The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  Perhaps later on if I feel an urge to do more religious drama1 I might feel differently about Martha and Mary.

  Yours very sincerely,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 She did write two more religious dramas, The Just Vengeance (1946) and The Emperor Constantine (1951), but no drama about Martha and Mary.

  On 30 March, L. T. Duff wrote again:

  Dear Madam,

  I was very pleased and also surprised to receive your letter. I actually did not think you would trouble to reply. I usually find that religious followers are quite content to sit smugly behind their Bible, and refuse to answer questions, or enter into any arguments about their religion…

  I am sorry you think so poorly of Hall Caine’s book. Perhaps if you read it, you would see what a poor house of cards your religion is.…

  There are many questions I would like to ask you, but I will content myself with two. Do you honestly believe that the miracle of the wine took place? And, if it is not too blasphemous, do you believe in the “Miraculous Conception”, that Mary was a virgin?

  That excitable person,

  L. T. Duff

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO L. T. DUFF

  2 April 1943

  Dear Sir,

  You complain that Christians do not usually reply to your attacks. Don’t you think, perhaps, that they would do so more readily if you addressed them with rather more courtesy? In your first letter to me you accused me (a complete stranger who had offered you no personal provocation) of ignorance, of dishonesty, and also of illiteracy, since you seemed to take it for granted that I was entirely unacquainted with the literature of my subject. I should not dream of using such ill manners to anybody, no matter how wrong I thought him; and I may say that, had you expressed yourself with more civility I should have answered you less tartly. But can you be surprised if many people put the affront in the waste-paper basket, for fear of losing their temper?

  You now suggest that I have criticised Hall Caine’s book without having read it. You have no grounds whatever for jumping to that very insulting conclusion. Naturally I have read it; if I had not, I should have said so, and offered no opinion. It is the work of a man undertaking a highly-skilled technical job without the proper training or the proper critical apparatus. No serious student of the subject attaches any importance to it.

  I think you are a little out of date in what you say about the present-day attitude to religion. What has become abundantly clear in the last twenty-five years or so is the complete collapse (both on scientific and philosophic grounds) of humanistic philosophy. In consequence, there is now a very vigorous revival of interest in dogmatic religion and Christian theology, especially among the younger people. This has not, so far, led to a great increase in regular church-going; but the demand for instruction has become so wide-spread and insistent that it is almost impossible to keep pace with it. At the same time, publishers are reporting that the demand for books about religion has enormously increased, in some quarters even over-topping the demand for fiction, which always used to head the list; and by “books about religion” I do not mean devotional works, but books which present Christian dogma as a rational explanation of the universe and a coherent philosophy of life. I mention these facts because, judging by your letter, you are a little out of touch with what is happening. Obviously, the truth and value of a theory does not depend on the number of people who are interested in it – otherwise you might compare the number of people who follow the predictions of astrologers in the daily press with those who attend lectures by Einstein, and conclude that astrology was more valuable and true than physics.

  As regards your questions about miracles, I think the simplest way is to send you the text of a, broadcast talk I gave some little time ago in a series on the Creeds.1 The distinction which people used to draw between the so-called nature miracles and the miracles of healing seems by now to have lost its usefulness, since it depended upon a belief in the discontinuity of mind and matter for which modern physics appears to offer very little warrant.

  Yours faithfully,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  Do you ever read any really advanced and modern Christian apologetics? And if so, which?

  1 Probably one of the talks she gave for Eric Fenn’s series. See letter to him, 20 March 1941. If so, Mr Duff was privileged, for these talks were not published.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO STEPHEN HOBHOUSE1

  7 April 1943

  Dear Mr. Hobhouse,

  Thank you very much for sending me your pamphlet on “Retribution”. Of all the ethical problems which Christians have to face, this is one of the most perplexing. Indeed, all the problems which involve an opposition between the Law and the Gospel are extremely difficult, in a world where the one is not yet established and the other (consequently) not abolished.

