RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1599, 16 November 1912, Page 9

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

— <? MIRACLES. DISCUSSfON AT ANGLICAN CONGRESS. VIEWS OF PROFESSOR SAND AY AND OTHERS. Miracles were discussed at the Anglican Church Congress at Middlesbrough on October 3, tho subject being introduced by the Dean of Christ Church (tho Very Rev. T. B. Strong). They had to settle, he said, whether they were going to look at the world from the mechanical or the spiritual point of view. Tile question of miracles was not a question of detail, or one that could be* neglected in tho interval of practical or spiritual religion. It was one form of tho question whether God made and governed tho world, and to decide this negatively was. to adopt some form of technical materialism. A decision on this point in favour of miracles did not commit them to the acceptance of this or that miraculous story.. They had still to deal with them on the basis of historical evidence. Was there, then, any alternative.to the mechanical view q£ modern science? In answer to this question they must call attention to the fact that the mechanical >icw or the world had befru recently assailed in several directions. First, its admirers regarded as its chief title to fauio the fact that the laws which it declared wero in the highest degree abstract. But to this it was replied that overy stop towards higher abstraction was j a step away from reality. Reality, said the critics, was always individual and unique; they could only find laws by neg-. lecting all tho individual and uniquo properties in things, and thinking merely of their general characteristics. This implied that, the laws themselves were never quite exactly true; they required correction from time to time, and they must be regarded' rather as a' system of convenient formulae than as a final account of absolute truth. It conid not, -ho thought, bo denied that there was force in those criticisms, forco sufficient to shako considerably "tile claims of "tiie' mechanical view of nature' to bo the only possible account of it. ' Again, the mechanical view had notoriously failed so far to explain the. rise of consciousness in connection with certain molecular changes. These and other signs of dissatisfaction definitely suggested that the mechanical, theory was- much more , seriously on trial than was often supposed, and pointed to a view of tho world in which the operation of was necessary from the beginning. If such a view were adopted the- Main difficulty disappeared. They could not regard tho operation even of material laws as independent of the volition of God, and it became no longer necessary to try to interpret .miracles in. tho terms of the mechanical theory of the worlds,. The - Supernatural and the Abnormal. Canon Sunday, Lady Margaret Professor Of Divinity at Oxford, speaking of the historical evidence For miracles, urged that the whole Bible is full'of symbolism, and tliat this symbolical element is just the most significant and the most characteristic. Broadly speaking,. he" thought we must say that the evidence for the New Testament miracles is good. In the ease of St. Paul, so long as we kept to general terms; ho would call it more than good, even decisive. He had no' doubt whatever that St. Paul ..fully .believed ho had the power of "working miracles-, .and, that he had often used it. We might say broadly that the narratives of miracle .ill the Gospels rested ou sound historical foundations. He had no doubt at all that what he said about St. Paul was true also of our Lord Himself. He not only lived in a' supernatural atmosphere, but was Him- . self the creative, centre of that atmosphere, His .Person was supernatural, and virtue went out from it. There was a real distinction between the supernatural and the abnormal, and when wo began to philosophise about miracles at the present day it was right to mako allowance for this. 'He for one would be ready to make the utmost allowance that could possibly bo tuade for the presence in the world of a unique personality, but ho shrankrfrom \vhat/\yas really Tho whole probleA? ofmiracles was to find the exact/point at which, the supernatural ended and the really abnormal began. In some important cases-, we should have to walk by faith-and not by sight,., leaving'tho ancient narrative as- it' stoodland saying to ourselves that if we .knew more it would probably turn o.ut' to be less abnormal than it seemed. ' Faith Healing. "All scientific discoveries," declared Dr. Headlam, the Principal of King's College, London, "seem to be rationally impossible before they are made, and things are only abnormal until they happen, and then they cause us to alter our laws. Some of, the so-called miracles, such as the healing of the sick and tho casting out of devils, were not in any way miraculous.. All that happened was that out. Lord exhibited great powers as a faith liealer. The feeding in the wilderness had bettor evidenco in its favour than any other miracle." Canon Carnegie (Birmingham) said it was impossible to eliminate the miraculous principle and to give an account of Christianity in terms which made no reference to it. There was a fundamental and essential need to which belief in the actual occurrence of Christ's Resurrection related itself, und"wliich, apart from that belief, seemed destined to remain unsatisfied. He did not anticipate that loss of belief ill Christ's Resurrection would connote for him the end of his religious life. His religion would remain, biit it ivoi]M bo a religion which tended to approximate to the Bhuddist rather than to the Catholic type, a religion which tended to substitute the gospel of Nirvana for that of tho Kingdom. Prebendary Webb Peploe thought he detected a liote of indecision iu I'rofessol - Sauday's remarks. Trying to Find an Expression. ; Dr. Sanday, interposing, said it was 1 quite true what he had said might be- described as an attitude of indecision. (Hear, hear.) In his ease it was not indecision as to the truth of the Christian | creed; it" was another, matter when! one was trying to find a right expression, an expression which would include and harmonise a number of movements Of thought. (Hear, hear.) Preb. Webb Peploo declared. that the certain testimony of the Word of God was all that the parochial■clergy could take to tho parochial Christians to whom thev had to minister.. - Tho Rev. J. 11. Skrine, recently Bampton Lecturer, argued that logic had no power to do.il with the region where tho human and the cftrnal mingled. The vicar of Holy' Trinity, Hull, urged that naturalism began with a denial of sin. There wore the pitiable performances of smnt! of their politicians— (lauihter)—and the attitude taken up by theiii in tho matter of secular education. Tho Bishop of Hull complained that scientists come to tho discussion of tho supernatural with predispositions. They did not .get their materialism out of their sciencc, but they tacked on to then science some system of philo.sopliy—probably a. vary ancient system indeed. (Hear, hear.) If o man honestly could, not-ac-cept the miraculous he must foliow such lights as he possessed, but if he asked I hem- to accept his particular form of Christianity and to. make it their Own they could not do ift--- (Cheers.) The Archbishop Sums Up. Tho Archbishop of York, summing up, was-judicious and almost judicial. "In the past," ho said, "the Church has made a great' mistake in not having an ad-' vanned guard outside the walls of the I:iladel of accepted truth. Advanced thinkers like Professor Sandny are singu- j larly to be valued, and I shall wait with, interest for the further views he pro-' misss us; but," tho Archbishop added amid a storm of cheers, "there is no flavour- of anxiety iu that interest. Remember that tho Gospels are not an attempt to build up a picture for us, but. ere a revelation of something beyoml imagination, bpyoiiW, ttt times, l.'lio liudorstanding of those wlio wrote thorn." The Archbishop went oil to &ny that ho earnestly trusted that one result of "the witness of the Church" that day would be to induce his brethren-not to ."i'gard this question, as the clergy were pometimcs apt to regard it, as one w'hich cm every side was closed. Let them always beware oi' this tendency. There were aspects ' of fills question regarding which, if they were not entitled to keep an open mind, yet thoy were bound to treat with respect those who were going forth on behalf of their faith into a -widet region, (CheSrs.) It .was ,the pe-..

ouliar dislmotion of tlio Cliitrchi. of. En.?* land that it made a confident appeal to sound learning, and reverent thlpkiqg.. (Cheers.) As wo learn more aful more the mechanical theory of the workl would cease to l>e lield Jjj' our best scientific thinkers.' Certain books recently written, showed no -grasp of tho New Testament narratives, and showed little ■ realisation of tho movement of scientific and philosophic thought. ■ . ...