THE CHRISTIAN COSMOGONY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19731, 2 September 1927, Page 14

THE CHRISTIAN COSMOGONY.

Sir, —Your correspondent, "A Waiting Inquirer," refers to Bishop Barnes doing "so much to free men's minds from the trammels of medieval superstition." That's good! All searchers after truth are in agreement with "A Waiting Inquirer." But he goes on to say, " Now Dean Inge has chosen the same venerable temple of God to declare that modern discoveries in astronomy have made the Christian cosmogony incredible." Many more of us know something about the writings of these two scholars besides your correspondent, and still hold their own opinions. Personally I have known not merely popular preachers, but cool, hard-headed Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society who were oat and out Christian men and actually believed in miracles. I have even heard them, dozens of times, praying earnestly in prayer meetings. Their knowledge of astronomical science was acknowledged the world round. Perhaps "A Waiting Inquirer" thinks Dean Inge knows more about astronomy than the gentlemen to whom I refer. The Old Book says: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This universe was unfolded by tho fiat of the Absolute, the Great First Cause, whom we Christians call Father in Heaven. The man who reads all the cosmogonies on record will find this. is not only the simplest, but the most intelligent explanation of this cosmos. If the archangel Gabriel declared with trumpet voice that personal intelligence was not at the back of this universe and declared it, not only "in Westminster Abbey," but in the courts of heaven itself, I should call him liar 1 J. Farquharson Jones, D.D.

Sir, —No doubt the combined efforts of Bishop Barnes and Dean Inge will soon succeed in preventing students of cosmogony and astronomy from searching the biblical books for scientific information and "the physiologyof the New Testament" will also become a negligible quantity. But when the churches become filled with worshippers of the "supreme moral philosophy of the greatest of teachers," the question: Who is the greatest of teachers? may seem less important than the earnest desire to get the best of the teaching of all the great ones who will never be jealous of each other. From another quarter I foresee much trouble and painful conflict, between the scientific and tho emotional elements in human nature, for neither science nor the emotions are likely to gain complete 'victory over the other, and the question will arise when the practice of vivisection becomes forced upon the attention of civilised communities. How the conflict of humane emotions with the scientific instincts will lie settled seems quite uncertain, but that it is inevitable and not altogether pleasant to contemplate is, I think, certain, and the sooner it is taken in hand by those who do the thinking of the world the better for all concerned. Perhaps "A Waiting Inquirer" may be able to facilitate progress in this matter. J. Giles Mt. Eden, Sept. 1, 1927.