SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 26, Issue 11, 1 November 1936, Page 5

SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

(By Cecil Gilbertson.)

(Contributed.) I have just been reading a book called "Man The Unknown," by Dr. Alexis Carrel (Angus and Robertson, 1936), m which the author points out how little we really know about Man. He points out how we have blinded ourselves to a really useful and comprehensive knowledge of Man by dividing him up into many different sections. The action of stooping down and picking up a threepenny bit, is a simple one, but science has made it inconceivably complex by studying it from so many different points of view, and failing to synthetise them. We have experts m biology, physics, physiology and religion, and all these sciences have something to tell us about Man's most simple actions; but each does so from its own point of view, and none tells us much about the whole Man. The chaotic state of the world to-rday may be largely attributed to the fact that although econonmics, and politics, are of the most vital importance to Man, our economists and politicians know practically nothing about the nature of the Man they are trying to cater for. ' • Dr. Carrell points out that we need a sort of super science, a college of men specially gifted m synthetising the findings of all the different branches of science, whose work will

be to put Humpty Dumpty together again, so that we see Man as a unit. But, he points out, we cannot look for any immediate results. This school of synthetists will have to be so organised that it can carry on its work without interruption for even centuries of time. It must study, not merely individuals, but generations of individuals. This sounds rather disheartening to a world which seems to be tottering on the edge of disaster, and is crying aloud for help to-day. To us Christians it seems almost to imply that the life of our Blessed Lord was all m vain. Is there no other, no quicker way to an understanding of our own nature? "There is nothing new under the sun," and I believe that what Dr. Carrel suggests has already been done to a very large extent, We know that pur modern astronomers have found out very little which 1 the ancient people of Babylon, and more particularly the Chaldeans, did not know. The Great Pyramid of Egypt proves to us that the Egyptians had a knowledge of the movements of the stars which it must have taken centuries of accurate observation to compile. The first books of pur Old Testament are undoubtedly of Babylonian and Egyptian origin. . Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees. In the course of his wanderings he met with Melchizedek, "a priest of the Most High God," who "brought forth bread and wine." Moses was educated m the palace of Pharoah, and later spent forty years with the priest of On. This must have given Moses a wonderful opportunity of coming into possession 'of all the occult knowledge of the time. The Old Testament is a collection of books written over a period of some fifteen hundred years. And we know that during that time there were "schools of the prophets," and it was most probably these schools which compiled and wrote those books. This is all fairly evident; but, we may ask, if these schools were engaged upon the class of work which Dr. Carreli advocates, then where is the evidence of their work? Now one of the first things which such a school as Dr. . Carreli advocates, would need to have, would be a code of symbols whereby it would be possible to correlate the findings

of each branch of science. We find that the Hebrew alphabet provides just such a code. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet was not only a symbol, but it also had its numerical value, and a name which stood for some definite object. For instance, if we take the fifth letter, "H," its numerical value was 5, and its name was, m English, "Window." A window is that which gives us air and light, and the letter "H" stood for a symbol of life. It is significant that we find Abram is told to insert this letter into his name, thereby making it Abraham, after he had been called by God. It also stood for the principle of Sight, and was related to the constellation Aries, the Ram, and the tribe of Gad. That the Hebrews regarded their alphabet as something sacred, may be gathered from the following taken from the Sepher Yetzirah: "These are the twenty-two letters by means of which the Holy One, blessed be He the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, hath founded everything"; and "Twenty-two basal letters, He (God) designed them, He formed them, He purified them, He weighed them; and He exchanged them each for each, one for all; He formed by means of them the whole creation, and everything which should be created. Moreover, we find that by studying the symbolism of the letters forming any name, we may arrive at the meaning of that name. For instance, the name Elohim, given to God m the first chapter of Genesis, is a collective noun, whose symbols imply that it stands for "All the living Powers Extending m Life." In my article m the August issue of the "Gazette," I pointed out how the fourth chapter of Zechariah may easily be interpreted as a vision of the cerebral and nervous system of man. Of course, this method of interpretation of Scripture is practically lost to-day, and it would need very profound research to recover it. But when we consider these things,, a new force is added to the question of the Jews— "How knoweth this Man letters, having never learned?" (St. John VII., 15). And is it not true that to-day we have blinded ourselves to the extreme simplicity of

our Lord's action m putting forth His hand to heal the leper by being too conscious of its complexity. Space is too limited to do more than suggest these things. But I cannot help thinking that Dr. Carrel's College of Synthetic Superscientists, should be sought for m the Church.