Something New -- And Explosive! 2/24/46
Scripture: II Peter 3: 1-18
Something new has happened in the world! Not many realize all that it can mean, but most people know that it has happened. I was one of those who was slow in knowing about it at the outset.
Last August was the time for our household’s vacation and for a time we were away from this city though only about 40 miles. But that short distance put us away from our radio and from regular receipt of any newspaper. We did find the morning paper of August 5th which contained what seemed the routine news of the war-ridden world. Then for nearly 4 days we had no further news. You may imagine my utter surprise, then, on learning that during that brief period there had occurred in Japan two bombings the likes of which mankind at large had never before heard.
Out on Tinson island, wrested from the Japanese after the costly conquest of Saipan, the Americans had built probably the greatest airport in the world. Numerous runways two miles long were at length ready for the take-off of hundreds of the great B-29 superfortresses, with their heavy loads of lethal explosives and incendiaries.
The use of the Tinian facilities was built up until perhaps 300 of the giants of the air might be used from there on a single flight of destruction over Japanese cities. Taking off methodically, one every 15 seconds, the great ships roared down the runways and into the air. For more than an hour they continued to go.
In the evening, the first of them returned; and they would keep coming in for more than an hour, about 4 a minute. And the reconnaissance planes later verified their terrible destruction in another Japanese city.
There came a day when a single plane was made ready. Runways were clear; almost no one was around - it doesn’t take a multitude to get one plane ready for the air. Most of the hundreds of flight crew members and ground crewmen were asleep. The single plane, readied and loaded, roared down its runway, lifted at last and disappeared in the direction of the enemy cities.
After its return, reconnaissance planes told the same story they had brought in after the conventional multi-plane attacks. The city of Hiroshima lay in ruin - and only one American plane had flown over it.
American scientists and technologists of many fields, and their colleagues from a few allied nations, had won the international race to split the atom and release some of its unbelievable energy. And that energy had been channeled into a bomb that could and did destroy a large city with one explosion.
Another such bombing 3 days later - this time of the port of Nagasaki - brought the long war to a finish. For the people of Japan found it intolerable.
The great multi-plane bombing raids gave warning by their very numbers. A person could run to shelter. Some few might escape from their path. The brave could endure it somehow. But no one could run from work or sleep every time a single plane appeared in the sky. Nor did there now seem any point in running. If this plane carried one of the terrible new bombs, everything within a radius of miles would be destroyed anyway. And so the hard-pressed military machine of Nippon, and the tottering strength of Japan, capitulated at a nod from its emperor. And the most terrible of earth’s wars to date came to an end.
I suspect that a great many people - far too many - probably a majority of people - think of the atomic bomb as “just another bomb” for which some counter weapon will presently be devised. An article in the February “Reader’s Digest” by Major Alexander P. de Seversky refers to what he calls “Atomic Bomb Hysteria.” He claims that the effect of the bomb has been wildly exaggerated.
Early this month, I heard a lecture in Chicago by Dr. T. R. Hogness, director since 1943 of the chemistry division of the University of Chicago atomic bomb project. Dr. Hogness took sharp issue with de Seversky’s article, pointing out a cool scientific fact that one atomic bomb, such as that dropped over Hiroshima, has more explosive energy than 20,000 tons of TNT. Further than that, the bombs used over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were midgets. Dr. Hogness says that bombs can be built which are a thousand times more destructive than these; bombs which can destroy all of New York City or Greater Chicago in one flash.
And a physicist named Morrison who went to Tinian for the assembly of the bomb, and who visited Hiroshima after the surrender, believes that, while much of the wreckage in Japan burned clear, the damage to an American city would be just as great and its people just as dead, though the ruins might be rubble instead of ashes.
Now an arresting fact, in connection with this new scientific discovery, is that scientists, not just one or two, but many - seem frightened! For many years, through several generations, the scientist has tended to go about his discovery and application of natural truth with cool and undisturbed attitude. Truth is truth, an end in itself. The knowledge of truth would tend to make people free, to improve their life. There was a steady tendency in evolution to better and better life, as science uncovered more and more facts. The discoveries of science were announced with natural pride as benefits and blessing to mankind.
Now comes the momentous announcement that an ultimate source of cosmic power has been penetrated and that the power is available for human use - has already been used for destruction. And a shudder of anxiety has swept through the learned world. Many scientists are obviously worried. In general, that is a new mood for science! No other achievement of science has ever created anything like the general mood, with which atomic fission has been greeted.
Dr. Hogness believes that fear of the bomb, if no other motive will do it, will compel the nations of the world to live at peace with each other. He believes that there is no safety in secrecy. The greatest secret of the bomb project is that the bomb works! Every nation on earth now knows that it can be done!
