The Quest of God . . .

Restoration Review · 1968
(Volumes 10)

PREFACE

The religions of the orient have endeavored through the centuries to identify in precise terms the chief end of human life. It is what the philosophers call the summum bonum of life, the highest good. While the philosophers have written volumes in identifying the highest good, the Eastern religions have had a knack for succinctness, provid­ing answers in neat packages of but a few words.

To Plato the summum bonum was justice, but it takes him hun­dreds of pages to say it, and then only vaguely. To Aristotle it was happiness, but one finds that out only after reading extensively in his writings. Even the Christian writers lack clarity and preciseness in identifying the chief end of human life. To Augustine it was the will of God and to Thomas Acquinas it was love, as it is with most modern theologians; but they all weary us with their dissertations on what these terms mean.

Not so with the orientals. They are willing to settle for a few words as to man's purpose in this world. They even prefer pithy sum­maries that defy obscurity. There is Buddhism's Eightfold Path, which sums up man's duties in a mere eight words. To Confucius, however, to use eight words in describing man's chief end was to be loquacious. He insisted that but one word is needed, and that was reciprocity. The Hindus struck the golden mean and settled for four words in identifying man's chief end.

The Four Ends of Man as enunciated by the Hindus should be of interest to every editor, for they seem to have special application to the man who serves in the marketplace of ideas. The four ends are duty, success, pleasure, and emancipation. Any editor worthy of the name is both a pilgrim and an adventurer. He is a pilgrim in that he must be a stranger to all factions. He may pass through the various camps, but he must not pitch his tent. He may be a friend to all, but he is owned by none. And he is an adventurer in that he pioneers in the world of ideas, which he must do even when the journey is risky and foreboding. As a pilgrim needs a staff and an adventurer a compass, so the editor needs the likes of which the Hindus call the Four Ends.

The demands of duty have weighed heavily on many an editor. He must not ask himself whether the stuff he edits will be accepted by the subscribers, but should it be accepted by them. He must not write material that will be read, but material that should be read. He must not respect the courage of one's convictions as much as the courage to examine one's convictions. His duty is to cause people to think, to be critical, to be informed. To do this he must take chances, and to run risks is his chiefest duty.

Almost as demanding as duty is success, which might be better called effectiveness. The life of a journal ought to depend on its ability to compete in the battle for men's minds. A paper that survives, not because it says something, but because it is a party organ, is in reality dead even while it lives. An editor simply must produce; he must issue stuff that challenges and stretches the mind. He should expect im­portant things to happen because of what he writes. He must lift his pen with a sense of urgency.

We might not think of pleasure as an end for an editor, but the Hindus were right here too. If being an editor is not fun, then the man should find better use for his time. If he is bored, he cannot help being a bore. If it is drudgery to him, it will be a burden to read after him. Issuing a journal is a creative experience. One's mind is uncertain, then the air clears and the ideas begin to fall together. After awhile there is the finished work, a monument to one's intellectual endeavor even when pressured by time schedules. Publishing a journal is to send something of one's self into the lives of multitudes of people. An utterly delightful experience!

To the Hindus the supreme goal is emancipation, and is should be nothing less to an editor. The idea of a free press is tautology, for if a press is not free it is not a press. It is only a free man that can write so as to make others free. But the editor's task is even more, for he must cause men who are unfree to desire to be free.

There they are—duty, success, pleasure, and emancipation—and we accept them as editorial ends, however short we may fall of such goals. As we send forth this, our sixteenth volume of publication, we believe that we are freer than we were back in 1952 and that we are encouraging others to be freer. We feel a deep sense of duty to both God and man. We enjoy modest success. And, indeed, we are having lots of fun. We can hardly wait to see what we shall be saying in 1969 and the years to follow!