Those 'Divinity Degrees' Again

New Zealand Tablet, 6 September 1906, Page 9

Those 'Divinity Degrees ' Again

Brought up under the old Irish ascendancy" regime, . it is, perhaps, hardly wonderful that Sir Maurice O'Rorke should still have some lingering shreds of faith in " - . ' Running the universe, sea and land, By Trinity College time '. Lastl week he once more brought up his , Bill intitulod ' An Act to enable the University of New Zealand to confer Degrees in Divinity.' The Bill was, briefly, a „ proposal .that the Parliament should (through -certain V officials) draw up a course of theology ' that woXild be acceptable to all Christian denominations '„ and so alter the Charter of the- New Zealand University as 'to place the faculty of divinity on the same standing for obtaining degrees as law and medicine '.On Thursday last this "April-day scheme was thrown out in the Legislative Council by sixteen votes to seven. It was" the second time that Sir Maurice's scheme of divinity degrees has been impelled out of doors by the toe of the parliamentary boot. • * " 'It's, fate, so, but-bit-bitter ' j . was, however, what one "might expect > at. the . hands even, of a. 'body of legislators who may -fairly claimTalleyrand's right of committing the .wise man's folly once in a way. In the first place, it puts Jews .and:. other non-Christians, and all dissidents from the proposed State "divinity ', in the unenviable^ position of having to pay their of the cost of the scheme, without deriving any benefit from it. In the..., second place, it assumes: that the New Zealand Govern-ment-rwhich controls the , University— has the right and competency to draw up and regulate sohemata of religious teaching. And, in the third' place, it assumes the feasibility of boiling down a 'hundred antagonistic and: .contradictory creeds to a uniform residuum of

.neutral-tinted grey. The ' divinity that would fo acceptable to all Christian denominations' nowadays might,- at roiot,' be stated (if at..; all):' in one or two more or less fuzzy ; propositions, . and engraved within the rim of a threepenny piece. Any such attempt at stewing down present-day Christian creeds to a jellified - 'residuum could only result in a vague and iifeless >hilosjpphy, and In the loss of real, and 'intelfectual'faith. • I< would be , neither Christianity nor Judaism ""nor Mahomedanism— neither fish, fowl,- nor good-, red herring. We could understand ,a proposal, to confer degrees" in darning,, or the multiplication-taibae, or, the making of ; apple-dumplings." There js at lfcast. .something; definite about them— some knowledge with clean-cut facets'/ But eheu ! the Boeotian folly of those State divinity dewithout the divinity! • ' -