  I note with interest, in this connection, your reaction to “The Man With No Face”.2 I may as well begin by saying that it is not the business of the story-teller to preach sermons or draw moral conclusions; his job is to depict men and events as they are, and it would be ridiculous to make Peter Wimsey (who is only the most conventional sort of Christian)3 act otherwise than a man of his habit and training might be supposed to act.

  What he does, in this case, is to inform the police of what he suspects and leave the matter in the hands of the law. The law is not convinced, and does nothing. What do you expect him to do? Pursue the guilty with a private vengeance and insist on the exaction of the full legal retribution? In that, I think, he would be justified only if he thought the man was likely to commit more murders. Utter moral sentiments expressive of reprobation? It is not in his character. With whatever sympathy for the man who gave way to a sudden and irresistible fury, he has done his plain duty to society, and society has refused to take action. Then he leaves it.

  Did you want the man hanged?

  Or merely that somebody should pronounce judgement on his actions? But Wimsey had already pronounced judgement, and that in the most emphatic manner possible – by offering him up to the retribution of the law. But accident intervenes to prevent the exaction of the penalty – accident, and a policeman’s routine lack of imagination.

  May I suggest that perhaps the act of revenge is becoming to you the one sin for which you can find neither mercy nor charity? This often happens when we have pondered a good deal about one particular sin – it seems to become THE sin, and the rules we apply to other sins do not apply to that. Thus people become intolerant of intolerance, cruel to the cruel, and revengeful against the avenger.

  I only suggest this – but, as I said before, the business of a story-teller is to tell stories, not to devise moral fables. And the first thing he has to learn is that the heart of man is full of devious complexities, odd and frightening impulses, and curious contradictions.

  Yours very truly,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 Identity unknown.

  2 A short story by D. L. S., published with the title “The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face” in Lord Peter Views the Body, Gollancz, 1928. Adapted as a play, it was broadcast on radio on 3 April 1943, the first of a new series, “Saturday Night Theatre”, with the title “The Man with No Face”. This is the version which this correspondent heard.

  3 Cf. The Mind of the Maker, Methuen, p. 105.

  On 19 April Mr Duff replied:

  Dear Miss Sayers…

  I can see now, that my accusations were wrong, and I apologise, for there is no doubt that you have studied and read widely on the subject and honestly believe in what you say. But that you still do believe in all this the miracles, virgin birth, etc – after your studying, is something that I cannot quite understand unless it is simply – faith.…

  I carefully read your broadcast talk. You state that Jesus was the “perfect man restored to his normal relations with natur
e”. But I do not agree. One fact alone that stands out so plainly is that the Jesus you depict had no sex life. And that is certainly not normal to nature or to a perfect man.…I am inclined to think however, that Jesus was nearer to a natural man than you think, and did have some sex life. But as he was not married, such a thing would be horrifying to you.…

  I have not read many modern Christian apologetics. I should be glad to know what you recommend.

  Best wishes for Easter,

  yours faithfully,

  L. T. Duff

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO L. T. DUFF

  10 May 1943

  Dear Mr Duff,

  Many thanks for your letter. It was nice of you to apologise – most people don’t. And I am sorry I should have troubled your quiet, though I cannot really take the blame for that. For I did not forcibly intrude into your room; you brought me there by the turn of a switch, and had you chosen to dismiss me by the same means I should have gone quietly. But no! you deliberately chose to sit there and be vexed, so that you might have the pleasure of cursing me afterwards. Let me hasten to say that I do not in the least mind people writing to argue or contradict; only it always makes for a better discussion if arguments are directed to the subject and not to the person.

