MUST GROW SIDE BY SIDE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13801, 19 November 1942, Page 2

MUST GROW SIDE BY SIDE

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Bishop’s Views

The Hope of a New World

The Bishop of Birmingham spoke on religion and science at Carrs Lane Congregational Church. In the course of his address, the Bishop said:—

“Perhaps the most fundamental element in religion is the undifferentiated emotion that floods us when we feel our kinship with the living world around us, with living nature of which we are part. ... In the nature-mysticism whereby man finds emotional satisfaction from his sense of kinship with all living things religion begins. . . . The conviction grows that the universe to which man belongs is, in essence, a unity; only on the surface do get an apparently chaotic clash of contending forces and principles. Not only is it a unity, but in that unity there is order.

“Behind it are will, power, and purpose. It is controlled by—it may actually be the creation of—a something resembling but infinitely transcending man’s mind. The Universal Mind shapes and guides, enters into and controls, the whole sequence of change to which we belong. It may even be that our minds are fragments of the Mind, or that by virtue of some essential likeness they derive thenquality from it. In some such way, by speculative reason coupled with emotional intuition, arose the sense God and man’s fellowship with His Spirit.

“The strength of Christianity has always been its certainty of the goodness of God and its emphasis on man’s duty to serve God in righteousness. With such conviction have been associated a belief that the spirit of man can derive strength and guidance!' from God in prayer, and a sure hope that man’s spirit, in so far as it ■'has felt the cleansing power of God, is immortal. “Such teaching of Jesus forms a coherent whole. It gives to those who accept it both purpose and vision. Moreover, it combines easily with the mysticism which shows itself in the poets and visionaries of the European races. A certainty that God is all round, revealing Himself not only in nature but in the deepest emotions which man experiences, cannot be ignored when it is proclaimed by exceptional men with passionate enthusiasm. “It cannot, in truth, be proved to be other than an illusion; but if we can trust our senses at all, I see no reason why we should deny the reality of mystical experience. “What I should postulate is that the principles and methods of observation and reason which we apply to science must be contradicted when we enter the field of religion. “Science and religion are two aspects of human consciousness; opposition between them is a sign of man’s failure to understand or to interpret his relation to the universe to which he belongs. On the one hand, religion must not be irrational or anti-intellectual.

‘‘On the other hand, science must not deny the reality of man’s emotional life: civilization is built on man’s moral and spiritual convictions and aspirations. In man’s make-up are the wonder and curiosity and and hard thinking that lead to science; in man’s make-up are the wonder and hope and deep feeling that lead to religion. At our peril we ignore any side of our nature. “Ignore religion, and science arms man’s evil instincts to destroy the best that he has created. Ignore science, and religion dissolves into degrading superstitions.

"We must avoid the sterile conflicts which arise when the one invades the other’s domain. Science asserts no finality in its conclusions. A like humility on the part of religious teachers would do not a little to ease what is at present needless tension.” The Rev. L. J. Tizard, the minister of Carrs Lane Church, said: "The hope of the new world lies in a partnership of Christianity and science. That partnership is necessary because science can provide the knowledge and skill to solve problems, but religion must give the motive force; and because science alone cannot tell the meaning of life or give an adequate purpose for living. "When Christianity has succeeded in convincing enough people that men are more important than machines, that to serve is a greater thing than to strive for power, and that the supreme task is to create a true community, the uses men may make of scientific knowledge will be radically altered.”