A Call To Christian Principles

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 71, 17 December 1937, Page 13

A Call To Christian Principles

Sir, —In your issue of December 8 W. W. Markland argues that morality is th" product of human experience, and any philosophy, Christian or otherwise, is an attempt to give an explanation of that experience, and states that the failure of Christian philosophy lies—as does the failure of other creeds —in the incapacity to give a rational explanation of those facts "in a scientific age.” This is only another way of saying, tj my thinking, that science, being reasonable, has disproved all religions, including Christianity, they being in some way unreasonable.

Surely Air. Alarkland is behind the

times. The old bugbear of science versus religion has been so modified in the last decade or so as to be now non-existent. The position has been well put lately by Archbishop AVand of Brisbane. He says there are scientists “who have advanced to the position that God is the best hypothesis to explain the phenomena with which they have to deal.” Thus the famous French philosopher Bergson, speaking of the creative effort of which all life

is a manifestation, says: “This effort is of God, if not God Himself.” Actually it seems that the same mis-

take, continues Archbishop Wand, is now being made in respect of phychology as was once made with regard to the theory of evolution. It was thought that lie evolutionary hypothesis was in necessaryconflict with the idea of Divine creation. That, of course, was very far from being true. It was much more likely that a fully elaborated and completely vindicated theory of evolution would reveal to us the method that God pursued in creation. It might prevent us from believing that God made the world in A moment of time, or even in seven literal days; but It would actually emphasise the necessity for a Creator because, as it was a process in time, it would necessitate someone to set the process in motion. Similarly with regard to psychology. It appears to me vain to look for the source of religion in psychological processes. Psychology can teach us how the mind works. It cannot penetrate to the thinker behind the mind. Even less has it any right to assure us that God Himself has no existence apart from the human mind. Science can reveal to us the working of the machine, but it cannot tell us the source of the power that drives the machine.

This mistake (on the part of some psychologists) arises partly from a misunderstanding of the nature of religion. Religion is not to be identified with some part or other of human consciousness. 11 cannot be-derived from morality or artistic feeling or intellectual effort. It is rather the attitude of the total personality to the totality of life. Morality, artistic feeling, intellectual thought are derived from religion, not religion from them. For example, the idea of God is not more “projection from personality, though it is natural for man to think of God in terms of the highest categories that he knows. The Bible tells us that God first created man and then appeared to him. Modern psychology says that there must have been a revelation already inherent in the very nature of man, because he must have had a capacity to respond to his environment. If God is part, of that environment, there must have been some natural capacity to know God. . . .—I am, etc., F. C. LONG. Wellington, December 10.

The Rev. ,1. Holland, elder son of the Bishop of Wellington, arrived nt Wellington in the Rangitane yesterday from England. He is to be vicar at Featherston. He was for two years and a half curate in the parish of Huddersfield. He is accompanied by his wife.