The deepest question
of the human heart

Tom Torrance in conversation
with Kenneth Roy

One of Scotland's best-known theologians, Thomas Torrance, died recently. Twenty years ago, Kenneth Roy interviewed Professor Torrance for his book 'Conversations in a Small Country'. We re-publish the interview here.

     'When did you first believe in God?'
     'I've always believed. I remember lying on the lawn of our house in China, looking up at heaven and thinking about God the creator of the universe. I think that was my earliest conscious memory.'
     'What age were you?'
     'I must have been about six.'
     Seventy years later, the boy on the Chinese lawn has become the Very Reverend Thomas F. Torrance, theologian, former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Emeritus Professor of Christian Dogmatics at Edinburgh University, and owner of a rare and dazzling collection of doctorates. He is a Dr Theol, a DLitt, a DD, a DrTeol, a DTheol and a DSc.
     I met him in the attic of his house in the Braids, as near heaven as suburban Edinburgh is likely to get. The Professor's two dogs barked a lusty greeting at the door and followed me all the way upstairs, licking me eagerly as I broached the vexed quesions of God, death and the after life.
The attic, which enjoys a fine view over the city to the Forth bridges and Fife, is somewhat spartan in decor. Neatly arranged on shelves almost ceiling high are thousands of theological books and journals. That the floorboards have not collapsed under the weight of so much wisdom says much for the householder's faith.
     In a far corner, opposite the antiquarian section, Professor Torrance sits at a word processor tapping out his books, articles and pamphlets. He is an enthusiast for computer technology, and told me much of interest about the economics and technicalities of desktop publishing and laser printing.
     On a map of China above the word processor, he pointed out the old provincial city of Chengdu, where he was born and brought up, one of six children of Christian missionaries. His parents were immense influences in his life. He describes his father as an evangelist to the core, but considers his mother (an Anglican) the deeper theologian. When they argued about bishops, as they often did, it was his father who got the worst of it and retreated crestfallen to the garden, muttering to young Tom about his mother and her bishops.
     'My father went out on January 1, 1896. He ran a mission in the Alpine mountains of West China, and that's where we lived. I didn't leave China until I was 14.'
     'What was it like?'
     'We spent the winter in the plain. In the summer, we went into the mountains to get away from the heat and the disease. Up there, there were wild strawberries, and kiwi fruit, and more Alpine flora than you could find in any other part of the world. It was really a very lovely place.'
     'What about the natives?'
     'Some of my memories are pretty shocking. There were civil wars going on all the time. I saw people having their heads whipped off with swords. Life was very cheap. Hands were cut off for theft. I used to ride on horseback to school three miles every day, and was always stumbling on little baby girls, dead in the grass.'

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