DARWIN AND RELIGION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 246, 18 October 1927, Page 9

DARWIN AND RELIGION.

THE MODERN VIEW.

CHRISTIAN STANDPOINT

The painful scene in St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, when Dr. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, was attacked before the congregation bv the Rev. George Bullock-Webster on the ground of heresy, does not sound quite so antiquated as the recent prosecution of a man in America for holding the truth of the Darwinian theory, but it certainly was surprising. Dr. Barnes' chief offence in the eyes of the Bullock-Webster followers seems to be that he holds with Darwin, and believes that the theory had swept away a lot of shameless superstition.

There is at present on a visit to Auckland a noted Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Dr. John Dickie, Professor of Systematic Theology at the Knox College, Dunedin, where men are trained for the Church. The doctors address the other evening at St. David's new church on the modern view of Biblical authority attracted considerable attention. Asked this morning by a "Star" reporter for his views on the Darwinian theory of evolution and its effect on religious belief, the doctor 6aid: "I do not think that theology has as part of its function anything to do with whether the Darwinian theory is true or false. If Christianity refuses to accept positions, the general truth of which all educated men regard as self-evident, it cannot hope to retain the allegiance of the educated portion of mankind. On the other hand, we must not make the truth of Christianity depend upon either the truth or falsehood of any hypothesis or theory originating outside of the Christian sphere. No theologians I have known personally have found any difficulty in reconciling the general truth that there is evolution and development, both in the natural world and in the world of ideas, with their Christian conviction, and the great conservative theologian who was my teacher in Edinburgh University, Dr. Robert Flint, welcomed the Darwinian hypothesis right from its promulgation as throwing valuable light on God's method in creation "