CHURCH AND SCIENCE

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 233, 25 June 1908, Page 7

CHURCH AND SCIENCE

— 4 ■ RECONCILIATION POSSIBLE, AN ADDRESS BY MR. BALFOUR. "THE. GREAT AMELIORATOR OF THE HUMAN LOT." at TJiLEGRArH—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COFTEWnI. London, Juno 23. At tho Pan-Anglican Congress, Mr. Balfour delivered an addross on tho subject, "Tho Conflict between Scion'co and Religion." Ho declared that it was impossible to concriivo human socioty permanently deprived of tho religious olomcnt, but, personally, ho lookod to science more than anything clso as the grea.t ameliorator of tho human lot. Ho did not boliovo thoso two great powors religion and scionce—would ba ill immutable and perpetual antagonism

MR. BALFOUR AS A PHILOSOPHER. • Mr. Balfour is equally distinguished as a statesman and as a philosopher, ilia works on I. he Inundations of Belief*; and "Defence'of 1 nilosophio Doubt" have, won liira a high placo in tho philosophic world; He states-that tho existence of the very things which' the naive philosophy tho so-called commonsense man .is most certain about —tho material world —is shown by deoper thought to bo exceedingly ?v i 4 examining the philosophic basis of Naturalism, he declares that it does not provide an adeqiiato account for. all tho facts of experience. Mr. Balfour contends for an interpretation of Nature in terms of mind and purposo; and not merely antecedence and sequence. In his British Association address he said— 'Extend the boundaries .of'knowledge as you may, draw how you will the picture of the uni-. verse; reduce its infinite variety to the modes of a single space-filling ether; retrace its history to tho birth of existing atoms; show how, under the pressure of gravitation; they become concentrated into nebulae, into suns, and all the host of heaven; how, at least in one small planet, they combined to form organic compounds; how organic compounds became living things; how living tilings, developing along many different lines, gave birth, at last,' to one superior race; how from that race arose, after many ages, a learned handful, "who looked round on the world which thus blindly brought them into being, and judged it and knew it for what it was—perforin, X say, all this, and though you may indeed have attained to scionce, in no way will you have attained to a self-sufficient systom of beliefs. . One thing, at least will remain, of which this long-drawn' poquenco .of causes and effects gives no satisfying explanation, and that is knowledge itself. Natural science must over rogard''knowledge (is the product of irrational conditions, for in the last resort it knows no others. It must always retard knowledge as rational, or else scieneo itsolf disappears." >

INTERESTING PAPERS. Tho question of religion and science was dealt with in a number of preliminary papers prepared by eminent Churchmen for the PailAnglican Congress. Dr. Tennant- argues that the foundations of tho Church wore laid in an unscientific n£<\ in which dogma was tho complement of lack of knowledge. This, explains tho conflict tho Church felt called, on to wage asainst science when it began to come.. Now all the "facts" of science are unreservedly to bo admitted—what is to be carefully guarded against is "mistaken" inferences from them. Dr. Tennant thinks that all tho fact results of science are purely empiric. There are no facts of science, ho tells us, which cast doubt on our "belief in human immortality." But/"the acquisition of a scientific knowledge of naturo has forced upon theology the. recognition of the nntonability of her traditional. viow : as to tho authority of Scripture.". Sir Dyco Duckworth assures the Church that "men of science'are seldom vicious or sensual." Dr. Schiller seems to hold that both science and religion grew up out of " magic." He attacks tho argument that all religions are true in so far as tlioy have'a psychological reaction. but ho states that: "If all religions work,, all are true, and what is false is tho rigidity of an idea of truth which cannot tolorato such plural truth." It has beon_ stated that the. prominepce given in the preliminary papers to'the advanced ipositions in science.'philosophy, and, Biblical criticism has'oaused some anxiety to the more conservative minds in the. Church. /