MAN'S DOMINION.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16780, 24 April 1926, Page 14 (Supplement)

MAN'S DOMINION.

SOURCES OF POWER. Christian apologists have ceased lo "defend" the Creation stories of the early chapters of Genesis: but they find in them narratives truer than either science or theology .has imagined. " The ringing certitude of this magnificent proem to the Scriptures is more than justified. Man and the world, in which he lives share a community of life. In the processes of creative evolution is seen that which embraces Hie whole visible world. Man is one with the rest of nature, subject lo (tic same physical laws, hound with il, in the bundle of life which holds all together and makes it a true universe.

The Genesis narratives express this view of the natural order. But they do more: they take us beyond natural processes. They tell us lhat after all man is in a very real way something else than the rest of the world. Ho lives apart, from it by virtue of a life it cannot share. His ability to draw moral distinctions, and to decide on his own attitude to them, marks him out as belonging to a range of experience beyond, what, is seen and temporal. Good and evil have for man a meaning which does not exist elsewhere in nature. He bears the burden of a. moral responsibility which is felt by no other living creatures. And, as if this were not enough, we find that he has a capacity of response to the things of the spirit, a perception of the supernatural, which makes, him at home • with the realities of* Divine life so that he. participates in it also. When once a man becomes conscious of these, powers within himself and knows that the source from which they come is God in whose image bo is created, he inevitably regards the processes of nature as the, unfolding of Divine thought, and having for its purpose the fellowship of God and man whom He has made after His image. The apprehension of this fact is the crown of man's life, and evokes all lhat is highest in h«8 nature. The spiritual capacities he possesses give him a life which transcends the natural world and carries him beyond it lo a supernatural order. It is the purpose of the Creation narratives to express this supreme truth about man. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." In the depths of human nature there is something which gives man the power to know Cod, to respond to Him, to live in Him. Man is made out of the dust of the ground, but ho lives by the breath of Divine, life. There is in him an inward light, a Divine law in his heart, or. to use the language of the older Quakers, a Divine seed capable of growth, enabling him lo come to an ever truer communion with God whose Spirit dwells within him. . It may be unrecognised, stunted by neglect or weakened by perversity, but it is there, and when once it is allowed its full liberty it goes out to God as its true centre and perfect satisfaction. If is in this attainment of his full powers that man comes to his dominion over the world. Science makes us masters of natural forces and wo bind them to our service. Our moral powers equip us for choice between good and evil, and conscience decrees its judgment about them. Our spiritual faculties carry us to the eternal life of God and bring us into fellowship with Him. Not until all these powers of human personality como to their full and harmonious activity does man exercise his sovereignty. Natural science makes us masters of what we can see and handle. Moral laws give us authority over ourselves and the power to live in ordered communities. It is by the faithful exercise and training of the spiritual faculties possessed by man that lie attains not, only his full powers of fellowship with God but shares something of His divine power over all life.

We do not pitch life high enough, or' sufficiently appreciate the dignity which inherently belongs to man. It is clear that if we think of ourselves as only confined to this world's order we lose the true grace of human personality. Naturalism is a poor creed, without faith, without joy, without hope. It makes men slaves, not masters of the world. The Biblical narrative of creation disallows this estimate of human nature. It insists on the sovereign capacity of man who not only makes nature his servant, but knows himself to be a citizen of that other world of spiritual reality which abides for ever. The natural world is no loss prized but more when a man comes to it with the conscious, exercise of his spiritual faculties, lie finds it not only something lie may use to his own advantage and comfort, but a most persuasive witness to divine beauty and Providence. lie discovers that nature itself has its constant hymn of praise'to Him who "made Heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things therein." When man adds to that anthem his own responsive worship he exercises his dominion in the very courts of Heaven.