Are the Problems Being Solved?

A LIFE free from all of today’s agonizing problems? How can this be? When we look out at the world, we see problems growing.

For instance, in nearly every country on earth there are very serious and persistent economic problems. Millions have trouble finding suitable work. Debts are at an all-time high. Fathers worry about supporting their families. Mothers see prices going up all the time and are frustrated when trying to make ends meet. Half of the old folks in many so-called prosperous nations live in poverty. Hunger and illiteracy increase in poorer lands.

Yet, the world’s wisest economists cannot invent an economic system that assures lasting prosperity for all. They can only try to patch up this tottering system for a while, but then it breaks down again.

Family Life Breaking Down

Family life, too, is breaking down all over the world, not improving. Country after country sees a new peak in divorces.

In a marital situation that has become quite common, one woman wrote: “I’m very unhappy. My husband gets upset over practically nothing. We have one married son, but he comes home only for short visits and hardly tolerates me. We have few friends. Now, with the years passing, I find myself more and more isolated. I feel all alone in the world. What can I do to make life worth living?” Ever so many people feel just that way.

Parents today have added worries. Their children face problems no other generation of young people ever had. These young people see the ‘jungle’ that the world has become, and many are disgusted with it and afraid. As one student leader said in his graduation speech: “Today as we leave school a sense of frustration and despair overwhelms us.”

Where can parents turn for dependable help? Listen to this editorial in the New York Times. It said: ‘For a century or more parents have been bombarded with advice about family life. Doctors, nurses, teachers and theologians have given their advice, and in recent decades they have been joined by psychologists and psychoanalysts. But were we to collect all this good advice and inspect it, what would we find? Little more, I’m afraid, than a jumbled, noisy mass of contradiction. Pity, therefore, the poor parent. The more conscientious he or she is in seeking advice, the more confused he is likely to become.’

Problems with Science

At one time it was thought that science would help to lead the way to that better world and solve many of mankind’s distressing problems. But now scientists themselves admit that science often causes as many problems as it solves, if not more.

An example of the disappointment in science can be noted when we read the July 1899 issue of Scientific American. Away back then, this scientific publication predicted that the automobile ‘would have a fine influence on city life.’ It spoke of ‘light rubber-tired vehicles moving swiftly and noiselessly over clean, dustless and odorless streets, eliminating much of the nervousness, distraction and strain of modern city life.’

In the light of actual experience, that prediction is laughable today, is it not? Just the exact opposite has come to pass. In addition, around the world tens of thousands of people are killed and millions are injured every year by automobiles.

Even the inventors of machines have expressed dismay at the dashing of their dreams for a better world. In 1942, during World War II, Orville Wright, who with his brother Wilbur developed the airplane, wrote this to Henry Ford, Senior, developer of the mass-produced automobile: ‘Wilbur and I thought the airplane would hasten world peace. It seems to have done the opposite. I suspect that when you introduced mass-production—one of the great inventions of the ages—you little thought it would be used in building tanks for world destruction. It seems that no beneficial thing can be introduced without someone finding a vicious use for it.’

This same frustration is being felt in the medical field. At one time there were high hopes that modern medicine would conquer sickness and help to lead to a better world. But sickness has not been conquered. In fact, some of the worst ailments such as cancer and heart disease are making the biggest increases. Even some of the efforts at cures are backfiring. In the United States, about 30,000 people a year are said to die as the direct result of drugs prescribed by their doctors, with ten times as many suffering bad reactions.

No Peace

What about a world of total peace, with no locks, jails, police forces, armies or weapons of destruction? Why, the world is farther away from that than ever. Crime skyrockets; the nations now spend about 300 billion dollars a year on weapons; there is one war after another. Human leaders certainly are not bringing permanent world peace.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, most leaders were predicting a grand new era of peace and prosperity. An encyclopedia comments: “Before 1914, even the theologians believed, as did all the cultivated and educated people, that the world was on its way toward a better future. To the best ones of the old generation, 1914 meant a shock they never got over.” In 1914 the world was engulfed in the most horrible war to that time, contrary to all the ‘rosy’ predictions. And World War II was even worse, taking an estimated 55 million lives!

Also, in recent years especially, people have seen corruption both in government and in business. As a result, polls show that confidence in human institutions is at an all-time low.

What is frustrating is that so many of these problems that affect people are beyond their control. Because of this, emotional instability grows. Why, in the United States alone last year about 57 million prescriptions—involving billions of pills—were filled for just one type of drug—a tranquilizer.

So, after all this time, we can be sure of one thing: humans, on their own, can never bring about the kind of life we want, the kind of life we described at the outset. It is little wonder, therefore, that we read this in the Bible, at Psalm 146, verse 3: “Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs.”