THUS STATED, ONE MUST admit a sufficient logical consistency in the present condition of compromise, and need suppose no kind of insincerity, no conscious equivocation in the acceptance of both the natural and the supernatural modes of explaining phenomena. Nor, indeed, could the fundamental inconsistency of such a compromise have been even recognised, until the quite modern extension of scientific method to moral questions had come to complete the disintegrating effects of historical and philosophical criticism applied to the Sacred Books of which Theology relied. In the earlier stages of development, although the natural explanation was adopted in reference to the most familiar experiences, and framed the rough theories of Common Sense for the habitual guidance of conduct, both in relation to the physical world and to society, the supernatural was adopted in reference to whatever was unusual and unseen; and the wider range of this speculative method was due to the immensity of ignorance. The slow progress of positive knowledge has more and more enlarged the domain of natural explanation, more and more restricted the domain of the supernatural. Yet even now the majority of cultivated men regard the facts of human nature as only partly explicable without aid drawn from the supernatural; and resist, as impiety, the attempt to assign natural causes in explanation of moral relations. That is to say, there where the operation of natural causes escapes our penetration, supernatural causes are invoked. Just as to men ignorant of natural conditions thunder was the fury of the storm-demon, or an eclipse was God’s anger, so nowadays men ignorant of natural conditions interpret epidemics as “visitations,” and regard “intuitions” as of divine origin. The inconsistency, then, of the acceptance of theological side by side with scientific principles, is only a continuation of the primitive mental state, and must vanish when there is a general conviction that Science is orderly Knowledge, and is co-extensive with Experience. If we can have no knowledge transcending Experience in the widest sense, and if Faith is the vision of things unknown—dealing with what transcends knowledge—then the conflict between Science and Theology is the conflict between Knowledge and Ignorance.
Unless this be the character of Faith, I dispute the claim of Theology to the exclusive possession of Faith as a principle of guidance. Science also has its Faith, and by it must all men to a great extent be guided. But the Faith of Theology and the Faith of Science are very different in their credentials. The former is reliance of the truth of principles handed down by Tradition, of which no verification is possible, no examination permissible; the latter is reliance on the truth of principles which have been sought and found by competent inquirers, tested incessantly by successive generations, are always open to verification in all their details, and always modifiable according to fresh experiences. We believe in the law of gravitation, though we never opened the Principia, and could not, perhaps, understand it; but we rely on those who can understand it, and who have found its teachings in harmony with fact. We believe in the measurement of the velocity of light, though ignorant of the methods by which the velocity is measured. We trust those who have sought and found. If we distrust them, the search is open to us as to them. The mariner trusts to the indications of the compass without pretending to know how these indications were discovered, but assured by constant experience that they guide the ship safely. That also is Faith.
But if the mental attitude is one of the same obedience as the Theological Faith, its justification is different. Its credentials are conformity with experience. Those of Theology are the statements of the Sacred Books: the Vedas, Zendavesta, Bible, Koran. The statements therein made concerning the divine nature, its relations with the human, and the providential government of the world, are not open to the verification of Experience, for they were not sought and found in Experience. If we ask for their credentials, we are told that they are of divine origin. If we ask for evidence of this divine origin, we are referred to History or to our Moral Consciousness. Tradition has handed down these statements through successive generations; yet if we ask, as we ought to ask, how the tradition itself originated, we are brought face to face with this two-fold difficulty: we cannot recognise that those who first promulgated the statements had any better means of knowing the truth that we have; and we are struck with the fact that the statements thus handed down by tradition do not agree. That of the Hindoos is not that of the Jews; the Persians reject the traditions of both.
Modern historic criticism has made such havoc with the historical pretensions, that theologians are now throwing all the emphasis on Moral Consciousness. The doctrine of our Sacred Books is said to be unequivocally ratified by our intuitions: we feel their truth, and we see in their moral influence on mankind the verification of their divine origin. But here again the scientific method, which applied to the historical evidence has shattered its claim, applied to the evidence of Moral Consciousness is equally destructive. Psychology not only enlightens us as to the genesis of the intuitions, but in a comparison with other nations and the earlier stages of human development, shows how they vary. If the intuitions of the savage are not those of the civilised, if precepts which the Hindoo feels to be divine are opposed to the precepts which the Chinese, the Jew, and Mohammedan, and the Christian feel to be divine, we need a criterion beyond these varying standards.
