Editorial November 16, 1946 Issue

Triumphing over Heredity

John Randall Dunn

A great document and charter of liberty, in fact, one of the first declarations of independence in recorded thought, is to be found in the Bible in the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel. To the responsive consciousness of the prophet was unfolded a vision of the love, wisdom, and goodness of God, a concept which also constitutes a mighty protest against the cruel, unjust so-called laws of heredity. "What mean ye," we read, "that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel."

Then follows an argument setting forth, to use the Bible's caption, "the equity of God's dealings." An infinitely just God could not ordain a law which would require the punishment of a righteous son for the derelictions of an erring father. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," we read. Surely we may conclude that the same just God, the Principle and source of all being, cannot decree the suffering of an innocent child because of a mother's or a father's disease, sin, or fear.

This conclusion is borne out in the experience of the Master's healing of the young man blind from his birth. By innuendo, the disciples attributed the blindness to some error of the youth or his forebears, but Jesus promptly repudiated such a notion. He said (John 9:3), "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

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