Looking to the Future
Man can only be satisfied if he looks hopefully to his eternal life. Man’s most serious problem is that he does not think of and prepare for life after death.
Dartington Hall is a prestigious liberal progressive public school in Devon, England. In 1983, parents pay up to 5000 per annum for their children to be educated there. Among Dartington Hall’s illustrious students were the philosopher Bertrand Russell and the writer Aldous Huxley.
On July 11, 1983, Dr Lyn Blackshaw addressed his staff on Dartington Hall’s problems. Here is part of what he said:
“The worst thing we can do for our children is to destroy their faith in the future, whether with apocalyptic visions, the unlikelihood of a job, the qualifications. If you believe that, how would you behave? I believe in many ways we are killing our children’s futures by being so damned pessimistic. If children are persuaded to believe that there is no future, then the most likely thing they would do is behave hedonistically, live in the present, and develop no consistent attitudes. I can tell you, in some ways, it is sickening coming back to this country.” (The Sunday Times, London, September 4, 1983)
Dr Lyn Blackshaw was correct in saying that the worst thing one can do for any generation is to destroy their faith in the future. However, achieving a livelihood after education is only a tiny portion of the future. The question of the future extends beyond the present world to the eternal world after death.
Only if man can look hopefully to his eternal future can he be satisfied in life. Man’s most significant problem is not the threat of apocalypse, the unlikelihood of a job, or the uselessness of qualifications; his most significant problem is that it has become intellectually unfashionable to think of a life after death. It is his faith in his eternal future that is being destroyed. It is the major psychological factor behind his present dissatisfaction, and it is this dissatisfaction that leads to hedonistic and irresponsible behaviour.
Man can never be content unless provided with a faith that brightens his eternal future, which fills him with the hope that the unknown country awaits him after death.