  I agree with you – and you will remember that I said so at the time – that the mere numbers of those who, at one moment or another, are “interested” in a subject are no proof either way of its truth or value. When things seem to be going nicely, man puts his trust in man; when they seem to be coming unstuck, man either yells to God for assistance or blames God for letting the mess occur – or both at once. Rather like the man who has “never had a day’s illness” and “doesn’t believe in doctors”. That doesn’t prevent him from sending for the doctor when he does fall ill (usually explaining at the same time that he has no use for physic and no intention of carrying out the medical man’s instructions). It makes no difference to the value of medicine – except, of course, that lack of faith in the doctor may tend to impede the patient’s recovery.

  As regards faith, I may as well say at once that I, personally, have no great gift of faith. Even if I had a “blind” faith (that is, an irrational faith) it is not the kind of thing the Christian Church approves. Nor am I able to approach Christianity by the way of what is called “religious emotion”. That is a perfectly possible, and indeed a usual way, of approach (though it has its dangers) but it doesn’t happen to be mine. To me, Christian dogma seems to offer the only explanation of the universe that is intellectually satisfactory. My intellectual approach also has its dangers. Still, everybody has to approach a subject from some point of view or other, and that one happens to be mine. One act of faith must, indeed, be made before one can accept Christianity: one must be prepared to believe that the universe is rational, and that (consequently) human reason is valid so far as it goes. But that is an act of faith which we have to make in order to think about anything at all. If we say, “There is no truth to be apprehended”, or “human reason is not an instrument for apprehending truth”, then we must stop making any statement at all; for those statements in themselves are judgments of truth made by the reason, and if the judgments of reason are valueless, those judgments are valueless too. Accordingly, in the very centre of the Christian scheme of things we find the Divine Word (that is, the Eternal Reason, or Intellect, or Mind – which is what the Greek word Logos means) worshipped both as God and Man, as the sole way by which man can get in touch with the truth of things. Admittedly, we cannot prove that the universe is rational; for the only instrument by which we can prove anything is reason, and we have to assume the rationality of things before we can trust or use our reason. But every act and word of our daily life – not to mention all art and science – are based on that assumption; without that act of faith we could not live or act.

  Why do you say that “religion should be understandable by the most uneducated and simple person”? You got that idea, I think, from Jesus of Nazareth. In one sense, of course, it is perfectly true: religion is as simple as falling in love with a girl. You can do that without any education, and if you are so happy as to be able to live quite simply by the rule of love, married life will present no difficulties in practice. But what you have been asking about is not religion but theology, which is the science of religion (or, more strictly, the science of the knowledge of God) – and, like all sciences, it requires some education and training. It bears much the same relation to “religion” as the biology and psychology of sex bear to the simple act of “falling in love”. Besides, you know very well that just “living by the rule of love” is not so straightforward as all that. The simplicity of the heart sometimes fails us; when that happens, it is sometimes necessary to try and regain it by studying the science of the thing and so understanding with our heads what it is that the heart has been trying to do. By the way, you will notice that Jesus never said “unless you remain as little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven” but “unless you become as little children”. It is not very easy, when one has grown up, to recapture with the adult mind the child’s eager curiosity, freshness of mind and simplicity of approach. Indeed, it breaks everything up, and involves a complete remaking of the self. That, however, is a different matter. What you are concerned with is nothing to do with religion in that sense; you are using your brains to tackle the theology. Consequently, it is useless for me or for anybody else to say, “Never mind all these intellectual difficulties just believe without reasoning.” You have got to the point where you must understand the thing with your head, or not at all.

  I won’t stop now to go into the theology of what is meant by “perfect Man” – it would take up too much time, and you can read it better set out in books than I can explain it in a letter. But as regards the particular point you raise I will say two things. The first is that (taking the thing entirely on the human plane) the canalization of energy in a single tremendous task is frequently such as to preclude sexual and domestic preoccupations – nor has this concentration of energy ever been held as a sign of weakness, except in the present age, which gives to sex a supreme importance, such as in any other period of history would have seemed ridiculous. Secondly, in this or any age, what matters is not sexual “experience” but sexual normality. The remarkable thing about Jesus of Nazareth is that of all religious teachers He is perhaps the only one who is completely sane on this subject. There is nothing whatever in any act or word of His that suggests any peculiar mystery, danger, excitement, or oddity about women or sex; and in His dealings with women He was completely unselfconscious, treating them quite straightforwardly as human beings with minds and souls of their own. In fact, He walked straight through all the sex-taboos as though they did not exist. Neither the Jews and pagans before Him, nor the Christians and Mohammedans and neo-pagans since have ever achieved anything like His normality; only a few exceptionally well-balanced people here and there have ever got within miles of it.

