The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880Various
Religion
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880
Various
Religion and science -- Periodicals
Ask the unbeliever, the materialist, what this vital principle is, and
he answers: "It is the all-pervading force that is modified by the
organic structure." That is, in his philosophy, the "vital force is
produced by the organism," and the "organism is produced by the vital
principle?" So, being at the last limit of the physical analysis of the
organic being, he is involved in a contradiction, while the Christian
who believes in a spiritual substance refers all to spirit, and claims a
continuation of his identity as an intelligent spirit, resting in his
ultimate or starting point, viz: God. Do you say I am lost in God? Well,
to be thus lost in God is to be saved from corruption and from the dust
of the grave; but to be lost in the dust of the grave and in the
ceaseless changes of matter is to be lost to God and to spiritual being.
Let me be with God rather than lost amid the dark waves of oblivion.
Has science no prerogatives above the physical? Tread lightly here; you
might step on holy ground. Do you use the old cry that all outside of
matter belongs to the "unknown" and "unknowable?" Exchange the terms for
the terms the "uncomprehended" and the "incomprehensible," and we will
walk side by side. We know many things which we do not comprehend. Do we
comprehend all that belongs to the physical sciences? Do we comprehend
matter? I know that I know, but do I comprehend that knowledge? If I
should say I know the unknowable, I am guilty of a contradiction in
language. Do you say matter is infinite? Can I comprehended the
infinite? If science be that certain knowledge which is the equivalent
of comprehension, then one of two things is true: First, there is no
such thing as physical science; or, secondly, I may have certain
knowledge of the infinite--may comprehend the infinite. How is this?
Where is the difficulty? It is here: the knowledge which constitutes
science is not necessarily that knowledge which is the equivalent of
the comprehension of the thing known. Hence the incomprehensible is not
to be excluded from the field of scientific investigation. If matter be
infinite, and if it belongs to the field of scientific knowledge, then
the infinite and incomprehensible belong, also, to the domain of
scientific investigation. If the infinite can not be comprehended,
matter can not be comprehended, and if all that can not be comprehended
should be dismissed from scientific investigation, then matter should be
dismissed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 — John Shaqi
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