THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION,

Otago Witness, Issue 1325, 21 April 1877, Page 3

THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION,

The session of the Knox Church Young Men's I Society was opened on the 11th in the Class j Room by the Rev. Professor Salmond's lecture on '" The Relation of Christianity to Science and Civilisation," There was a crowded attendance, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, and the President of the Association (Rev. Dr Stuart) occupied the chair. Professor Salmond, in exhaustively dealing with his subject, said : There has arisen a some- ! what numerous class of writers who3e professed aim it seems to be to set Christianity in an odious light as the mortal enemy of science and civilisation, and the tendency of whose writings is seriously to unhinge the minds of young readers and shake their allegiance to their paternal faith. They epeak as if the Church, Christianity, and Theology were convertible terms, and synonymous with all that is ignorant, weak, destructive, and retrogressive ; whereas science, civilisation, and culture, put in antithesis to the former, mean immunity from, prejudice and superstition — mean light, nobleness, freedom, and progress. There "is no measure in their contempt for the Church and the clergy, and all who are led or influenced by them, and no measure in their laudation of science and civilisation as the hope of tb!e world, the motive powers of progress, .the fruitful parents of all good and beautiful things. We can unmistakeably hear the words — " These be thy gods, 6 man ! who will leal thee from the land -of Egypt and the house of bondage to the promised land !" We can hear the summons to all that calls itself Church, ", Take thyself out of the way 5 or the mighty locomotive or Science will crush thy bones to jelly -and thy flesh to pulp.- Begone and.be done with thy wearisome buying and selling of Jewish old clothes, unless thou wilt be locked up as an qbstructor of the world's highway !" We are told sometimes in plain words, sometimes by insinuation, that Christian theology and science are essentially hostile, have always be£n so,, and must be so — that religion and culture are divorced, and must now and henceforth go separate ways — and that civilisation having with utmost pain conquered a path in spite of Christianity, must now go on and take no longer any account of it more than of an old wife's fable. Now, I wish to submit all this lordly talk to a little examination. It is high.time it were done, and I shall be much disappointed if I do not succeed in convincing it of confusion and shallowness, of hollowness,' of ignorance, and of injustice. It is seldom that menTof ability adopt an opinion without having some plausible grounds for it, and in the present case these are patent enough. It is very manifest that Christianity ia eternally contrary co not a few doctrines now in vogue among 1 those who claim to represent the best results of thought, and naturally enough they treat with scorn those who so firmly say to them, Nay ! And it is a natural and frequent enough' fallacy for men to identify science and civilisa-' tion with certain doctrines and theories of their, own. Nothing, is so certain as that Christianity; is an eternal contradiction to Pantheism and. Materialism and all views of the Universe and life built on them. A plausible case is' often' made out by recounting the blunders of the! Church. That-this should carry away ignorant' men we can understand, but that it should be used as ground of a great and sweeping infer-; ence by men who' undertake the office of! teacher we cannot understand. It would prove nothing although the indictment were sevenfold heavier. The clergy are not Christ, and! the Church is not Christianity, and Christanity may be eternal truth although all the clergy were as black as Judas and the Church as false | and rotten as the Jewish Sanhedrim. The, Church of each generation inevitably shares in its measure the prejudices and infirmities which belong to its generation — when it believed in witches, it believed. only in. common with the most learned and cultured men of the time. | What- does that prove against the Church more j than against culture ? The Church has often i gone wrong ; does it claim ,to be infallible ? | Men have done grievous wrongs in Christ's name, and under the shelter and pretext of Christianity have done eviL What then? Is science to be treated' with ipsult because scientific men have been sometimes very vile and wicked 1 Or is civilisation to be blamed for all the horrors of the French Revolution ? I think I may lay it down as an axiom that Christianity is to be judgsd by itself, and not j by its representatives. Science is" a big and imposing word. ' What does it moan ? Science literally means knowledge, and the pursuit of science means the pursuit of knowledge or wisdom. Man is fearfully