  Sin – well, sin (that is “original” sin, as distinct from acts of sin) is that inner division of the will which the psychologists know and recognise: the “will to destruction”, as they call it, or sometimes the “will to death”, fighting against the “will to life”. It is what makes every human being false to his true self and corrupts all his virtues, so that they frustrate themselves and each other. For the last two hundred years or so we have been trying to persuade ourselves that there was no such thing as sinfulness – that there was nothing intrinsically unsatsfactory about man as such. But isn’t there? I am sorry for the Humanists – they trusted in man so blindly, and now they are so bewildered by the present condition of the world. All this science and education and toleration of opinions, and enlightenment and so forth, issuing, not in peace and progress, but in frustration and reactionary violence. But it isn’t surprising if one recognises that the inner division is still there, and that increased knowledge and science
and power have only enlarged the scope and opportunity both for good and evil, not altered man’s nature, which remains what it was – capable of choice because its will is free; capable of and indeed inclined to make, the wrong choice, because it centres itself on man and the relative rather than on God and the absolute.

  However, I can’t undertake to write you a whole book about sin! You ask for titles of some Christian apologetics. It is a little difficult, because there are so many of different kinds, and I don’t really know where you want to start from. I mean, I don’t know what your “cultural background” is, or what you do believe, if anything. I know you don’t believe in sin or miracles, but that’s about all I do know. I may recommend something that will merely put you off, because it starts from some position which you do not hold, or requires some training (e.g. in philosophy) which you don’t happen to have, so that its vocabulary will be unintelligible or misleading. In any case, no book is going to persuade anybody of anything! The subject’s too big, and no single book can cover it. The best way is to browse about among a number of books till one finds something that seems to make sense, and then to follow that up with more along the same lines. Only, don’t start off with a set determination to find sense nowhere. After all, if some of the most astute and powerful intellects in the last nineteen centuries have found Christianity reasonable, it cannot be wholly nonsensical.

  At any rate, I have made a list of books, some of which you may find interesting. And I do think that, if you are bent on attacking and denouncing Christianity whenever it makes a public appearance, it would be only fair and reasonable to study it a little first. Because it really isn’t true that the anti-Christian case gets no chance of a hearing. Actually it is extremely vocal and the cause of “irreligion” is preached in season and out of season, and that with great venom and violence. Nineteen people out of twenty nowadays get their notion of Christianity (often very distorted and fantastic notions) not from any Christian literature but from the incidental attacks made on Christianity in works which purport to be about something else. H. G. Wells, for instance, talks a surprising lot of nonsense on the subject; so does Julian Huxley. Or you get a book like Stuart Chase’s Tyranny of Words1 which, pretending to be all about the art of thinking and speaking clearly, is really a vicious attack on all religion and all philosophy (with the most dreadful tumbles into fallacy and illogicality by the way). In my lifetime I have seen Christianity driven out of politics, school and university, as in the previous three centuries it was gradually driven out of commerce and finance – all in the name of freedom and progress. And, after all, Britain is just one country in Europe. In Germany and all the occupied countries, as well as in Russia, Christianity is actively persecuted and rigorously put to silence. Here, in America, and in the Vatican City, it can still speak on the radio, but hardly anywhere else. So, taking it by and large, the balance is perhaps less heavily weighted to Christian advantage than you are inclined to think.