Produced by Al Haines This is one of a series of evidential books drawn up at the instance of the _Christian Evidence Society_. GOD AND THE WORLD A SURVEY OF THOUGHT BY ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D., Warden of the College of Allhallows Barking With a Prefatory Note by SIR OLIVER LODGE LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C., 43 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. BRIGHTON: 129 NORTH STREET NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM 1913 CONTENTS PAGE PREFATORY NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 I. THE OLDER ORTHODOXY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 II. THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 III. THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 IV. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 V. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 46 VI. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 53 VII. LATER SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 VIII. LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 IX. LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 {5} PREFATORY NOTE I have read what Dr. Arthur Robinson has written, and find it a most interesting, singularly fair, and I may add, within its limits, able and comprehensive survey of the thoughts of the past and passing age. I commend it to the coming generation as a useful means of acquiring some notion of the main puzzles and controversies of the strenuous time through which their fathers have lived. Fossil remains of these occasionally fierce discussions they will find embedded in literature; and although we are emerging from that conflict, it can only be to find fresh opportunities for discovery, fresh fields of interest, in the newer age. Towards a wise reception of these discoveries, as they are gradually arrived at in the future, this little book will give some help. OLIVER LODGE. {7} GOD AND THE WORLD INTRODUCTION A man, so it has been said, is distinguished from the creatures beneath him by his power to ask a question. To which we may add that one man is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; of how they may quickest fill their pockets, or gain another step upon the social ladder. Great men are concerned with great questions: of life, of man, of history, of God.