Religion and the reign of science

Front matter

L CcROSS

ANGLICAN LIBRARY OF FAITH AND THOUGHT

Edited by LEoNARD PRESTIGE, B.D.

Preface

HE Encyclical of the 1930 Lambeth Conference sums up the present relations between Religion and Science - with unusual accuracy and penetration. ‘‘ There is much in the scientific and philosophical thinking of our time,’’ it writes, ‘‘ which provides a climate more favourable to faith in God than has existed for generations. New interpretations of the cosmic process are now before us which are congruous with Christian Theism. The great scientific movement of the nineteenth century had the appearance, at least, of hostility to religion. But now, from within that movement and under its impulse, views of the universal process are being formed which point to a spiritual interpretation. We are now able, by the help of the various departmental sciences, to trace in outline a continuous process of creative development in which at every stage we can find the Divine presence and power. Thus scientific thinking and discovery seem to be giving us back the sense of reverence and awe before the sublimity of a Creator Who is not only the cause and ground of the Universe, but always and everywhere active within it.”’

Few of those who keep abreast of the progress of scientific and religious thought will be likely to call this summary in question. The majority of those considerations which two or three generations ago led men to think that science and religion were incompatible have lost their weight, and the whole tendency of present-day thinking is towards a scheme which needs the theistic hypothesis to give an adequate and complete account of the facts of science and life, viii PREFACE

Now this being so, it is clear that we are faced with an anomalous state of affairs. Scientists and philosophers tell us that a satisfactory interpretation of the Universe demands belief in the existence of God; the masses of our people place almost absolute and unquestioning faith in the pronouncements of the scientific world; and yet, very strangely, there are rows upon rows of empty pews in many of our churches. How are we to account for this curious phenomenon ? }

An easy explanation of this anomaly—and one which is not infrequently offered—would be to say that the churches do not provide that type of religion for which the Modern World is looking. But this explanation breaks down because there is little evidence that the Modern World is seriously seeking for religion anywhere else. Men and women who are whole-heartedly in search of religion nearly always seek for it within the organized Christian societies. The chief reason, rather, why the Church does not always receive the hearing which she deserves and not unnaturally expects is that she has not sufficiently adapted her apologetic to the new situation in religious and scientific thought. She has not always correctly diagnosed the disease of those who seek her succour, and consequently has not known how to apply the therapeutic weapons which in point of fact lie ready to hand. A radically changed apologetic is necessary, and the present volume is a humble attempt to contribute something towards it.

It is obvious that in order to fulfil the anticipations which the title of this volume might arouse, the author would have to be versed in three branches of the life of the spirit—in science, in theology, and in religion. How great his limitations are in all of these three subjects, he is fully aware. But it may perhaps help the reader to understand the writer’s position, and also enable the author to discharge a heavy personal debt, if he here puts on record the sources from which he has learnt such as he knows and understands of these three subjects. It has been his happiness and

PREFACE 21k privilege for over twelve years to be connected successively with three “places of useful and religious learning ”’ in the University of Oxford—all of them places whose fame, for different reasons, extends far beyond the banks of the Isis. From the first of these with which he was associated, he has learnt most of his science ; from the second, most of his theology ; and from the third, most of his religion. None of these societies has encouraged him to take up mediating views. The author has never known what it is to live in an atmosphere which puts moderation and compromise before truth, and he hopes and believes that in the present volume, with all its defects, he will not be accused of adopting views just because they are official and safe ones. If the reader finds that in some places the author’s science is too radical, or that in others that his theology is too Modernist, or that in yet others that his religion is too Catholic, he will at any rate have an explanation ; and if anyone thinks it worth his while to let such criticisms reach the author’s ears, he will gladly listen to them as an indication that his teachers have not been altogether unsuccessful in their efforts. Had it been » customary for the writers in this series to make use of a dedication page, the author would have liked to have inscribed the names of his three spiritual homes upon it, in token of his feelings of gratitude and affection towards them.

Finally, he would wish to express here his thanks to several members of S. Stephen’s House, Oxford—particularly to Messrs. A. G. C. Langford and A. D.. White—for assistance in correcting the proof-sheets.

Fe LESLIE. CROSS.

OXFORD, September, 1930.