There is a widespread superstition which regards whatever is innate, or otherwise unexplained, as of a higher authority and diviner sanction than what is acquired through individual experience or is explicable on known laws. Our religious instincts are appealed to, and if Instinct were the infallible guide in conduct; although a moment’s reflection will show that it is the great aim of civilisation to correct and repress many instincts. If the developed music of our day is of a higher order and more adapted to our sensibilities than the music of the Middle Ages; if our theories of natural phenomena are of a higher order and approximate more nearly to the truth than the corresponding theories of Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, why should our theories of moral phenomena be deemed inferior to those of Judaism or the Councils? Is the nursery a school of riper wisdom than the laboratory?
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Scientific Religion: An Old Question.
“In the centre of the world-whirlwind, verily now, as in the oldest days, dwells and speaks a God.” – Carlyle.
“Our little systems have their day; They have their day, and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee. And thou, O Lord, art more than they.” – “In Memoriam”.
…Mr. George Henry Lewes pours out his sorrow at the perversity of many of his fellow men; in that they foolishly rail at and even express a dread of science as science, although their daily life, with its struggles and sorrows, is continually aided and relieved by the many successful results of scientific research. “There are men of culture,” says Mr. Lewes, “who take pride in expressing their indifference to science.” They are too fond of saying, with the morbid hero of Maud, that the man of science is “fonder of glory, and vain,” and even go on to declare that, though his eye is “well-practised in nature” yet his spirit is “bounded and poor.”
The scientific man refrains from continuing the quotation (which might snub an ordinary man of culture) — “the passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice” — not so much because he thinks it untrue, but simply because it is insufficient to express all his contempt for the benighted devotee of culture, and culture alone. However, it may at once be granted that a man who says he despises science is a very foolish man. Nor, of course, would Mr. Lewes have a very high opinion of a scientific prig, who declared that the time spent in studying literature was time wasted. Neither the one nor the other is to be despised.
But is there any real antagonism? Let us follow Mr. Lewes through some of his arguments.
He first endeavours to prove his assertion — that there does exist a dread and a dislike of science; and then he proceeds to give what he considers to be the causes. Mr. Lewes grants at once that science was never so popular as at present. But he complains that there are still persons who harbour unreasonable prejudices against it, based on misconceptions, which are the causes of a strong dislike. The anti-vivisectionists are some of these prejudiced persons — such at least as object to vivisection, because the experiments are made for scientific purposes alone. Those who sympathize with animal suffering, and endeavour to repress all unnecessary infliction of it are fully respected by Mr. Lewes; but too often the men who object to vivisection on these grounds are (perhaps thoughtlessly) tolerant of an enormous amount of torture yearly inflicted on animals, either to please their palate, or gratify their desire for sport. Mr. Lewes of course puts his point forcibly; and, we must say, we think he has the best of the argument. We ought not to charge scientific men with the “selfish motive of acquiring reputations;” though in some few cases (and those are, for the most part, foreign ones) the charge may not have been quite undeserved. Wars, and other evils, are tolerated without complaint, if the motive is commercial advantage; all these things are so because science is not recognised as a social benefit.
Having thus shown the existence of this dislike, Mr. Lewes proceeds to give the reason for it. The first cause, he says, is a misconception of what science is. “Science is simply knowledge classified, systematised, made orderly, impersonal, and exact; instead of being left unclassified, fragmentary, personal and inexact.” It has been called “Common Sense methodised and extended.” Since no one would hesitate to place knowledge above ignorance as a guide in life and conduct, Mr. Lewes supposes that science thus correctly conceived will excite no dislike and cause no dread.
But even when it is admitted that science is this systematised common sense it still arouses in some a dislike; for it is systematisation itself that gives so many of us annoyance. We are indolent, and exactness is troublesome. To jump at conclusions by guessing is much more easy (and, we fear, much more natural !) than arriving at them by patient observation. As knowledge advances we shall readily admit that accuracy is not to be cried down merely because it is less trouble to be inaccurate and vague in our assertions; and we shall at once see that there is no right of private judgment, without evidence to guide us.
