links up Jung’s clinical experience with the practical everyday world. Jung said in the 1920s in Psychological Types, his first substantial book after his 5 years descent into the unconscious, that a theory of thought was then a seven sealed book. Well, my Theory of Consciousness turns over the first pages. It is now for others to develop its ideas, or think of better ones. There is no going back to the time before there was the insight which my theory provides. A theory of consciousness has come to stay!