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE I. THE REIGN OF SCIENCE : Z , a II, RELIGION AND PHYSICS . ‘ : 18

III. RELIGION AND BIOLOGY , : : 38 IV. RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY . : : 52 VY. RELIGION AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM : . 68 VI. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY ° ‘ . 84

VII. RELIGION AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT : 98

Chapter I

FE are living in an age of science. Even the least V\ reflective of men cannot for long be oblivious of the fact. The last century or so has witnessed a a prodigious development in the field of theoretical science, and of its practical applications. Steam engines, railways, telegraphs, telephones, airplanes, dreadnoughts, motor-cars, wireless, and countless other objects of a similar character which we meet with every day impress deeply upon us that we are living in an age when science, if it does not reign supreme, at least occupies a position of great importance. So deeply has the belief in science as a dominating factor entered into our souls that we should feel in quite another world if the inventions of science were removed from us. But the conditions to which we have become accustomed have not always existed. Our ancestors of a few generations ago knew nothing of the age of science as we know it. And if we wish to understand the character of our present age it is necessary to consider first how it came into being ; and secondly what are its characteristics.

When did the Modern World come into being? Thisisa question the answer to which is of supreme importance and yet one where it is very easy to go astray. There has grown up among Protestants the conviction that the Modern World began in 1517, when Luther pinned up his ninety-five theses against indulgences on the church door at Wittenberg. Until that date, almost all Europe was bound in the fetters of ignorance and darkness. With the outbreak of the Reformation, all this suddenly changed, at least in those countries where the Reformation Movement succeeded. Luther effected the emancipation of nearly half of Europe from the fetters of Catholicism—from Monasticism, from Indulgences, from Works of Supererogation, from Scholastic Theology. A new age of light and reason and freedom suddenly emerged. This is the theory with which we have become familiarized by our school text-books. Unfortunately, if we attempt to understand the Modern World with it in our minds, we shall have little hope of success ; for candid students, both of the Middle Ages and of the Reformation epoch, realize now that it is profoundly untrue. In the first place, it is unfair to the Middle Ages. Of course the Christain community of that epoch was not perfect. There were abuses and scandals and frauds—as there have been in every age. Anyone who like Dr. Coulton has made an intensive study of its literature can cull without much difficulty plenty of quotations from its writers which give support to such a conception of it. But against these sordid elements has to be set much of a very different character. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were periods when speculation reached a profundity and exactitude which had not been equalled since the time of Plato and Aristotle. The Gothic cathedrals and churches of the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation are among the glories of the world. It was in the muchmaligned fifteenth century that modern painting made such enormous advances. From the time of the Crusades onwards, trade gradually developed, and the existence of such commercial activity is incompatible with the belief that these ages were mainly dark and debauched. It has been claimed that a good test of the state of civilization of a community is its soap-consumption. But it should be remembered that there is an even higher standard of judgement than cleanliness. That is, godliness. And judged by this standard, the Middle Ages will bear comparison with any of the centuries which succeeded them.

Still more important is it to note the real nature of the change effected by the Reformation. It is very doubtful if Luther’s emancipation of his supporters was as complete as many of those who wave the Reformation flag have supposed. As the length of time between us and the Reformation increases, it becomes ever clearer that the great break in the history of European thought occurred not in the sixteenth but in the eighteenth century. Compared with the rift in this latter century, the cleft of the sixteenth is comparatively unimportant. Troeltsch points out—it is true that he is thinking primarily of Continental thought—that the ideas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were largely those of the medieval period. The important characteristic which these centuries shared with the preceding age was that its conceptions were based, at least in theory and ideal, on a fundamentally religious basis. In some cases the ideals themselves were wrongly conceived, and in many cases there was a wide divergence between practice and ideal; but in general, when men reflected on their actions and motives, they fully believed that the only true principles for them were to be found in the Christian religion. Economic theory, for example, looked always to religion for its principles. The Christian religion was so integral a part of the constitution of society that society expected its rulers to defend it. It hardly crossed men’s minds that they might not be rightly compelled to attend the services of the National Church ; if they offered any objections to attending them it was usually not because they, like the moderns, believe that God can be equally well worshipped in the open air—which means, of course, that religion is unnecessary—but because they thought that the particular form of worship provided by the National Church was less Scriptural and less Christian than what they found in the conventicles or elsewhere.