Other nations lack what ours has for the time being - namely the “know-how.” But the fundamental scientific principles are known, and the scientists of any nation can develop the “know-how” in comparatively few years.
It doesn’t take great maturity of experience. Young men can do it -- have done it! 60% of the technical men on the University of Chicago atomic bomb project were under 30 years of age; 80% under 35, and 90% under 40! They were inexperienced in years, and yet they did the job. “Doesn’t it seem,” comments Dr. Hogness, “that Russia, or any scientifically developed country could repeat our program?”
Then he goes on with a summary of the situation as some scientists see it. The bomb is a reality. It has been used and it continues to be manufactured. There is no defense against it except to destroy its carrier. And that possibility has been so vastly reduced as to make this move nearly impossible. It could be dispatched by rocket. It might be “planted” before hostilities and detonated later by remote control.
In an armaments race a saturation point would be reached. Even if 2,000 such bombs were made, they wouldn’t be needed, for 1,000 would be enough to destroy a nation. So a small unscrupulous country could become as strong a threat as we, with all our size and strength.
The bomb is (1) frightful beyond imagination and much more powerful bombs are in the offing; (2) there is no secret that can be kept longer than a very few years, and thereby bring security from attack. And (3) there is no military defensive measure known, or in sight. So says a reputable scientist, and others agree with him. A new and truly terrible explosive has appeared.
A matter to disturb the scientists further is the attitude of military and political leaders. Military leaders seem bent on continuing manufacture of the bombs, though the scientists who have made the bombs are sure this brings no security. Enlisted men have been forbidden to attend meetings of the scientists, though scientists are desperately anxious for as wide a hearing as possible by all sorts of intelligent people.
The scientists are genuinely interested in the various solutions to the perilous problem of atomic control. (1) One suggestion offered is that the USA should immediately conquer the rest of the world and dictate the world order from now on. Specifically this would probably mean conquest of Russia, and thereafter all other nations would submit. But American people would never submit to the idea, nor to the dictatorship necessary to attempt such a feat. We don’t as a people believe in that kind of move; our nation has fought a war in opposition to that very kind of thing. We shall have a difficult time living up to our present commitments at policing, let alone undertaking any more.
(2) Another solution is to work through the present United Nations Organization despite its weakness in the lack of legislative ability. This puts a heavy burden on the necessity of international agreement; and the strong nations are too near a semi-dictatorial position in the UNO.
(3) A third solution offered is the proposed formation of a world federation immediately.
Dr. Hogness thinks that probably the best hope is to work through the UNO, remembering that American relations with Russia constitute the key to any hope or success. Here he points to the Anglo-American bomb alliance and the probable interpretation by Russia, that this is directed against herself. Then he says, “I fear the possible results of continued aggravation of a proud people. Russia can afford to wait the few years necessary to develop a bomb of her own. Present indications are that she is now acting in accordance with such a policy.” It can be pursued safely, because the USA is not an aggressor nation, nor likely to be.
Something new - something highly explosive - has happened! And the scientists are worried - fearful!
Mark this carefully; they are not afraid of atomic fission! They have already done a tremendous amount of work, accepting all of its dangers, including an unknown amount of radioactivity, as “hazards of the job.”
But they are afraid of people -- of man himself; afraid that man has by no means the character to handle this new knowledge for good; afraid that he now has in his grasp the power of complete self-destruction - the destruction of civilization, or mankind, of all life; even conceivably a power that could set off the destruction of this planet!
The doctrines of sin and depravity, discussed by theologians for generations are now desperately vivid to scientists! The talk of the “end of the world” which has been gradually put aside since the days of the apostles is now recalled with wonder, and some apprehension.
Now this is not new. For centuries, man has thought of the possibility that this world, or this kind of world, might be brought to an end - gradually or suddenly. Now man is abruptly confronted with the possibility that it might happen effectually in this generation! This is relatively new to modern minds. Though not conclusive, it at least seems a sober possibility and thoughtful people are sobered by it.
“The believer in Providence is not confronted with anything new in principle,” says Dr. Ernest Fremont Tuttle of Evanston. “The new idea is not that of a last generation; but that ours could be the last generation.”
Such a threat appears not as a result of scientific knowledge but of man’s sin! As Christians, we can accept the fact, now at last scientifically confirmed, that we live in a precarious world. Our Christian religion has always proclaimed this to us. Our security can be found only by walking humbly before God!
The path before the faithful is the same as before, in (1) trust of God; in (2) the practice from the heart of brotherhood under the Father; in (3) faith that the eternal God and the destiny of his own soul do not depend on our finite world, but God himself.
It is time for the Christian in name to be Christian in fact more urgently and more surely than ever before!
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 24, 1946.