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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 27

Theology and Science

Theology and Science.

If any system of theology is necessarily anthropomorphic, if any system that postulates Deity and at the same time makes predications concerning it evidences the same flaw, wherein do views such as these conflict with the teachings of modern science? Does science point to the existence of a power underlying phenomena? and if so, in what manner does her indication differ from the assumption of the theologian or the Deist? These are questions of the highest moment to us. There can be no question that science does most unmistakably point to a something—I will not call it a power—a something not ourselves, underlying the world of sense. This, however, forms a psychological rather than a physical puzzle. It seems to be a necessity of thought to conceive of noumena as distinguished from phenomena, to conceive of something in which qualities coin - here and are grouped together so as to form what we call a thing. This conception may or may not be true, but the only thing we can be sure of is that the truth of that conception we can never verify, and therefore can never know. Take an apple, for instance, and see if you can think away any one of its qualities, and you will find as a matter of fact that you cannot. If you could do this, you can readily conceive that what would remain would not be an apple at all. An apple is of a certain colour, of a certain shape, and of a certain taste. This knowledge we get from the eye, touch and the muscular sense, and the organs of taste, respectively. These sense qualities, colour, shape, taste, are grouped together by the mind, and to the thing before us we give the name "apple." The process of grouping qualities together so as to form a thing is said to be due to the synthetic power of the mind; and it seems to be a necessity of thought, as 1 have said, to conceive of something outside of us giving rise to the changes in our sense organs which we call qualities, something in which these qualities co-inhere. And although when we analyse our groups of sensations we know that the odour is not in the rose, nor the colour in the violet, but that these are subjective and not objective, yet we are compelled to imagine an objective something which gives rise to these impressions of sense. And yet all that we know is that an apple is a group of sense impressions objectified by the mind. You cannot think away one of the qualities of a thing. An apple must be of some colour. It is inconceivable, it is unthinkable, to have a visible thing without colour. You may think of a change of colour, but you cannot think of absence of colour. Similarly you may think the shape of the apple changed, but you cannot think of it having no shape. Nor can you think of it without taste, although you can readily conceive the taste changed. Now, if you could picture to the mind (which of course you cannot do) a thing without shape and without colour, that thing would most assuredly not convey to your mind the idea of an apple; it would not be an apple, nor would it be anything else that we are capable of thinking about. It is beyond our capacity of thought, and therefore totally beyond our knowledge; and what a thing is outside of its qualities, what it is that underlies the world of phenomena, that we can never know, in spite of Schelling's abortive attempt to get over the difficulty by postulating an intellectual sense. It has been urged, and it is quite true, that had we ten senses instead of six, our sensible world would be larger than it is, things which are now beyond our ken would come into being. Unfortunately, however, the number of our senses is limited to six, nor do we know of any indication that would warrant us in believing that we are likely to develop any others. We cannot conceive of another sense, but if we had ten thousand senses the mystery of existence would still be the same, our world would still be a world of phenomena, and the reality underlying phenomena we would still be unable to grasp. This, it seems to me, is the farthest point to which science can go. Science, therefore, does most unmistakably point to a something not ourselves underlying the world of phenomena, but about that something she is dumb, and she knows that she must ever remain so. She does not say that such a thing exists, but she says that we cannot think of it not existing, and that is the sum of her predication about the matter. If she were asked to formulate a proposition embodying that view she might possibly say that what the mind is compelled to think as underlying the world of sensible things is the sum of the negation of things. Further than this she could not go. Therefore it is that the teachings of science are directly opposed to the fundamental principles of any system of theology. The idea of a first cause, she does not tolerate, because she knows that that idea is absolutely unthinkable. Science only deals with the world of phenomena—her researches do not extend beyond that sphere because she knows, and inferentially asserts, that such research must ever be in vain. To her there is no knowledge outside of experience. Her position is purely and simply that of the page 9 Agnostic, and from her teachings we learn that the position of the Agnostic is the only logical one possible.

I notice that the Bishop of Melbourne has recently seen occasion to refer to the Agnostic in terms of severe disparagement. It is not worth an Agnostic's while, however, to notice the arguments which the learned bishop uses to support his position, for argum at there is none. In its place there is a little gentlemanly abuse, which the Agnostic, or any other searcher after truth, can afford to despise, for abuse, even of a gentlemanly kind, and even when made use of by a bishop, is of no avail when it has the stern logic of the sciences to deal with. The man who is eager in the search for truth is prepared to welcome her whenever her fair form appears, no matter if her trailing garments sweep away his most cherished ideals; and he can afford to abide the jeers and scoffs of those who heap contumely on him, well knowing that they sin through ignorance, and cry out because they are weak. Such truth-seekers are Herbert Spencer, Tyndall. and Huxley—the latter two of whom the bishop curiously enough seems to rank in the category of Materialists. Anyone who is acquainted with Tyndall's writings should know that Tyndall's position is purely Agnostic; while it is Huxley himself who says that the only escape from Materialism is Agnosticism. Is it not startling to find such sparsity of knowledge on the part of those who pretend to criticise the positions of the leading men of thought? And while I am digressing let me draw attention to the looseness of phraseology which again and again characterises the writings of some when dealing with technical words. In a leading article of the Australasian condemning the position taken up by the opponents of the Rev. Charles Strong, I find this remarkable sentence, "The Science of Theology is no less progressive than the Natural Sciences." To hear Theology dignified by the name of science is enough to make us wonder if we live in the nineteenth century, and to be told it is a progressive science is almost sufficient to make us doubt the fact of our existence when we consider that theology has not given birth to one single new idea for hundreds of years. I only mention this as an instance of the muddiness of thought that is apt to characterise many of those who write about theology, for I take it that obscurity of language is the great concomitant of obscurity or absence of thought.