In the eighteenth century, a radical change gradually came over European thought. The conception gradually grew up that it was possible to interpret life on idealistic

B lines without having recourse to Christian principles. Systems of ethics were constructed and believed workable, in which God and religion had no place. That century— termed by Mark Pattison the seculum rationalisticum’— claimed to have discovered that religion was only the work of priestcraft, which invented the ideas of God and the devil - and eternal punishment in order to justify its own existence and to squeeze out money from the people, whether by the cruder method of indulgences or by the more refined method of Church collections. It was now possible to have a theory © of conduct which needed no religious sanctions. Social reform and social progress did not need a supra-mundane justification. Charitable actions ceased to be the means of securing a certain amount of merit which should enable the possessor to enter heaven. The tendency was for religion to cease to be the dominating principle of life, and to become a departmental activity. The scientists felt themselves less and less bound to shew the theological implications of their teachings. Laplace’s reply to Napoleon was typical. Napoleon asked the famous physicist why the concept of God did not occur in the Méchanique céleste. “‘ Sir,’”’ was the answer, ‘‘ I had no need of any such hypothesis.”

To distinguish the new system of ethics which thus arose, the phrase “ this-worldly,”’ as opposed to “‘ other-worldly,” has been coined. The general tendency for the last two centuries has been the gradual substitution of a this-worldly for an other-worldly ethics. The result of this has been a gradually increasing cleavage between religion and culture, between religion and politics, between religion and life. The social reformer of to-day seldom invokes the name of God as a justification for his schemes. At most he tends to look patronizingly upon religion, and thinks that for certain classes of people a little religion may be quite a useful adjunct. It may, in Lord Chesterfield’s words, serve as “a collateral security for morality.”? On the whole,

1 Essays and Reviews, p. 259.

2 Quoted C. G. Challenger, The Excellence of Revealed Religion, p27 0.

religion and culture, religion and politics, religion and science now stand opposed to each other. And, though the conservative instincts in man have kept the greater part of Europe still Christian in name, for quite 80 per cent of present-day Europe, Christianity means little more than just the name. There has been an appalling decline in regular worship; belief in a future life is for the vast masses of people rather a superstition than a creed; and any attempt on the part of the Church to interfere with the new ideals of sex-morality is looked upon as an unwelcome intrusion. ‘‘ This is the first age, I think,’’ writes Mr. Lippman, “in the history of mankind when the circumstances of life have conspired with the intellectual habits of the time to render any fixed and authoritative belief incredible to large masses of men. . . . The irreligion of the Modern World is radical to a degree for which there is, I think, no counterpart.’

An illuminating example of this change in the attitude to religion is to be seen by comparing the writings of ecclesiastical historians of the eighteenth century with those of to-day. Gibbon’s position in history was at the parting of the ways. He himself shared in the irreligion of the Modern World. But he lived in a world which fully believed in the disposition of history by Divine Providence. Consequently when, in his famous chapter on the progress of the Christian religion, he was led to enquire into the reasons for its growth, he naturally expects his readers to believe that its primary cause was the guidance of God. “ It was owing,” he wrote, ‘‘ to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great Author” that the Christian religion made such rapid strides. ‘ But as truth and reason,” he continues, ‘“‘ seldom find so favourable a reception in the world, and as the _ wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as instruments to execute its purpose, we may

1 W,. Lippman, A Preface to Morals, p. 12.

still be permitted, though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian Church ? ’’4 And then Gibbon goes on to enumerate and develop the famous five “‘ secondary causes ”’ of the progress of Christianity. There is probably a strain of satire running through the passage quoted. But there is no doubt that what Gibbon here states is what his contemporaries still believed. And when you turn to the more orthodox Church histories of the time, the intervention of Providence is expected, and discovered, at every turn. But the nineteenth century witnessed the gradual disappearance of this mode of writing ecclesiastical history. The belief that the course of Church history, like that of secular history, is explicable without appeal to supernatural causes gradually gained ground. Traces of the older attitude survive in such a book as Dr. William Bright’s Age of the Fathers ; but even here the attitude is very different from what it was in the older histories. Under the majority of present-day Church histories there lies the presupposition that ecclesiastical history is governed by the same laws and principles as that of any other department of history. A twentieth-century history which invokes any other principles than those which Gibbon describes as “‘ secondary causes ’’ is almost certain to be dubbed by the academic theologians as “‘ edificatory ’’, and dismissed accordingly.

If this brief account of the nature of the modern world is correct, then it is clear that the form in which the problem of the relation between religion and science presents itself to us is very different from the form which it took a few centuries ago. Our whole attitude to religion and to science has undergone a fundamental change. We shall never understand the scientific problem unless we put ourselves at the modern scientist’s point of view. Those who oppose religion now are no longer imaginary opponents who,

1 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. xv (Everyman’s edition I, p. 431.)

like the fool defended by Gaunilo, say in their hearts that there is no God. They are often men of robust intellect and men living a high standard of moral life. And intellectually they have certainly possessed some of the best brains of modern times.

