SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 249, 20 October 1924, Page 12

SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

i « i 'churchmen in conference.! REVISING OF DOCTRINE. i "SCHOOL OF MODERN CntT.CHM EX." ' i (K.L.C.W.) LnXDOX. August 1~. \ In tin- world of i-i-ieiK-e reason untinged by faith rules alone. But periodically there nriam* amoiijr t1.0.-c i>f a definitely religiou* cast of mind a doubt whether* tbev arc wise to rule out the influence of scientific thought from their field of vision. Butler tried to reconcile Darwin and tlie Christian creed earlier than most. The ferment which worked in the mind of Butler has pone on working in other minds. Periodically one thinker, more forthright than his hrethren. speaks out, and those who. mentally lazy, are content to accept the accepted, are forced to a reassessment of their beliefs. What for a long time wa-s to some extent sporadic has now permeated a body of thinkers. They form the School of Modern Churchmen. Now an organised body, meeting with regularity, the conference of -Modern Churchmen always arouses keen interest among those who question things of the spirit, aud this weeks meeting at Oxford is not less worthy of attention than its predecessors. Leading speakers are naturally Dean Inge, and Canon Barnes. Bishop Designnate of Birmingham. Their views are very widely known; the former because he writes frequently in the popular press, and the latter, whose recent appointment by tlie Labour (iovernment to a bishopric has concentrated attention on. his advanced views. | What has been as important aB the re-orientation of belief among the clergy has been a new spirit among the scientists in admitting the spiritual factor in life, and for that reason it serves perhaps a better purpose if we give something of the speeches of the scientific men. A Vital Phenomenon. Proftvsor E. \V. Macßride. for example, Professor of Zoology at the Imperial College of Science, South Kensington, spoke on evolution as a vital phenomenon. He said he regarded the rift between science and religion as an open sore, which threatened the best interests of us all. Anything that could be done to heal that sore would be most welcome. As a scientific man he felt the hurt of this, sore perhaps even more keenly than did members of the Church Congress. Some of his more modern and liberal clerical friends had seemed to treat lightly some of the great and obvious difficulties which must always be present to the mind of the scientific man. The doctrine of evolution was the view that the varied species of animals and plants which we saw around us had all sprung from several, or more probably from only one common Etock of lowly ancestors, and had become differentiated from each other as the centuries rolled on by the modification of various portions* of the same stock in divergent J directions. The doctrine of evolution assumed that the human race had also been slowly developed out of the same mammalian stock, resembling the modern 1 monkeys, in the same way as mammals had arisen from lower forms. j No doctrine had had such striking I influence on theology as this. Indeed, I jit seemed to him, as an amateur, to | ! necessitate an entire recasting of the I foundations. It was of the utmost I importance'to'" the church' 'to discover ! whether or not the evolutionary view 1 was well founded. I A little consideration would show i that we never had direct evidence of i evolution, for the development of new i species had been a process which had ; I required for its completion a period j of time far outlasting the period of [ life. We were thrown back on indirect > and circumstantial evidence which j could always be denied. But denial j of evolution was intellectual suicide. | The belief that men were born in sin was embedded in the baptismal service. If the doctrine of evolution be true, if | mankind had been solely developed out of apelike ancestors, then what was called sin consisted of nothing but the ! tendencies which they had inherited from those ancestors. | The fact was that variation waa evolution, and if we were in any way to get nearer to the. nature of evolution we must try to understand variation. All life was essentially striving or struggle, and evolution in the true sense I was the result of an increasing endeav- j our of living things to adapt themselves to a changing material environment. It had nothing to do with the [ so-called evolution cf Herbert Spencer. The Eternal Element. Another speaker was Professor \V. G. de Burgh, Professor of Philosophy, Reading University. He gave an address on "The Time Process, Eternity, and God." He said that a synthesis between philosophy and religion on the one hand, | and science on the other, could only be achieved if the genuine reality of the time process was reconciled with its dependence on the ultimate reality that I was eternal. He illustrated the ways I [in which scientific knowledge apart i> from the evidence of religious experi- i ence, indicated the presence of an eternal element in the temporal, and suggested that the world process was i the manifestation of the Eternal God. Professor 4c Burgh went on to consider . the further light thrown on the nature of eternal activity by religious experience. This experience furnished specific data of knowledge which philo- i sophy was bound to take into account. ! Religion gave a direct knowledge of God by way of personal acquaintance and I'll joy men t. This assurance could not be proved, as Aquinas thought it could, independently of religious experience. But it was justified for philosophy because philosophy included religious experience within its compass. This enlarged knowledge solved, though not by logical proof, many difficulties of speculative thought, especially that of (lod's immanence and transcendence, ami the maintenance of finite personality in union with Cod's eternal life. A Personal God. i Tin? senior science master at Winchester College, the Uev. S. A. McDowell, dealt with tlie possibilities ot purpose. He said that the nature of the universe and the nature of life activity indicated that there was a personal God who purj posed something and made its achieveI ment possible, leaving the living organism free to achieve it if and as it would. Personality sought, fi'llowshiu or love, and love could not be made or compelled, but must grow of its free volition. Personal being 3 who would love Cod could not be made. They must make, themselves in their onviroiiI innnt. Km the purpo.se they themselves achieved helped them to see the bigger purpose in the whole, and led them to closer understanding of and union with the personality of God.