To return, I say then that science dumbly points to a something behind existence, but whether that something is a fiction of the mind, or a something real she cannot and never can know. But she does know that the God of the theologian is a fiction of the mind, for, by analyzing this idea of God and divesting it of its human attributes, she can show that instead of God creating the world it is the world that has created God. When, however, the man of science strips the false conceptions and human qualities from off the God of the theologian the residuum is his own unknown and unknowable power. Unknown and unknowable, these are the final dicta of science. When, therefore, theology assert? that this unknowable is known, calls it God, asserts that the world was created by it, that God is an intelligent power, and is the father, the friend, the guide, and the support of our race,—how can there be anything else than conflict between theology and science. And yet Judge Higinbotham tells us that there is no opposition between modern science and religion—using religion in the sense that points to the existence of a supreme mind, and the relation existing between that mind and the derived mind of man. Those of you who have followed me thus far will see that there is the most direct opposition. Science as I have said deals with the known, and the unknown that is nevertheless knowable. Religion—theology—deals with the unknowable and illogically asserts that it is known. To understand the former proposition aright it is necessary to remember that science draws a limit round thought, and asserts that outside of that limit knowledge cannot go. Inside lies the domain of possible truth. If anyone, fifty years ago, had asserted that he knew there were metals in the sun similar to those on our planet, he would probably have been considered insane. But now, by the aid of photography and the spectroscope we are enabled to detect the presence of these metals with as much certainty as we know that two and two make four, or that two straight lines cannot enclose a space. Fifty years ago, then, this fact was unknown and would have been considered absurd, but the result has proved that it was knowable for it is now actually known. And it is with equal certainty known that we cannot know a thing apart from its attributes, apart from the forms which the mind gives it. That we cannot know things in themselves is of the highest certainty possible. Our knowledge is limited to the capacities of our organisms to the conditions of thought, and a man cannot, go beyond that limit, any more than he can climb up his own back. Science, then, indicates what can and what cannot be known, and limits herself to experience and to possibilities of experience. Theology is not based upon knowledge at all, but upon faith, belief. She calmly postulates a deity and asks her votaries to believe in that deity. If she asserts the credibility and truth of an absurdity how can her doctrines be in harmony with the truths of science.

In dealing with the origin of matter too, the Judge wants to know the whence? and the why? and his answer thereto evidences a page 10 strange want of logical acumen: He makes the remarkable statement that science cannot rationally refuse to accept the only hypothesis pretending to explain all phenomena, and therefore to account for their origin (the creation hypothesis) or to suggest another more suitable one. This amounts to the startling assertion that out of two explanations given of a thing, that which seems the more probable is the true one. For instance, Laplace's Nebular Hypothesis is the one which perhaps better explains the phenomena of the universe than any other which has yet been advanced, but because no other is forthcoming that is no reason why we should accept Laplace's theory. As a matter of fact Science does not accept it or any other yet given, because she deems the evidence quite insufficient, consequently she merely waits in a state of passivity until some explanation is given which is deemed quite satisfactory. Besides with reference to the divinity hypothesis Science asserts that she can show that it is totally erroneous; strange would be her position, therefore, if she accepted it as true. She says that the idea of beginning is unthinkable, that the laws of our being really forbid us from forming any idea about beginning, and therefore that she has nothing to do with either accepting or rejecting any theory that professes to account for an absolute origin of things, because she deems such a question an absurd one. The whence? and the why? are not questions that we need to trouble ourselves about. All that we need to consider is that we are here, and remembering that to endeavour to find out what we should do—and do it. That is our duty. The question of whence? must forever remain in darkness as well as the question whither? "Where do we find ourselves?" says Emerson," In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But the genius which, according to the old belief, stands at the door by which we enter, and gives us the lethe to drink, that we may tell no tales, mixed the cup too strongly, and we cannot shake off the lethargy now at noonday. Sleep lingers all our lifetimes about our eyes, as night hovers all day about the boughs of the fir tree. All things swim and glitter. Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. Ghostlike we glide through nature and would not know our place again."

The Judge's belief, then, in a divine government and origin of things, must be accounted for from the fact that he does not recognise the strength of the Agnostic's impregnable position, and has overlooked the teachings of modern metaphysics and ethics. He thinks that it is very astounding that we are unable to determine whether there are sufficient reasons to necessitate a belief in the existence of God, and whether there is any basis for morality other than supposed personal interest or utility. I have tried very briefly, and perhaps very imperfectly, to show in this paper that quite sufficient reason can be shown to necessitate a disbelief in the accuracy of the Deist's or the theologian's conception concerning God. Belief is a very different thing from knowledge. We may believe in the existence of a supreme power underlying phenomena; but we are not warranted in making any predication whatever about such a power, for it, if such there be, is wholly without our experience. All we can say is "there may be" but

—" We cannot know,

For knowledge is of things we see."

Whether there is any basis for morality beyond ulitity is an ethical, not a theological question, and must be determined on sociological ground. And the theory of divine government, however, it would appear, seems to exercise very little influence on the lives and characters of the majority of men. The basis of morality is to be found in the sociological medium, and must be sought for there and not in any theory of divine influence. Duty is a social, not a theological question.