We have so far been considering, in our attempt to understand the Modern World, those characteristics which it possesses as a common whole since its origination in the eighteenth century. Taken together, they bring it into sharp contrast with the ideals of pre-eighteenth-century Europe. A few words must be said before passing on, on the differences between the character of the modern world at the outset and its character to-day.

The eighteenth century was pre-eminently the seculum vationalisticum. It had abounding confidence in what it believed that reason could achieve. Reason was a stupendous endowment of man, which conferred upon him enormous dignity, and enabled him to look with disdain upon the brute creatures in whom it was absent. It was man’s highest possession, and it was impossible to conceive of any more noble human activity than the exercise of it. “ The image of God in which man was at first created,” wrote Warburton, “lay in the faculty of reason only.’’! _ But men assumed that in spite of its pre-eminence, reason was a surprisingly easy tool to manipulate. It could be applied to any subject, no matter how profound, and it would give a ready solution of all its difficulties. . The universe presented itself as a Greek temple, it was composed of simple lines and regular curves, and reason could without difficulty apprehend it. And the theologians believed that the highest object on which the highest faculty of man could be turned was God. The supreme activity of the spirit was to prove the existence of God. ‘“ Christianity appeared made for nothing else but to be ‘ proved’ ; what

1 Quoted, Essays and Reviews, p. 269.

use to make of it when it was proved was not —* much about.’’?

This rationalistic interpretation of the Universe has now ceased. Mark Pattison believed that it extended beyond the eighteenth century down to the publication of the Tracts for the Times. Most people would agree that this is its extremist limit ; so late a date forgets the importance of the Romantic poets as expressive of the spirit of their age. The precise date when the epoch closed, however, is not of great importance, and probably cannot be exactly fixed. What is important is to realize that the age of rationalism in the sense in which the eighteenth century was rationalistic has passed, and given place to a different outlook.

Probably there is no more hazardous proceeding than to attempt to understand one’s own age. One is too near it to understand it. It is like attempting to appreciate a cathedral surrounded by narrow streets which prevent the possibility of a ‘‘ synoptic ”’ view of it. Nevertheless, since the character in which we conceive our age has such an enormous bearing upon the subject in hand, we cannot refrain from venturing a few remarks on the subject.

What seems to be the most outstanding mark of the present age is its scepticism. There is a belief very widespread to-day that ultimate truthis unattainable. Originally it was a creed of the intellectuals which took hold of European thought about the middle of the last century as a reaction against the dominant Hegelianism. Hegel had overwhelming confidence in the powers of reason and system. He believed that he possessed a method which enabled him to explain and even predict the whole course of nature. It was not the simple reason of the eighteenth century, but a more profound reason—a reason which was based (as the student of Hegel will know) not on the logic of contradiction but on the principles of the dialectic method. It was not to be embarrassed if it came into conflict with

1 Essays and Reviews, pp. 295 f.

the facts of science. Hegel said that if the facts of science did not fit his theory, then it was so much the worse for the facts.

_ At Hegel’s death in 1832, his system reigned supreme in Germany. Philosophy and Hegelianism became practically synonymous terms. But a reaction was bound to set in before long as science advanced, and new facts were being discovered for which the Hegelian system allowed no place. Hegelianism was found wanting ; and, because Hegelianism and philosophy had become identified, the abandonment of faith in Hegelianism meant the abandonment of faith in philosophy. In its place there grew up the belief that the only sure knowledge was to be found in the restricted field of natural science. Herbert Spencer held that the answers to such problems as the existence of God and immortality were unknowable, and the word ‘“‘ Agnosticism ’’ was coined to express the proper attitude of the scientist towards questions about the existence and character of Ultimate Reality.

This attitude to the problems of life was originally an academic movement. But within the last half-century it has penetrated far beyond academic circles, and has influenced millions who have never even heard of Hegel and Spencer. By many the belief that there is any other kind of knowledge than scientific knowledge is now hardly thought worthy of discussion. The conflict between science and religion which raged so furiously in the middle of the last century has lulled, not because there has been a decisive victory for one of the combatants, but because it has ceased to arouse interest. Serious attempts to solve questions of Ultimate Reality are decidedly at a discount. The word “philosophy ’’ has become anathema to the popular, and even to the scientific mind. A recent writer producing a popular monograph was requested by his publishers to avoid at all costs the use of the word “ philosophy ’’— otherwise the volume would not sell. Though it would be untrue to say that there is no interest in the popular mind to RELIGION AND THE REIGN OF SCIENCE in religious questions, there is undoubtedly a widespread conviction that absolute truth in such matters is unattainable. The daily Press will sometimes publish a series of articles by eminent writers on such a subject as “ life after death.’’ But such contributions are regarded and read mainly as the somewhat eccentric views of particular people, and the very method in which they are published, when you will find six conflicting opinions in the six issues of the week, with no attempt at reconciliation, suggests the fact that no truth is attainable.

