“... I have excluded the idea of the Fall of Man... man has made a long climb from the status of the animal until the time when he could recognize right from wrong. That recognition, at first, was based on behavior that paid, that avoided the retribution of the tribe and the gods, and that enabled the primitive society to function. Yet, however lowly in origin—and I am referring to a period centuries before right seemed to be worth following simply because it was right, or because man’s dignity and status were sustained by doing right; centuries before right was conceived as pleasing to God because he was holy and righteous—that earliest recognition of a difference between right and wrong was an immense advance, even though wrong was chosen.”

— Leslie Weatherhead

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.236-237 [ellipsis added]

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Leslie Weatherhead 81

English theologian 1893–1976

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