helpless. He is sent out, as it were, Nature's step-child. Scarcely any animal is so weak and defenceless. He needs a thousand things which ofher creatures can dispense with, or which Nature supplies to them unsought. But man has reason, and science reveals to him that by knowledge he can yoke, all Nature to his chariot-wheels, chain the lightning, utilise the winds, mako a track through the sea, conquer disease, defy evil, turn curse into blessing, refuse into food, and destruction into life. It is scarcely to be wondered at that this discovery makes men almosi delirious. With regard to the question, whether science has not established conclusions irreconcilable with the Bible, I can only here express my conviction that science has done nothing of the sort, and that, for my part, I am without any fear for the Ark of God, and will let science go its way. Where the offence of the Church in opposing science has been magnified to the uttermost, there are two excuses for it which should mitigate the severity of our judgment : (Ist) Tne natural fear of men trembling for a sacred and divine treasure, and that is.somethiug else than mere prejudice ; (2nd) the reckless and defiant ungodliness of many utterances of science. That many votaries of science have been devout is well-known; that manynowglory in Atheism and Materialism, and vomit it forth, in -anblushiug arrogance, is also known ; and it is this rather than the mere scientific opinions which provokes hostility and suspicion. I should deeply regret saying a word which could be construed into a disparagement of science, into a denial of its legitimacy, nobleness, and usefulness, or into an ignoring of its marvellous triumphs and the great things it has done for the well-bsing of mankind ; but T wish to enter jny protest against certain fallacies and assumptions which run through the writings of not a few who speak in the name of science. I protest against the cool way i^ which they attribute all modern triumphs of civilisation to science — nay, to science in contrast with the

Church and Christianity—as, e.g. , when Draper, withamarvellous audacity, attributes to science improved prisons, reformatories., penitentiaries, asylums, the treatment of lunatics, paupers, and criminals. Further, I wish many men of science would not talk so exceeding arrogantly. I know how they talk about the bigotry, ignorance, and arrogance of theologians-rwe are forbidden to give railing for. railing,, but I think I could give parallels of arrogance, ignorance, reckless asssrtion, prejudice, and passion from certain well-known writers which would be a fit match for anything that ever came from the Papal chair. If, as some men seem to think— if they think that research into nature is the one thing needful, for human well-being, and all earnest thought aboui morals, and God, and religion— all theological and metaphysical questions are to be regarded as idle, and a region to be surrendered to^the owls and bat3— they make a most serious, mistake. The very men who most talk in this vein commonly themselves furnish notable specimens of bad theology and bad metaphysics. I, for my part, would not give 50 years' pur. chase xor the civilisation- of the world if it lost all living enthusiasm except for "such pursuits as may be turned into hard cash and' cheap cotton. The rampant materialism' of the clay will make all the thoughts' of men shallow, and their hearts stagnant, and death and corruption will follow. In commenting upon tho other brauch'of his subject— the relation of Christianity to civilisation—the Professor said : Certainly if the mere production of the greatest amount of happiness and physical well-being, is the last' end' of auman striving, it is questionable whether civilisation produces it. Civilisation makes life lmmeasureablymore hard and difficult and complicated for a vast majority of men, and while glorious for the few, has made the - struggle for existence a tremendous ordeal for tho many. I believe civilisation,!^ be the inevitable constituent element in the progress of the ' race, even although many evils emerge in the civilising prooess, und we know that, universally, „-ts you multiply sources of good," yon multiply possible occasions of evil. It is universally allowed that' an immense progress haa been made in the^ civilising of the European races, and through them, of the' world. We are not unjustly proud of it, and we can * scarcely wonder that rival claimants dispute the houour of being its creators. Ifc was Christianity—it was the Church which tamed" and civilised the savage races which overran and overturned the Roman; Empir,e.' ' The problem .meets every student hf history :- What would have come over the world if. the Church had not stood between these wild hordes and'tho decrepid empire? - Hear what ■ Gibbon ; says— Ihe progress,pf .Christianity has beenmarked by two glorious and decisive victories : ov.'er