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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University, Wellington. Vol. 24, No. 3. 1961

Faith and Knowledge

Faith and Knowledge

A talk by the Rev. Lance Robinson to the S.C.M. recently indicated an interesting aspect of the relationship between faith and the search for knowledge.

If a student is at university for a purpose other than the one of gaining a more expensive meal ticket, or a wife (or husband), he is there to search for the truth, in his chosen field of enquiry.

Mr Robinson demolished the idea that a Christian is of a chosen race, endowed with the complete truth and that anything more he will learn has no relation to this old "inclysendent and sanctified Truth": he declared the idea dangerous, un-Christian and lacking in faith. Christ has said "Love God with your mind . . . for God is Truth," therefore anything that is of God is true, and assurance of God allows searching of all knowledge.

The primary responsibility of the University Christian, Mr Robinson said, was to serve God with his mind.

This is an idea recognised by some Christians in some universities. Many students however still regard Christianity as a pious, emotional, escapism which has little relation to study or intellect.

Having laid down the primary responsibility of the Christian, Mr Robinson said: "The refusal to entertain doubt is a mark of a lack of faith. If there is a God of Truth he will want the Christian to search for the truth, even if it leads him to doubt His very existence." If religion is as important as anything else in this world, and if one's life-work depends on one's attitude to it, then surely it deserves a fearless enquiring.

Man, especially the student race evidently cannot live by bread alone: He has his books, his lecturers; he must also have his imagination.