THE RECONSTRUCTION OF BELIEF.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1407, 6 April 1912, Page 9

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF BELIEF.

lil.SIlOl 1 CORK'S SKCOXD LECTUBE. 1 iio liisiiop nf Oxford (Dr. Gore) gave Ills second lei liire on "Tin! Kecimslruction ot lieliel" at Oxford on I'Y'bniary J.']. As ill lilt l lirst lecture, (hi' [:rcal .North School whs cru'iVvli'tl witi, a ninsf. roproM-utntivo ii ml it'iitc. I'here were .11 i';n[s of Houses, us I lie Warden nf i\'eiv (Ailicgo liiul tliu \\ nnlen nf liefole, ami dignitaries such lis I lie Archdeacon ul Herkshire, the Principal ni' CmldcMlon, the l{ev. I). ('. Dormer, Se-ii ir Fellow of St. John's, whilo Dr. lia-hdall, Dr. A. ,1. Carlyle, I'rofcssor Percy t! miner repre-ciilcd liroail Churchmen. ecclesiastics there vera many lay tu(-.<is, ami uiidor|;radunte.s came in throng. The Kisliop is a lirstnile lecturer; tie j^-ripp.-d llui addition of his aitdiene; l fit ti];; of his loclure, Mini h-?hl it: (ill the eiid. Not the least el'reiivi) passaiie in his lecture was that, in wlik'li lie dealt with the remark, a.-cril;,-d, as he said, to Loni Macaulay, that all .'cnsilile men am of .one religinii, hut what that religion is no ssnsiiilo man ever tells, lie pointed out lucidly that this "one religion" was a residuum of the beliefs common in the chief religions 1)1 the will-111, but thai Hit! objection tn I he action of (lie "m'U.mljlp men" was Hint they likel la rail this thoistic residuum Christianity, which emphatically it was not.

After dealing with the fundamental ideas iiiiderlyins Christianity, J)r. Gore, went on to refer to man's place in tho universe. Hi- said:

"Asti-juomers have reduced man to a speck ill siKii-p, man and his world, and .vology has rolled out the ages, age behind age, and r.iadu him but a moment in time, and biology has taken up the story from astronomy and ecology and man appears now as just one changing ripple on the river of life. So that whatever reasonableness I hero was about an anthrop)centiic religbn centuries ago there is no reason about it. no probability about it now. Thai; is very often said, I think—not, 1. suppose, in tho regions of accurate or philosophical thinking, but in popular reasoning. 1 think it. is quite fiinclaiiitftihilly ami' deniouslrnbly fakethat is to say. it docs not seem to me that the progress oi science has even tended to the ■Vthroooment; of man. It is <(iiile true thai it has prolonged the lislas of time and of space infinitely; it is quite true Hut it has dethroned man from the. position, as far as we know, of physicil centraiily; but, so far as we I;now, of the development of the material world and of life man remains, indisputably and niK|iiestionably, its climax and its, crown, in a manner more impressive than in the days before the vastness of tho scale ami the immensity of the method were open to man's investigation or conjecture. It llicro is .such a (hinj; as a climax in creation as we know it, if there is any interpreter of the purpose of creation, if there is such a thinjj as a vicegerent of floil in the world who can know the mind and the force which made Nature, and interpret it, then that is man, and only man." Ju cnn:luvior., Dr. Gore had somethiiif! to say about symbolism. He staled: "Natural religion everywhere tecs God; there God is in everything, and everything becomes symbolic, sacramental, expressive, and of all these manifold innumerable symbols of the Divine no one .symbol is essential. God is in everything, and everything represents Gcd, and everywhere there are symbols and Sacraments, partly revealing and partly concealing God Who is in all things, and no one is complete and no one is necessary. And this doctrine is Christian. Christianity appropriates it and assumes it and identifies itself with it, and therefore no Chrstian ought, I think, to be afraid of the idea of symbol or myth or Sacrament, but we are constantly' oppressed with this truth, constantly oppressed also with the _ inadequacy of all symbolic representation, so as to■■niaka us abandon any idea of a positive revelation as something incompatible with this mode of thinking, or any insistency on anv particular event as central or crucial," like the miracles. ... It seems to me that wo can only be tauglrt iibont things which lie outside our possible experience, our possible present experience, in symbol. So of heaven, so of hell. AVe are'vmy often told: "You admit svmbol into the' Creed when you say ■lie ascended into heaven' and 'He descended into he 11. ",. Perfectly true. They have always known it when they said 'lie silteth at the right hand of God the Father.' Doubtless in old days they thought that heaven was above our heads and hell under our feet. We know better; but it does not seem that it affects tho situation at all materially.' 'We still inevitably and constantly talk about higher thoughts, what is morally better and what is morallv worse, in terms of higher and lower. We cannot help it. It we think of heaven we must think of going nn. If we think of hell we must think o"f gointf down. So, then, once a"«in let it bo granted that whatever lies outside the possibilities of our human exnerience we must talk about in symbols. ". Now vou get to the events of the Gospel—to'those events which the Christian couscieiv-e especially made, central and look into its creed. There you have "ot to do with something; not that lies outside human experience, but with something that, with all the efforts of its nrofc-sion, professes to come inside, mo whole point is Hmt Oad proved His purpose, shoved His Hand, bv doing thofo thiirs within hiiiiun experience, by describing them in phrases in regard 0 which there is no mistake., 'I.heso ; thinjft aro described in phrases intelligible, m the liqht of human experience, these facs about our Lord's Hirtn. ot a Virgin, if they be fact, about the empty tomb, about the appearances of tho risen Body.