Now comes an important sentence. When this advance has been made “there will disappear certain mistaken pretensions of scientific men too ready to step beyond their own domain.”
“This it is,” continues Mr. Lewes, “which causes the distaste of artists, men of letters, and moralists ; and their opposition to the spread of scientific teaching.” This opposition, Mr. Lewes acknowledges to be rational. It is an offence against scientific method. For science is taken as meaning first “a general method, or logic of search, applicable to all departments of knowledge; and secondly, a doctrine, or body of truths and hypotheses, embracing the results of search.” Having seen what objection to the spread of scientific teaching is rational, we will see what objection is irrational. “It is irrational when protesting against the rigorous application of one logic to all enquiries.” He adds: “Those, therefore, who sneer at science, and would obstruct its diffusion, are sneering at the effort to make all knowledge systematic, and are obstructing the advance of civilisation.”
And here we come to the well-worn arguments on the conflict between science and theology. To attempt to apply the same logic to theology and to our faith which is applied to other matters would apparently reason away our religion. But faith cannot be so argued about. Our religion is rational in all practical matters — the promotion of goodness, the enjoining of grace and peace. But when we come to give our reasons for our belief in a Personal God, and in a future life, we may confess that they are not satisfactory as strict proofs. We cannot prove the existence of a God: we believe that there is one; we believe it intuitively (unsatisfactory reason for the sceptic perhaps !), and so believing, we pass on to have a solemn hope of a life beyond the grave. On the other hand no logical arguments can prove that a Personal God does not exist, or even if to his own satisfaction a man could logically prove this non-existence, we should still cling to our belief; no logic can do away with God if there be one, and no logic could really shake our earnest trust in Him. Where proofs and reasons begin, there faith ends of necessity, for this belief of ours is no conviction based on logic; it is with us an instinct. It is a question too wide and too deep for us fairly to enter upon here.
“In the struggle of life with the facts of existence science is a bringer of aid; in the struggle of the soul with the mystery of existence science is a bringer of light.” All will agree with the first part; can we expect those to whom God is a reality — a friend and guide — to accept this last assertion, that science is a bringer of light? If they could be convinced that there was no God, that their beliefs were folly, and their prayers emptiness, would that be to them light? It would be the light which just serves to show how great the darkness is. But if on this point — the existence of a God — science and religion seem to be antagonistic, it need be but a passive antagonism. If it be agreed that we cannot, according to our laws of logic, prove the existence of a Personal God, and that by applying those same laws no definitely negative result can be obtained, we may at least leave the discussion and consider it a drawn battle. In practical matters there is no conflict between science and Christianity. The principles of forbearance, and of kindness; of charity – in short, in its widest sense, are honoured and valued by scientific men, who may, at the same time, reject and despise our system of theology. In fact, to repeat what Mr. Lewes says: “In the struggle of life with the facts of existence, science is a bringer of aid.”
In searching after moral excellence, in striving for that true culture which chiefly consists in “self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,” science is not against us. Scientific men desire these things, and prize them when gained, as much as we do; though their desire for them may be based on grounds widely differing from ours. We have seen, therefore, that the dread and dislike of science or knowledge, merely because it is science, is utterly irrational ; and, we believe, is nearly extinct. The dislike which literary men express towards it has been acknowledged in most cases to be rational; seeing that it is not a dislike of science, but of certain students of special branches who are too often ready to misapply their knowledge, and give judgment on points beyond their reach.
We have seen, too, that in practical matters science and religion go hand in hand, while between science and Theism the dislike, if dislike there be, or rather the antagonism which exists, is really a passive antagonism, because the very nature of the conflict prevents either side from claiming a complete — or even nearly complete — logical victory. For us Christians the words of the introduction to “In Memoriam” are profoundly true: “We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from Thee, A beam in darkness let it grow.”
For all serious and thoughtful minds, Christian or non-Christian, these lines will be full of comfort, full of suggestion. Let us, then, leave a much-vexed question with those for our last words.
– P. Anderson-Morshead.
St James’s Magazine, July 1878.
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