CHURCH AND SCIENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20303, 10 July 1929, Page 14

CHURCH AND SCIENCE.

Sir, —The finding of tlio Auckland Presbytery recorded last week must have emtio as a surprise to many. The words of the finding, "That I hero is room in our Church for divergent views on scientific questions" is quite beside the point which they set out to make clear, viz., where the Church stood on the question of the creation of tho human species—whether by an act of creation or by a process of development. An atheistic conception of creation simply shuts God out of it and attributes all created things to the outworking of some inherent force in matter; while the theistic conception of creation by development holds that God has implanted in matter power to so change or be changed till animal lifo emerges in its highest product—man, a sinner, created by God—for tho,finding states that this development "may bo regarded as a method of God's creative activity." Tho Declaratory Act gives no licence to traverse the supremo standard of the Church, and tho fifth clauso of the Act incorporated in the presbytery finding and taken as a warranty for it is but a statement of the fullness of liberty of conscience now secured by tho Act. To interpret it as meaning that any or every statement of tho confession of faith is operative or otherwise at the will of each office-bearer is to make any statement of doctrine an absurdity. The doctrine and polity of tho Presbyterian Church are determined by the General Assembly and any departuro thorefrom can bo secured only through it as providod for in the sixth clause of the Act. Only a congregational system would allow of such finding, as this, against which this protest is made. J. D. McNaughton. Royal Oak, July 9, J929.