The Relations Between Religion and Science: Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884Temple, Frederick
Religion
The Relations Between Religion and Science: Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884
Temple, Frederick
Religion and science
Science and Religion come into apparent collision on the question of the
freedom of the will. Science and Revelation come into a similar apparent
collision on the possibility of miracles. The cases are precisely
parallel. In each individual man the uniformity of nature is broken to
leave room for the moral force of the will to assert its independent
existence. This breach of uniformity is within very narrow limits, and
occurs much more rarely than appears at first sight. But the demand to
admit not only the possibility but the fact of this breach is
imperative, and to deny it is to turn the command of the Moral Law as
revealed in the conscience into a delusion. So, too, Revelation asserts
its right to set aside the uniformity of nature to leave room for a
direct communication from God to man. It is an essential part of the
Divine Moral Law to claim supremacy over the physical world. Unless
somehow or other the moral ultimately rules the physical, the Moral Law
cannot rightly claim our absolute obedience. Revelation as given to us
maintains that this superiority has been asserted in fact here in the
world of phenomena. To deny this is very nearly equivalent to denying
that any revelation has been made. In this way Revelation asserts, for
God's message to the human race precisely the same breach of uniformity
which every man's conscience claims for himself in regard to his own
conduct.
It is, however, necessary to point out that when we speak of a breach of
uniformity we are never in a position to deny that the breach of
uniformity may be physical only and perhaps apparent only. It may be
found, it probably will be found, at last that the Moral Law has in
some way always maintained its own uniformity unbroken. The Moral Law
has in its essence an elasticity which the physical law has not. It
often takes the form, that, given certain conduct, there will follow
certain consequences; and the law is kept though the conduct is free. It
is further possible, and Revelation has no interest in denying it, that
the intervention which has apparently disturbed the sequence of
phenomena is, after all, that of a higher physical law as yet unknown.
For instance, the miraculous healing of the sick may be no miracle in
the strictest sense at all. It may be but an instance of the power of
mind over body, a power which is undeniably not yet brought within the
range of Science, and which nevertheless may be really within its
domain. In other ways what seems to be miraculous may be simply unusual.
And it must therefore be always remembered that Revelation is not bound
by the scientific definition of a miracle, and that if all the
miraculous events recorded in the Bible happened exactly as they are
told, and if Science were some day able to show that they could be
accounted for by natural causes working at the time in each case, this
would not in any way affect their character, as regards the Revelation
which they were worked to prove or of which they form a part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account