ARGUMENT REFUTED

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10884, 26 April 1921, Page 8

ARGUMENT REFUTED

REV. HEATHCOTE’S SERMON UNITARIANISM AND CATHOLICISM. “ORTHODOXY HOLDS BOLDS." A correspondent, "A Presbyterian Lay Preacher," forwards the following to the editor of the “Times” : Sir, —The sermon recently delivered at the Unitarian Church, by the Rev. \Y. Heathcote, and summarised in your issue of to-day (Friday.), calls for not a little comment, and I ask your indulgence to make a brief statement on some of the more important issues raised. The reverend gentleman’s choice of a title for his address is singularly unfortunate, for it does not less injustice to the claims of Unitarianism than to Catholicism. By setting Unitarianism and Catholicism in opposition to each other, Mr Heathcote necessarily excludes any application of the adjective"catholic" to the Unitarian position. I have always been struck by the claim of Dnitarian preachers that Dnitarianism is the only catholic religion. The address would more appropriately have been entitled, “Orthodoxy holes bolus or not at all." What the lecturer actually does is to set before us two extreme points of view, and ask us to choose between them. That in itself is a very good reason why we should hesitate about accepting either; we might, perhaps with profit, have a little of each. STATEMENTS ANALYSED. Let us analyse Mr Heaitncote’s argument that item a n Catholicism is more logical in its methods than Protestantism. , (1) Resolve his statement that “the Protestant appeal to the Bible as the final court of authority in matters ol religion is less logical than the Catholic appeal to an inspired society," and it shows itself to be an argument for acceptance of tradition in preference to fairly authenticated history. But the actual truth <pf which Mr Heathcote could not have been ignorant) is that the Catholic claim for "appeal to an inspired society” (the Church) originated in, and is based upon “appeal to the Bible." (2) If the bald statement that certain doctrines are a logical sequence from acceptance of some fundamental dogma were sufficient to make them so, Mr Heathcote would no doubt be more convincing in much of what he dictates. It is sufficiently well known, for instance, that the Roman Catholic attitude towards Mary, the Mother of Jesus (which Mr Heathcote quotes as a logical deduction from the incarnation dogmas), can be sbown from that same dogma, as well as from almost every other dogma of Roman Catholicism, to be illogical. THE LINE OF CULTURE. As to Mr Meatheote’s assertion that the line dividing Modernists and Liberals from the orthodox section of the churches is a line of culture, no statement oouid be less in keeping with fact —even if we allow the unpardonable use of the term culture to mean knowledge. iMr Heathcote’s own illustration is, unfortunately for himself, ample disproof of his claim. The fact is that quite as many men of as deep culture and as wide knowledge will be found among “the orthodox" as among the Liberals. (I am myself a Liberal —very much a Liberal —but I .am not attracted to Liberalism by a smug feeling that I am thereby entitled to regard myself as more "cultured" _ than my orthodox brother.) Liberals of Mr Heatbcote’s type I take to be the product of a very one-sided smattering of scientific and philosophical knowledge. Mr Heathcote. if we are to understand from his recent utterances, .rests his soul in Berkeley's Idealism —a phantom of the infancy of philosophical inquiry. His religious convictions stand largely on the generally discredited assumption of early astronomers that others of our planets are inhabited, and on a self-assumed Know, ledge of what could or could not be happening among their denizens. LIBERALISM. Mr Heathcote s- identification of Liberalism wim a tendency to Unitariauiam tno doubt used as a proselytising weapon) is as far out as the rest of Lis speculations. Xnat Liberalism is more closely akin' to Unitarianism may fie granted; but tnat tfie logical outcome oi Jjiberansm is Unitarianism appears only on tile logical horizon of the Unitarian. Liberalism stands lor purification ol tne uhurch s doctrine; Unitarianism for a radical alteration of viewpoint. Liberalism says, in effect, “Our only true source of knowledge of Lod is Jesus Ohrist. He is for us a complete manifestation of God. We regard tneories of -unrist s personality and His relation to God as of infinitely less consequence than devotion to Christ and the ideal He brought into the world. We worship the ideal in Christ, but find it impossible to separate the ideal from the person. To admit the truth of Christ's teaching and deny the source of it seems to us inconsistent. We regard the eesence of religion to be the furtherance of the moral life, and assail only such dogmas as are fundamentally opposed to moral progress." THE DIFFERENCE. Liberalism differs from Unitarianism in this: I t attaches no importance to dogma. Unitarians, on the other hand, have attached so much importance to denial of the deity of Christ as to have found it necessary to secede and even to have . chosen their name typical of their existence for the purpose of promulgating that denial. With Unitarianism as such Liberalism "has no truck.” Liberals are less concerned about breaking down the doctrine of orthodoxy than with fostering purer conceptions of religion and leaving the impure to atrophy. When Unitarianism succeeds in emulating the moral record of, say, Methodism (us disclosed by the statistical records of crime in New Zealand), it will be in a better position to claim our respectful hearing. Mr Heathcote is a veritable St. Raul. His conversion has obviously left a very bitter taste in his month, and one oan quite understand his temptation to give way to the inclination to relieve his discomfort. No, we do not want destroyers; God knows, we have had enough of them in the past six years. We want peacemakers and healers of the old feuds, religious societies which subsist on their virtues and not on the vices they impute to others, and which can hold out the hand of fellowship and comradeship to their sister denominations and, over- ; looking their shortcomings, wish them ' God-speed in their efforts. We want j men who believe in God—the living cm- 1 bodiment of goodness—and who seek to live in the spirit of Christ.