The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment. Nonetheless, the human situation is so, and this is why I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive — and there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive. That's why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence.


The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)

Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes

The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will...

The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will...

The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will...

The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will...