The Society of the Future

Hendrik Van Riessen

Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co

1957

320 páginas

10h 40m

ISBN-10: B0007DVO82

This book has been written from a deep sense of alarm about the social development of our time. To be sure, there is generally little sympathy for a man who tries to make others participate in his own worries and trouble. But this reproach is invalidated as soon as an attempt is made to rouse some people to a sense of danger in a situation in which they ought not to feel at ease, and to help others in localizing the cause of their uneasiness.
The motif elaborated in this book is the conflict between freedom and security. There need not be any conflict between them at all, but at present there is a conflict: the real conflict is between human freedom and the security which, regardless of man's own responsibility, is forced upon him by those in authority.
The attempt to perfect this security of the individual as well as of society, and the very general desire for such security, are typical of our age. But the prevailing tendency to exaggerate in such matters is in conflict with man's divine call to accept his responsibility in freedom. It is also in conflict with the fact that man's security is not of this earth. Man should not try to push his own work, his planning and his organizing, in between himself and the guarantees of his security, promised us as the fruits of the redemption Christ has brought about. Anyone who does so endangers the life of faith, deforms society and will certainly never realize the security he sought to establish.