Temple believes "If Christianity is true at all, it is a truth of universal application." This is a common sentiment among revivalists encouraging their listeners on to more complete devotion and adherence to Christ's teaching in all areas of one's life. Yet he also states to those that would ask for a remedy to society's ails, "I can not tell you the remedy".
Christianity is a universal set of principles but it can not set out the remedy to a social problem. Any suggested remedies would apparently represent too much of an ideal society for his liking, ( and probably his listeners as well ) and as Temple points out; "no one wants to live in the ideal society as depicted by anyone else."
So, "Although Christianity supplies no ideal, it does supply something of far more value, namely, principles on which we can begin to act in every possible situation."
Now if it were those principles which shaped ones life and then subsequently shaped society that would seem like an appropiate conclusion, but according to Temple, "the law, the social order, is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ."
How can this be? If mankind is continually, and selfishly, putting itself in God's place ( Temple's definition of original sin ) how can society as a whole be selfless enough to create laws and social order that would school itself all the way to a saving knowledge of Christ?
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