There is no reason why the comforting assurances of religion should be sacrificed completely. Science is not inimical to the assumption of religion that personal and moral values have a basis in the universe itself which insures their permanence and their further refinement. Though God works his will against the inertia of the concrete world and the waywardness of man, neither science nor history justifies the conclusion that his resources are not ultimately equal to the creative task. The intractableness of the world makes the creative and redemptive struggle real but not hopeless. Religion has as much right to preach hope as it has to preach repentance. It fails in its task if it does not save men from despair as well as from undue pride and complacency. There is nothing in either science or history which invalidates either function of religion. But science unites with moral experience in insisting on the reality and the painfulness of the creative process in man and in nature. If the resistance to moral purpose in cosmic history is underestimated, it merely serves to increase that resistance in the life of man by justifying his moral inertia. The needs of a dynamic religion are consistent with scientific fact, though not always compatible with a completely consistent metaphysics. Science may well combine with religion in persuading man that “if hopes are dupes, fear may be liars,” and that he must “work out his salvation with fear and trembling.” CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION At the risk of unnecessary repetition it may be well to capitulate the most important conclusions which emerge from our study of religion in contemporary civilization. Religion is dying in modern civilization not only because it has not yet been able to restate its affirmations so that they will be consistent with scientific fact, but also because it has not been able to make its ethical and social resources available for the solution of the moral problems of modern civilization. Its rejuvenation therefore waits upon a reorientation of its ethical traditions as well as of its theological conceptions. It is under the necessity of finding some metaphysical basis for its personalization of the universe, but its scientific and philosophical respectability will be of no avail if the moral fruits which issue from its affirmations and experiences do not actually qualify the brute struggle of life, so largely determined by natural forces.