The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candourPhelips, Vivian
Religion
The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candour
Phelips, Vivian
Rationalism
into which so many of his fellow clerics have fallen. For he does not
jump at the conclusion that every "gap" in our knowledge of life's
mysteries is a proof of the supernatural. Nor does he attempt to show,
as many other apologists are wont to do, that there is no direct
connection between science and religion. He does not try to escape
the criticism of metaphysical conclusions which a scientific habit
of thought engenders. But, while his position may appear at first
sight a tenable one, whether it be so or not depends entirely upon
the correctness of the assumption on which his argument is really
based--the true witness of the heart, as against the false witness of
the reason. It is interesting to compare Mr. Waggett's position with
that of another of the progressives. The Rev. John Kelman writes in
Ideals of Science and Faith [18]: "So far as we have gone, the history
of the past, viewed by the light in which the newer conceptions of
the Bible have placed it, shows that, at the present moment in the
progress of thought, science and religion are not in the least degree
at strife. They need no reconciliation." Suppose the Rev. J. Kelman
to be right and the Rev. P. N. Waggett to be wrong, what then? It
is the newer conceptions of the Bible which make it possible for
Mr. Kelman to speak of a reconciliation--the very conceptions which
the orthodox cannot and will not accept. The orthodox believer is
told that religion and science are reconciled; but he is not told by
what means. Thus the orthodox, who would never think of accepting
the "terribly heterodox" ideas of the advanced school, are all the
time accepting a result which could only be arrived at by the help
of those self-same ideas. In fact, it was the very necessity for a
reconciliation which originated their invention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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