ALBERT
SCHWEITZER
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the
renown Noble laureate, late in
the 20th
century declared:
“Ethics has not only to do with mankind, but
with the
animal creation as well.
This is
witnessed in the purpose of St.
Francis
of Assisi. The explanation which
applies only to man must be
given up.
Thus we shall arrive at saying
that ethics is, reverence for
all life.
This
is the ethic of Love widened
into universality. It is the
ethic of Jesus
now recognized as a necessity of
thought.”
Just as we
have affirmed,
“The renewing of Christianity
which must come will be a return
to the
immediacy and intensity of faith
of early Christianity. To dare
to go
back to the original
fountainhead and keep alive true
Christianity as it
came fresh and sweet and clean
from the heart of Jesus himself.”
As
to what provoked its corruption
Schweitzer says, as we have held
in
this work, are due to the
Christian dogma that “began with
St. Paul
and that the religion is non-dogmatic.”
“The essential element in
Christianity as it was preached
by Jesus,
is this, that it is only thru
Love that we can attain to
communion with
God. All living knowledge of God
rests upon this foundation, that
we
experience Him in our lives as
the Will-to-Love... It no longer
allows
us to concern ourselves only
with other human beings. We must
behave in exactly the same way
towards all living creatures, of
whatever kind, whose fate may in
some way be our concern.
They
too
are our kith and kin, inasmuch
as they too crave happiness,
know the
meaning of fear and suffering,
and dread annihilation.”
Dr.
Schweitzer continues, “Ethics is
nothing else than the reverence
for life. All
spiritual life meets us within
natural life. Reverence for life,
therefore, is applied to natural life and
spiritual life alike. In the
parable of Jesus,
the shepherd saves not merely
the soul of the lost sheep but
the whole
animal. Only a universal ethic
which embraces every living
creature
can put us in touch with the
universe and the Will which is
there
manifest.” In speaking of
creatures he refers to their
Creator and thus
the Divine Will.
