MAN'S HOPE OF SALVATION RESTS UPON HIS FAITH IN GOD, BUT THE CONCEPT OF MAN IS NEXT IN IMPORTANCE FOR a study of the Christian doctrine of salvation. Salvation is at once deliverance from evil and help in the attainment of good. For both of these the doctrine of man is vital.

The greatest problem for man is man. There are evils enough in the world about us, but the root of evil lies in man himself. Christian salvation deals with man as a sinner. It faces realistically the problem as to what is the matter with man. A right doctrine of man is equally important when we consider the positive side of salvation, the attainment of good. Man as a problem is one side of this matter; man in his capacity for redemption is the other. It is not a question of man's powers and virtues to be set side by side with the power and goodness of God. Man's capacity to receive is from God just as salvation itself is God's gift. What is there in man that makes it possible for him to receive this life from God which we call salvation?

In its doctrine of man the Christian gospel has a vital contribution to make to the thought of all who are concerned with social welfare. More and more men are recognizing that the final problem in every field is man himself—his insights, his spirit, his attitude. Knowledge is important, but it may go hand in hand with folly. Science may be a great servant of human welfare, but the instruments with which it furnishes man may be turned equally to destruction. We need material goods, but these may become objects of greed, occasions for war, as well as means for selfish indulgence. We need organizations and institutions, social, industrial, and political; but these cannot rise higher than those who compose them, and too often they become the occasion for strife or tools for the selfish aims of a group. No social problem is solved unless we deal with men. That is true not merely when we face such outstanding evils as war, economic strife, and the linkage of vice and crime and political corruption. It is equally true of constructive efforts to make the state a true minister of welfare and instrument of freedom, and to secure a world organization which will make for co-operation and peace.

Of special interest is the attention being given today to the factor of human nature by those who work in the many and expanding fields of personalized service. Not merely the psychiatrist but social welfare workers, educators, physicians, police, judiciary, administrators of corrective and penal institutions—all are coming more and more to recognize that they must first understand man if they would deal with man and serve him.

If Christianity has a message of salvation from God, then it should have a word of light and guidance for all these fields as it sets forth what man is, what is the matter with man, and what it is possible for man to become. These are the matters to be considered before we take up the doctrine of salvation proper. I will discuss them under the two heads "Man" and "Sin"—what man is and what is the matter with man.