A traveller from a far country has the obligation to entertain his hosts with tales of strange customs and mythical monsters, heroes and spells. The country of which I am to tell you today is a very strange one indeed. I do not know if President de Gaulle ever became acquainted with English philosophy during his stay in England, but certainly it would entirely justify his claim that England does not, today, at least, belong to Europe. Perhaps, however, as a middleman of ideas, I shall be permitted here to enter the intellectual Common Market; fortunately there are no tariffs on ideas, though as we all know only too well, there are more serious barriers to communication, cultural, existential, confessional—and linguistic.

It is the strangest of paradoxes that the philosopher who was perhaps more influential than any other in giving modem English philosophy its character and stance was an Austrian, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was more utterly dedicated to philosophy than anyone I have ever met; and I think the main benefit I gathered from his lectures, most of which I did not understand when I heard them as an undergraduate at Cambridge in the academic year 1946-7, was the encounter with a living example of philosophical depth and integrity, a standard of seriousness, by which I could, and can now, measure my own deficiencies. It is, I believe, important to remember that he was a kind of philosophical ‘primitive,’ a Douanier Rousseau of philosophy, who came to philosophy by way of engineering and the mathematical logic of Frege and Russell. Like all young Austrians of his time, no doubt, he had read Schopenhauer and been deeply impressed by him; but his acquaintance with the great philosophers of the past was extremely fragmentary. In what follows I shall try to indicate certain features of his thought, with particular reference to the problems it sets for metaphysical theology.

Dr Robinson has written an important book about God, Christ, the nature of religion and morality. He does not claim to be a professional theologian; it is not, as he says, his academic field, but the book will nevertheless be of great interest to theologians as well as to the general reader, and it deserves a more discriminating reception than it has so far received in the press. Those of us in particular who are grateful to the Bishop for his work in his own field of New Testament scholarship will want to pay him the compliment of treating his book seriously and critically.

The book suffers a good deal from the author’s lack of acquaintance with the history of theology. Thus he can open Chapter Two with the astonishing statement: ‘Traditional Christian theology has been based upon the proofs for the existence of God.’ This is, of course, flatly untrue. Traditional theology has always been based on faith in the Word of God. Whether and how God may be known apart from such revelation is itself a question within theology. To satisfy oneself that this is so one needs only to read the first three questions of such a classic of traditional theology as the Summa Theologica. In fact we might well complain that the area of theology connected with such proofs has been unduly neglected in recent years by conventional theologians—one good effect of the Bishop’s book may be to remind us that this is after all an important topic. He exemplifies some of the mistakes that may be made when it is neglected.

I said at the end of my first article that what was needed at the present time, in order to restore a proper sense of tension between the Church and the World, was a deeper theological understanding especially in the moral field. But theology is a practical as well as a speculative activity: and moral theology must always bear upon practical life if it is to have any value. This is why the most important developments in moral theology have come from people with immediate and practical interests in the central moral issues of the day. Above all this nowadays means an interest in the problem of modern warfare and its prevention. I think one must single out, in this context, Père Regamey’s Non-Violence et Conscience Chretienne as one of the most important pieces of contemporary moral theology, though it bears little resemblance to the usual books on morality. I think the challenge of Pè Regamey’s book is its stress that, as a response to the colossal issues confronting us, a minimal ‘code’ morality (Is it licit to do this? Am I forbidden to do that?) is no longer adequate. This is not to say that a code morality is no longer necessary: but it is no longer enough to suppose that the avoidance of sin is all that we can expect from the average Christian. The average Christian, not only the exceptional one, must become morally heroic if the world’s problems are to be solved. By going to Gandhi for his inspiration, Regamey is able to sketch the requirements and the possibilities of such a Christian heroism.

