CAUSES OF CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND

THEOLOGY.

IN the search for truth the two realms of nature and revelation are ever in apparent hostility to each other. The late controversy excited by Professor Tyndall's address before the Belfast Meeting of the British Association, was but the temporary swelling of the immemorial contest which has been maintained between them, and which must continue until they can each accept the facts belonging to their respective spheres, and unite their efforts to determine their significance.

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The tide of controversy that thus ebbs and flows is always eliminating error in the position of the combatants, and the time will undoubtedly come when they will combine their forces in the search for truth. present, however, Science is more than ever vigorous and audacious in its attacks on Theology and Religion; and Theology, knowing its own fundamental strength, is either anathematising its adversary, or, in a wiser mood, rectifying its dogmas and strengthening its position.

The faculties of man which take sides in this conflict are, on the one hand, his reason, and on the other what is called his spirit; one being specially adapted to apprehend the facts of nature, the other the facts of revelation. Reason, surveying the material universe and recognising everywhere the reign of evolution, discerns in that matter which, says Professor Tyndall in an often-quoted passage, "we have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." The spirit or soul of man, on the other hand, feels, in its inmost depths, the evi

dence of things not seen, of a spiritual world hidden from the senses and unrecognised by reason. Strong in their own respective positions, each undervalues that of the other. Reason, however, when driven to bay, admits the necessity of "yielding reasonable satisfaction to the religious sentiment," but requires that this force should never "be permitted to intrude on the region of knowledge, over which it holds no command, but should be guided by thought in the region of emotion, which is its proper sphere." The spirit" of man, on the other hand, when driven to bay in its turn, admits that revelation is not inconsistent with new views as to the modus operandi in creation, and that spiritual growth need not perchance be retarded by the adoption of the atomic theory; but that no views of this character can be accepted until they can be shown to be thus not inconsistent with spiritual revelation, which cannot allow any mischievous trespassing of the intellect beyond the borders of its proper domain, where, no doubt, it is capable of being guided to noble issues.

According to Reason, the religious sentiment must be confined strictly to the region of emotion, and even there must not be at liberty, but be guided and controlled, or else we shall have it exhibiting itself in grotesque, dangerous and destructive attitudes. From the height of its assumed supremacy, Reason thus yields a subordinate and limited position to its rival. But in reality it does more than this. It admits the existence of a sphere of which it can have no cognizance. "The whole process of evolution," says Professor Tyndall," is the manifestation of a power absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man." This, in fact has been the position of philosophy in all ages. Reason has always perceived that it is quite incapable of accounting for ideas which lie at the basis of its own processes. It employs axioms based on ideas of

space and time, and makes use of terms which it cannot define, such as "matter," "substance," "causes" and "force," and surrounding every subject of its inquiry are problems which it can discern but cannot solve.

It is a noteworthy fact, the significance of which in estimating the relative value of science, must surely often be lost sight of, that philosophers of all kinds and of all ages agree in asserting the existence of what they call the "absolute." Utilitarians who

believe that experience is the source of all knowledge, transcendentalists who believe in innate ideas, those who believe that the universe is neither more nor less than what it appears to be, and those who believe it is only representative of something quite different, those who believe that there is no world of matter at all but only one of mind, and those on the other hand who believe in nothing but matter; those again who believe in neither mind nor matter, but are only conscious, so far as this material universe is concerned, of a play of phantasms in a void; and those again, on the other hand, who accept the "absolute identity" of which both mind and matter are the manifestations

all agree, strange and inconsistent as it may seem to be, with the conceptions of some of them, "that there exists above and beyond this universe-whatever it may be a transcendent universe of things in themselves, of essential causes, of absolute as distinct from phenomenal existence,' ,"* and all agree that this world is beyond the scope of human reason.

A modern philosopher, indeed, goes further than this, and maintains, whilst chastising it for its presumption, that Science can even verify the absolute, because it can prove the existence of a stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their

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*Recent British Philosophy. Professor Masson.

being," and that "there is a power not ourselves which maketh for righteousness." However this may be, Reason asserts the existence of a world beyond its ken. In the material world it is supreme; but it can take no cognisance of the unknown, and denies to any other faculty the power to do so. This region, it says, is pure mystery, and, in consequence of the limitations of my powers, can be nothing else. Incapable itself, Reason denies the capacity of any other faculty.

Apart from the presumption of Reason in favour of an invisible world, there is another species of evidence, which, as compared with the negative evidence of Reason, is the positive evidence of the existence of such a world; but the authenticity and weight of which is ignored by those who, in consequence of the tyrannous domination of Reason in their own minds, have no means of estimating its value. In the inmost soul there is the evidence of a world hidden to the senses, the conviction of the existence of which is not lost amidst the things of time and sense. And those who succeed in fulfilling the law of their being, as revealed to them by Christianity and the experience of mankind, find this conviction steadily increase, and the evidence of the existence of a God above is less disputable in their minds than the evidence of their material senses.

The gift which opens to them the absolute is faith, or spiritual baptism, "the conviction of and passion for the infinite good," and it is this Divine faculty which stands to the "absolute," as Reason does to the material universe. Between these two there need be no dispute; they are independent of one another, and cannot, if the evidence of each is properly authenticated, clash with each other; but whilst reason and faith-for anything that can be proved to the contrary -may be perfectly harmonious, between Science and

Theology there is endless warfare. And why? Because their evidence, collected from the world of nature and revelation, is not authentic or it is incomplete. Science has misinterpreted Nature by ignoring the most important facts of life- those, namely, of man's spiritual experience; and Theology has misinterpreted the teachings of Revelation, and finding Science to militate against its fallibilities, has abjured Science.

I have already pointed out the error made by Science in denying to human faculties any realisation of the invisible; now for a word as to the teaching of the most popular philosophy of the day, for which Reason is also responsible -I mean the Utilitarian philosophy. Believing that an action is good in proportion as it conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the golden rule, as Mr. Mill says, is the complete spirit of its ethics. Happiness is the test of its morality, as it may be said to be in Christianity; but whilst the religion is adapted to the nature of man, the philosophy ignores it, and as a working hypothesis in practical life is a failure. The utilitarian philosophy is based on the supposition that the root of virtue is an enlightened intellect; but there is ample evidence, if philosophy would only collect instead of ignoring it, that the root of virtue is a cultured heart. If we say that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the will of God, how do the religion and the philosophy propose to achieve it? In the one case by a cultured heart, in the other by an enlightened intellect. As I said in a former article in this periodical, the Christian desires to do the will of God because he loves God; this love is based on the conviction that God's will is fulfilled in the happiness of His creatures. This conviction is not due to his own observations on the experience of mankind; it is not a logical deduction from the phenomena of life,