SCIENCE AND DOGMA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 383, 18 June 1928, Page 14

SCIENCE AND DOGMA

BELIEFS AND RELIGION IN LIFE OF TO-DAY A MODERN PROPHET The creed of Professor Julian Huxley, as set forth in his recent work on “Religion Without Revelation,” is being expounded by the Rev. A. Thornhill, M.A., at the Unitarian Church. Last evening, Mr. Thornhill pointed out that in condemning the sanctified falsities of orthodoxy, Professor Huxley was motived by the ardent desire to strengthen those foundations upon which a religion large as the life of man may be securely built. He saw the head and the heart of civilisation being torn in different directions, and he urged that educated thought, which takes account of the findings of science, could not tolerate the atmosphere of myth and magic and ritual whose meaning was lost in antiquity. Within the past day or two the British House of Commons had been debating the issue, not whether there should be a new Prayer Book in which all that concerns human life shall be exalted into a sacrament* but whether the official Church of England should revert to the doctrine of the Mass, a doctrine which affirmed that bread and wine were transmuted into the body and blood of a deified man which could be eaten, and reserved, and possibly worshipped. Such beliefs were as remote from real religion in the eyes of Professor Huxley as the Orphic mysteries of 2000 years ago in which they had their origin. The preacher said the church was blameworthy for having placed such doctrines in the forefront of its teaching, with the result that the world was for centuries kept in comparative ignorance of the parables, and precepts of Jesus, his words against wickedness in high places, and his radiant vision of the Kingdom of God. Quoting Professor Huxley, Mr. Thornhill showed how the ecclesiastical authorities had persecuted successive pioneers of thought from Roger Bacon down to Darwin. This persecution was inspired by the foolish fear that religion would suffer if its rites and dogmas were undermined. The opposite was the case. The discoveries of science and the progress of philosophy and psychology proved that the world is alive with deity. “What darkens the world is the dismal conception of its creation perpetuated in creeds which tell of an angry God, a sin-polluted race, a bloody atonement, and a Hell of eternal torment for misbelievers who seek heaven by other paths. There were many such paths—perhaps as many paths Godward as there were seekers.

Although an eminent scientist, Professor Huxley recognised that there are other and perhaps more powerful clues than science to the nature of the ground for religion and life. Science, with all its achievements, was infantile. We learn much more about some aspects of our nature from poets and novelists, from pictures and music, from the study of religion and mysticism, from history and biography and from daily intercourse than from all the text-books of psychology. In fact, the spiritual elements which are divine are part and parcel of human nature. He surmised that a census would reveal that a very large number of ministers believe neither in the Virgin birth, nor a physical hell, nor in everlasting punishment, and earnest Christians disbelieved in a physical resurrection. Why not openly confess it? Why not concentrate every ounce of strength and every grain of wisdom intelligence and ingenuity in trying out the religion of Jesus in personal conduct and communal life, asked Mr. Thornhill. For nearly 1900 years they had given that teaching lip-service. They first crucified and then deified its author. They heaped titles upon him. They crowned Him with many crowns. They surrounded Him with a bodyguard of priests who made direct access to him impossible for the common people for centuries. They built great cathedrals in His name; but they made no collective effort to translate His teaching into the laws that govern politics, trade, and industry. And then, marvelling at the consequent chaos they were calling to Him to come and cleanse the world for whose enlightenment He lived and died!