FOR THE SABBATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 514, 2 November 1912, Page 7

FOR THE SABBATH.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF SCIENTISTS. QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 1. Is there any real conflict between the facts of Science and the fundamentals of Christianity? 2. Has it been your experience to find men of Science irreligious and anti-Christian? The firßt reply is by Sir George G. Stokes. He was over fifty years Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. "For sixty years of my life," said Lord Kellvin, "I looked on Stokes as my teacher, guide, and friend. He ranged," added that great man, "over the whole domain of natural philosophy in his work and thought." About him Professor Huxley wrote: "There is no one of whom I have a higher opinion as a man of science, no one whom I should be more glad to serve under, and to support year aftur year in the Chairof the (Royal) Society." While, to Dr Gladstone he was "the Sir Isaac Newton of to-day." For over thirty-one years Sir George Stoke 3 held the secretaryship of the Royal Society, and was, on resigning that post in 1885, elected president. His acquaintance with scientific men must, necessarily have been very extensive. He wrote: —"I can reply at once, and with much pleasure to your inquiries.

1. A3 to the statements that "recent scientific research has shown the Bible and Reiligon to be untrue," the answer I should give is simply that the statement is altogether untrue. I know of no sound conclusions of Science that are opposed to the Christian religion. There may be wild scientific conjectures put forward by gome, chiefly those whose science is only at second-hand, as if they well-established scientific conclusions,' and which may be of such a nature as to involve, on the assumption that thay are true, certain difficulties; 1 would not go so far as to speak of opposition, as for the most part Religion and Science move on such different lines that there is hardly opportunity for opposition. "But. if an appearance of opposition may sometimes arise from this cause, it far oftener, I think, arises from the errors of the defenders of the Faith once delivered to the saints, in putting forward propositions which are mere human accretions to it, and presenting the two as if they had equal claim to acceptance. When I speak of the errors of defenders of the

Faith I am not thinking of the learned theologians of the present day, but rather of thoae of a bygones age, from whom these accretions passed into tha popular theology, and were supposed to be involved in the Christian Faith. This mistaken belief afforded inndela a handle for attacking the Faith trough the error involved in some of the accretions to it. To illustrate my meaning I will refer to a proposition dogmatically laid down as a part of the Christian Faith in a standard work written, I believe, one or two centuries ago. It is that the Chris tian doctrine of the future resurrection requires us to believe that all the particles of the present body, however widely separated, even though the body may have been burnt to ashes and the ashes strewn to the wind 3 will be brought together and will be re-animated to form the future body. I daresay many an infidel lecturer has descanted on the difficulties of believing such a proposition as that. But before the Christian apologist replies by falling back on the principle that "with God all things are possible," he would do well to consider whether there is any occasion to defend the proposition at all. Mv own conviction is that there is no such proposition invotved in the scriptural doctrine of the Resurrection. The notion that it is involved in it seems to me intensely silly. I would doubt if you would find a single theologian at the present day who would regard the Bropositiun as connected in any way with Christianity. But I doubt if infidel lecturers have ever yet given up harping on it. I may appear to have been treating a theological fossil as if it were a living animal. But it may serve very well as an illustration of my meaning. 2. You say, "as far as my reading goes I am of opinion that true Science and true Religion harmonise." I am of the same opinion.

3. You ask if it has been my experience to find "the greatest scientists irreliigous." That has not been my experience, bat the reverse. To confine myself to my own line of mathematical science, and to those who are no longer ori earth, though not very many years dead, I could not well select more eminent scientists, of world-wide reputation, than Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Adams, the discoverer of Neptune. I knew all three very well, especially Maxwell and Adams, with whom I was very intimate. I know that they were all deeply religious, Christian men. A QUESTION ANSWERED BY THE BISHOP OF LONDON. "Why is it I find the hardest part of Christianity centres in the realisation of the life of Jesus on earth?" I continually read hymn 144 (Arcient and Modern), "We saw Thea not when Thou didst come,'' but have to confess it is almost impossible for me to realise the fact as stated in it. Now 1 feel certain that the writer, probably from lack of opportunity, has never studied Christian evidence. I believe many church people wake up and suddenly say, "How do I know all this is true?" They have never studied anything, never read anything about the evidence of the life of Jesus Christ, outside the Uospel, and therefore they have nothing to fall bacK upon. Every churchman ought to study the history of the bible, and Christian evidence, in order that all may be much more intelligent Christian than at present. We are at the mercy too often of every secularist's sneer because we do not know enough. Take ""four points, which I have only time to mention. Do you realise, my brother, who asks this question, that Jesus Christ n mentioned by the historian Tacitus? "Jesus Christ was put to death" —I could tell you the Latin words if you wanted them ■—"in the reign of Tiberius Caesar," therefore he is a historical character quite apart from our Gospel history or any Christian history at all. Then, again, have you thought how the whole of history centres as it were, round Jesus Christ? He is to-day by far the greatest influence in Europe. You talk about the German Emperor, or some one else, being a great personality. Jesus Christ has always towered, like a great statue, above the head of every personality in the whole ot Europe; everybody is dwarfed by Him. Or again, take Sunday (I shall have a word to say about Sunday in minute), how did SSunday com 6to us? lam j ua ' : taking an obvious point. It is quite clear that a body of Jews—a very conservative body of people changed their sacred day; from Saturday to Friday? No. But it would have been Friday if Jesus Christ had died and never been seen again. That was the day He died. But to Sunday. Why Sunday? Nothing whatever happened on a Sunday unless the Resurrection took place. And therefore the existence of Sunday alone is a standing proof of the Christian Church. Do you suppose j that this great victorious Christian t Church which converts hundreds of thousands every year throughout the world was started by the sight of a dead peasant on the Cross on Good Friday? It is impossible. The disciples were all going away miserable and unhappy, thinking that they had been mistaken in their hopes. It must have been something tremendous that happened on the Sunday which started the Christian Church on its Victorious career.