the learned and ' luxurious' citizens of' 'the Roman Empire, and over the warlike* barbarians and, Scythiacs of Germany.. Christianity introduced an important change in their moral and political condition. ' They received the use of letters, and the flame of Science' was "kept alive to warm and enlighten the 'mature age of a western world." So says even 'Gibbon, and I may confidently sayat is the opinion | of all classes of historians, that the seed-bed of all our culture and civilisation- was tb,e,union of Christianity with the wild enefgy,.o£ those, fierce races. In, this .view Gibbon, Mill, and Com'te agree with every churchhistorian'.' Allthesavage races which' overran Europehdd to be converted from heathendom to Christianity, arid the work was accomplished by heroic labours.' The storyrof the doing of the work brings r out in tho strongest relief the fact.that Christianity always j and invariably carries croli3ation,<in its ; wake. ! v The missionaries "found the Goths 'without -sa written language, made for~'them,,an alphabet, and gave them bocks, thus laying the foundation of the whole immense", literature v l of Germany. The lands were 'covered 1 with*'im- ' penetrable forests'; the missionaries were the first to penetrate them; made the first'roads, I and the spots where they -raised- their tents' are j now the centres of great 'cities. • The mis1 sionaries have made alphabets, and grammars, and dictionaries, and given the.first. books to innumerable barbarous .tribes— they,, have j carried with them the spade" and plough, clothing and buildings, drainage and agriculture, schools and medicine — and all this, not as their main, work, but as a mere incidental— superseding all this to the leavening of then* minds with sublime truths and new moral ideas and emotions. Can it be questioned that missionary operations have done more to civilise heathendom than all the Philosophical Societies , and Social Congresses in the world, and,that, they deserve support simply in the light of civilising agencies ? Monastic institutions are in pad odour among us, and not without reasonl There is a radical vice in the institution ; ifc has always degenerated into viciousness ; and it becomes- at length an intolerable' thing. However, there were long periods during which the monasteries were the centres of all humanising and civilising influences. .They stood as a shield between a wild lawless feudal nobility and down-trodden serfs. They were the asylums and hospitals of the district^ They were the homes of literature, where'laborious hands saved from oblivion the treasures of ancient literature. They were the conservators of learning, music, poetry, and architecture— ' the nurseries of agriculture and arboriculture; Without truth, justice, and mercy ; without charity and nobleness and moral, enthusiasm, the world will soon be like a hell, let Science achieve her uttermost. I know that the modern philosophers acknowledge this, but how to brace their virtues deep enough to stand — how to ground and nourish' morality — they know not. If, as most of them teach -us, it is a very questionable trdng whether there be a God or not — if we can never be sure and must writs down God as an unknown and unknowable quantity— if man is only an improved beast, and all his moral perceptions are only cultured animal instincts— if all moral laws are conventional arrangements and growth of the perception of utility— if man is a natural growth of the universe under, the iron law of universal causation, and his conscience lo a large extent a delusion, and his moral sense of responsibility for being what .lie 1 is, a, delusion — if the individual man is only a specimen of the genus, only a bubble floating' on the ocean of being to sink into non-exist^ ence to-morrow, and only thp-race is immortal' and eternal — if the highest inspiration ,of lifeand work is to be found in the idea of serving, abstract humanity, and the only rational .worship is the worship of the Cosmo3 — and all this is the newest wisdom ancV'the ripest result'of _ profoundest thought > (although' hoary with age all tlie while)— then I say morality is dried up' from the roots, arid whatever, may be the livea of the philosophers, the majority of mankind,', more logical in their rude instincts than 'they-. are in their culture, will quickly,state the ,legiti 7r7 r mate outcome in the old saying "Let us eat, and drink, for to-morrow we, die.", ' Possibly' enough our conception of Christianity may be' in some respects faulty; but we are still well ' X persuaded that Christianity is centrally, eteraally true, and that it embodies the profoundest wisdom. Be not moved away too -soon • from t your paternal faith, but come and see whether . the adoration of Christ be not the secret inspir- ■ ation of all nobleness, purity, gladness, j and ; moral wisdom. „[ The usual compliments to the lecturer and the chairman closed the proceedings.