We know much better today than before what the needs of mankind are—one of the great developments of modern times is this consciousness of human needs and of our duty to do something to meet them. A little over a hundred years ago needs were in a form that you would think would inevitably appeal to all Christians and humane people, and much close to us than now—in the great famine in Ireland for example —none the less, churchmen, politicians, economists and ordinary decent people considered not only that there was nothing that could be done about the famine, but also that it was wrong to try and do anything about it. It was upsetting the laws of economics, and if economics taught us that half the population of Ireland had to starve, that was just too bad.

Now we don’t think that any more, and I believe this is a great advance. But apart from what we think, the facts are different. The facts are that we are now in a position where—in respect of material needs, in respect of what might be called the simple Gospel needs of feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked and so forth—the means to relieve these needs for every human being are not only to hand now, but have been to hand for at least thirty or forty years. Nevertheless the hungry are still there, and very little effectively is being done to feed them. It’s not because the food isn’t there or that it couldn’t be brought very easily to those who need it.

Downside symposia are high-powered affairs. The papers (later to be published as a book) are closely related to a single theme. They are listened to by the rest of the speakers and a few more invited experts: after other Catholic conferences there is a welcome absence of lunatic fringe. We took the seventeen talks at the rate of three a day, each followed by close discussion; the BBC were busy with their tapes (a Home Service programme goes out on August 18th). Yet this, we began to see, was what a retreat might be like: listening and thinking and talking about a serious topic, and each mid-day celebrating mass together in die room where we had worked.

This year we were discussing the problem of Catholic entry into university theological faculties for study and teaching. Up to now in England theology has been done outside the context of university cultural life, and without the help of the special contribution which lay-people alone can give. Clearly it would be a great gain if we could work in the open universities, instead of behind seminary doors, and if our teaching could be directed as much to the formation of theologically literate laymen as to that of clerics. Above all so much would be gained if we could work in collaboration with Anglicans and Free Churchmen; those of them present made it clear that we would be welcome, that we had something to offer as well as to receive. America has Catholic universities, even Europe separates theology faculties by denomination; for the first time in the ecumencial age England, we realised, could give the world a lead.

Reading from right to left, a circle links with the base of a triangle, which in turn touches a rectangle. This is Sengai’s universe, abstract and symbolic. ‘The circle represents the infinite’, writes Suzuki in the catalogue, ‘and the infinite is the basis of all beings. But the infinite in itself is formless. We humans endowed with sense and intellect demand tangible forms. Hence a triangle. The triangle is the beginning of all forms. Out of it comes the square (the triangle doubled). This doubling process goes on infinitely and we have the multitudinosity of things which the Chinese philosopher calls “the ten thousand things” - that is, the universe.’

This exhibit, number 6, was the one reproduced on the posters, and the one judiciously placed to be the first seen as we entered the exhibition, still marvelling that we had to pay only a shilling for the superbly presented catalogue that contains a reproduction of each one of the eighty exhibits, together with Suzuki’s comments. Here indeed are ten thousand things, and each a world of its own. This was an exhibition quite unlike any other, needing to be pondered over, communicated with. One needed absolute silence, and it was best to be alone. The ‘fleeting world’, as Sengai paints and models it, is as significantly crystallised in the brush stroke and the moulding as it would appear to be in the flying calligraphy of the accompanying poems. A chummy old harlot offers him a gift of rather special pickles, and Tai-ki smashes his lute as an excuse for not playing at court to entertain a king. A crippled beggar is observed, and Hotei, the patron of children, gesticulates with a perpendicular arm after the manner of Edward Lear or awakes from a nightmare looking like someone from Thurber. A group of old men demonstrate how ‘indispensable are a hood on the head, wrappers, a stick and spectacles ... a hot water bottle, a heating stone, a chamber pot and a back scratcher’. Then there are the gods and devils, pantomime figures full of animation, and a bodhisattva full of reflection and enlightenment. An orchid, a spray of plum blossom, a cluster of bamboos driven by the wind. Two exquisite evocations of Fuji, sailing boats on a fan, and a meditating frog which is no more a caricature than any of the grotesque and humourous human figures. Sengai brings out the character of everything he sees and loves.