DR BARNES’S SERMONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20315, 25 January 1928, Page 11

DR BARNES’S SERMONS.

RELIGION AND SCIENCE. DEFENCE OF HIS TEACHING. MYSTIC DOCTRINES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, December 14. In a preface to a volume of sermons entitled “Should Such a Faith Offend? ’’ Dr Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, again refers to the influence of modern science upon Christian theology. Having explained that the sermons and addresses contained in the volume ar© typical of his teaching during the last seven years, Dr Barnes says: Much in the present volume expresess my conviction that the main fabric of Christian belief is unharmed by acceptance of the biological doctrine of man’s descent from ape-like stock. Belief in evolution is becoming as much a commonplace in this country as belief in Copernican astronomy ; and almost all now recognise that Christian theology among us must be adapted to meet the changed standpoint. Hence the whole theological scheme reared by Augustine on the basis of the Fall- must be rejected. It is a matter for surprise and regret that the necessity for such rejection has been so seldom admitted.

The controversies of recent years have, however, done good by forcing Christian theologians and preachers to admit that they can no longer claim as historical the stories of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Fall. Already in consequence there ar© signs of a violent reaction from belief in the infallibility of the Old Testament. I fear that aa usual the pendulum will swing too far. and that there will be a tendency to disparage the spiritual excellence of the Hebrew Scripture. We need to emphasise that Christianity cannot be severed from its Judaic background without being harmed. Almost inevitably such severance will cause it to develop unwholesome affinities with the mysteryreligion type of faith. DEPARTURE FROM ANGLICAN TRADITION. It is only since h© became a bishop. Dr Barnes says, that he fully realised how vast a departure from the traditional Anglican position had taken place in the teaching of those who desired to assimilate the church’s sacramental beliefs with the Roman Communion. All the serious administrative difficulties of Anglican bishops to-day (he proceeds) ar© due to newly-introduced practices which have no sense or meaning unless some erroneous doctrine akin to transubstantiation is held. Going on to refer to the consecration of the elements in the communion service. Dr Barnes remarks: It is admitted that the means whereby we receivo the Divine grace are a mystery. Th© explanations given alike by transubstantiation and by the analogous doctrine of an objective Real Presence in the consecrated elements are to be rejected because they are unjustifiable rationalisations of a true experience. A generation ago the fact of sin was assumed even by theologians of eminence to justify belief in the Fall; religious experience was in this connection falsely explained. To-day likewise the fact that grace is received in the Holy Communion is assumed to justify an equally irrational belief that some spiritual change has taken place in the bread and wine .themselves as a consequence of their consecration. I have insisted that the ‘ existence of such a postulated change could be disproved by experiment. EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. Some to whom the science of experimental psychology is strange have imagined that I proposed to apply a chemical test to the consecrated elements! Needless to say, I made no such childish suggestion. What I urge is that “ the dogma of transubstantiation only differs from that of an objective Real Presence in the consecrated elements in that the former rests on a now discarded philosophy of matter while the latter has no philosophical basis at all. Both dogmas belong to a domain of reugious psychology in which experimental tests can be made. It is surely fair (even if not desirable) suggest 'that such tests could be reverently carried out in a suitable place. Moreover since these tests will show that no man by his spiritual capacity can distinguish consecrated from unconsecrated bread, we can assume that the consecration of material objects; causes no spiritual change in them. In short, spiritual grace is given not to th© elements which are its vehicles m the Sacrament of Holy Communion but to the worshipper who takes eats, and drinks as he comes with faith an d prayer and love to Christ. ® Dr Barnes repudiates emphatically any heroes 0 ” he Sh ° Uld not P reach ~ ,1 s surely an intolerable proposit.on,; he writes. “ that a bisho p P s hm,T d 3 silent on all questions whereon differwk ? Plnl ° l Y ■ may exist more °r less legitimately within the church. To impose such constraint upon him would often be to hinder him from speaking on vital issues, and would make him a mere register of well-established opinions.”