href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@17194@[email protected]#LECTURE_Vp" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">LECTURE V.

REVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.

Hebrews i. 1.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son.

The evolution of Knowledge. Does not affect the truth of Science. Nor of Religion. Special characteristic of evolution of Religious Knowledge, that it is due to Revelation. All higher Religions have claimed to be Revelations. The evolution of Religious Knowledge in the Old Testament; yet the Old Testament a Revelation. Still more the New Testament. The miraculous element in Revelation. Its place and need. Harmony of this mode of evolution with the teaching of the Spiritual Faculty.

LECTURE VI.

APPARENT COLLISION BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.

Psalm c. 3.

Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

Evolution examined. The formation of the habitable world. The formation of the creatures which inhabit it. Transmission of characteristics. Variations perpetually introduced. Natural selection. On the other side, life not yet accounted for by Evolution. Cause of variations not yet examined. Moral Law incapable of being evolved. Account given in Genesis not at variance with doctrine of Evolution. Evolution of man not inconsistent with dignity of humanity.

LECTURE VII.

APPARENT COLLISION OF SCIENCE WITH THE CLAIM TO SUPERNATURAL POWER.

St. John xiv. 11.

Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works' sake.

The claim to work miracles parallel to the freedom of the will. The miracles of Revelation need not be miracles of Science. Our Lord's Resurrection, and His miracles of healing, possibly not miraculous in the scientific sense. Different aspect of miracles now and at the time when the Revelation was given. Miracles attested by the Apostles, by our Lord's character, by our Lord's power. Nature of evidence required to prove miracles; not such as to put physical above spiritual evidence; not such as to be unsuited to their own day. Impossibility of demonstrating universal uniformity. Revelation no obstacle to the progress of Science.

LECTURE VIII.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE ARGUMENT.

1 Corinthians xii. 3.

No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

Uniformity of nature not demonstrated, but established, except in two cases; the interference of human will and of Divine Will. The exception no bar to the progress of Science. Unity to be found not in the physical world, but in the physical and moral combined. The Moral Law rests on itself. Our recognition of it on our own character and choice. But we expect it to show its marks in the physical world: and these are the purpose visible in Creation, the effects produced by Revelation. Nevertheless a demand for more physical evidence; but the physical cannot be allowed to overshadow the spiritual. Dangers to believers from leaning this way: superstition; blindness; stagnation. The guarantee for spiritual perceptiveness: to take Jesus as the Lord of the conscience, the heart, the will.

LECTURE I.

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.

The subject introduced: Scientific belief. Mathematics and Metaphysics excluded. The Postulate of Science: the Uniformity of Nature. Hume's account of it. Kant's account of it. Insufficiency of both accounts. Science traced back to observation of the Human Will. The development of Science from this origin. The increasing generality of the Postulate: which nevertheless can never attain to universality.

LECTURE I.

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.

Those who believe that the creation and government of the world are the work of a Being Whom it is their duty to love with all their hearts, Who loves them with a love beyond all other love, to Whom they look for guidance now and unending happiness hereafter, have a double motive for studying the forms and operations of Nature; because over and above whatever they may gain of the purest and highest pleasure in the study, and whatever men may gain of material comfort in a thousand forms from the results of the study, they cannot but have always present to their minds the thought, that all these things are revelations of His character, and to know them is in a very real measure to know Him. The believer in God, if he have the faculty and the opportunity, cannot find a more proper employment of time and labour and thought than the study of the ways in which God works and the things which God has made. Among religious men we ought to expect to find the most patient, the most truth-seeking, the most courageous of men of science.

We know that it is not always so; and that on the contrary Science and Religion seem very often to be the most determined foes to each other that can be found. The scientific man often asserts that he cannot find God in Science; and the religious man often asserts that he cannot find Science in God. Each often believes himself to be in possession, if not of the whole truth, at any rate of all the truth that it is most important to possess. Science seems to despise religion; and religion to fear and condemn Science. Religion, which certainly ought to put truth at the highest, is charged with refusing to acknowledge truth that has been proved. And Science, which certainly ought to insist on demonstrating every assertion which it makes, is charged with giving the rein to the imagination and treating the merest speculations as well-established facts.

To propose to reconcile these opposites would be a task which hardly any sane man would undertake. It would imply a claim to be able to rise at once above both, and see the truth which included all that both could teach. But it is a very useful undertaking, and not beyond the reach of thoughtful inquiry by an ordinary man, to examine the relations between the two, and thus to help not a few to find a way for themselves out of the perplexity. And this inquiry may well begin by asking what is the origin and nature of scientific belief on the one hand and of