This scepticism has had a serious disintegrating effect on culture in general. The need for a “‘ synoptic vision ”’ is a thing of the past, for it is no longer conceived to be possible. It is the duty of each investigator to apply himself intensively to his own piece of research and to avoid diverting his energies into the study of the relation of his department with the whole field of learning. This has led certainly to colossal achievements in the spheres of science, history, and so on. The astronomers have enormously increased the range of their observations, the inorganic chemists have determined the atomic weights of the elements with a degree of accuracy previously unknown, and the organic chemists have synthesized compounds of highly complex structure. And the historians and philologists have thought no subject too trivial for research. Monographs on the obscurest subjects are produced every year by the thousand. Oxford, it has been said—and what holds here of Oxford is probably still more true of other Universities—is becoming a place where people know more and more about less and less. The academic world is now a world of specialists.

Here again the academic outlook is reflected in the wider world. The present age has an insatiable desire for large numbers of unrelated facts. Its mind is essentially cinematographic. It delights in masses of unco-ordinated knowledge ; and is never happier than when discovering the name of a greyish-brown American nocturnal carnivore

THE REIGN OF SCIENCE it of six letters of which the second is a and the sixth x. The successful author or journalist is the man who can artfully flatter his readers on the extent of their empirical ‘knowledge. And the tourist industry is built up on the knowledge of this omnivorous desire for unco-ordinated data in the modern mind.

One further factor in the present world-outlook is its essentially critical character. Criticism and scepticism ordinarily go hand in hand. But in the case of the present day, criticism has been largely fostered by a sense of disillusionment. The Victorian Age was an age which believed in progress. The belief that things were always tending to something higher and that if they were left to themselves they were bound to improve was the philosophy which underlay the then current liberalism. But such remnants of this creed as survived the turn of the century were finally crushed by the World War. There was seen to be no such inevitable law of upward development. And the consequent disillusionment which has followed has only increased our critical temper. Our criticism may not always be very searching ; only too often it is singularly superficial. But when anything is presented to the modern mind for its acceptance its first reaction is normally one of distrust. This temper, again, has led to great advances in the field of science and history, and, to a certain extent, in philosophy. But it can hardly be the sort of attitude which naturally leads to religious faith.

Such, it seems to us, is a rough picture of the present age of science. Its whole temper differs widely from that of its predecessors. And consequently the form in which religion will present itself, and the means by which it will be best defended in this age, are different from what they have been in the past. The old arguments for the existence of a Supreme Being have lost their force, largely because we no longer have that confidence in the faculty of discursive reasoning which our forefathers had. Even orthodox

Roman Catholic apologists, who hold tenaciously to the validity of the old arguments, are ready to admit that they are of more value for strengthening the faith of the believer than for converting the sceptic. The Christian believes that the core, the essence, of his Faith is an unchanging body of Principles of Truth and Life which transcends all the changes and novelties of this transitory life. But he cannot escape from the fact that the mode in which that Faith is apprehended must differ as the categories used by succeeding ages also change.

One of the outstanding marks of the present age we saw to be its critical character. Nothing is free from the fire of criticism. Now this surely creates difficulties of a fundamental character. For has not religion always claimed that its dogmas are absolute and beyond criticism ? Have they not behind them the weight of a superhuman authority which guarantees their absolute truth and demands their unquestioning acceptance? The Roman Catholic view of dogma is that when promulgated it is to be believed without questioning. Any criticism of it is anathema. The Reformers—or at any rate, their successors—held similar views about the authority of the Bible ; unquestioning assent had to be given to every assertion in the Bible. The early Tractarians, again, attached a like importance to the definitions of the primitive Church. To all these, truth was to be accepted primarily, not because it answered the questionings of the human spirit, but because it was the Revelation of God. To accept a dogma merely because it approved itself to our judgement betrayed an absence of faith. ‘‘ He who rejects any one revealed truth,’ wrote Dr. Pusey, ‘‘ does not hold whatever other truth he does not part with, out of submission to the authority of God Who has revealed it, but because it approves itself in some way to his own natural mind and judgement. What he holds, he holds of himself, according it to be truth, not as Faith.’’2