SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 306, 20 May 1911, Page 9

SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

A REMARKABLE PAPER. Sir Ulivor Lodge read a paper on the Christian revelation from a scientific point of view at the Council of Free Churches on .March '.I, Jt was a statement of the conclusions respecting the universe to which he as a student of physical science had been led. lie also referred to his exploration into unusual psychical developments. To express his view in a sentence, one may say it is that there is no scientific ground for denying the Christian belief in Cod, the incarnation, or mi)aides, lie had learned. he -aid. to regard the universe as a, concrete and full-bodied reality, all of it capable of being understood and investigated by the human mind. Every single thing had many aspects, none of them exhaustive of the subject, but nil of them real. Our senses did not deceive us, for instance, as to the character of water. Their testimony was true as far as it went, and the more complex truths ascertained liv men of science did not make the Ampler ones false. But, the whole truth about the simplest thing was beyond its. So it was with the concept Cod. It could be regarded from some absolute and transcendental standpoint which humanity could only pretend to. It could be regarded as the highest and best idea which the human mind has as yet been able to form, ft could be regarded as dominating and including all existence, and as synonymous with all existence. All these views were right, hut they were not final or complete. Cod could also lie represented by some of the a 1 tributes of humanity, and could be depicted as a powerful and loving friend with whom our spirits might commune at every hour of the day: one whose patience and wisdom and long suffering and benelicenee were never exhausted. lie could, in fact, he regarded as displayed to us in such fashion as we could make use of in the person of an incarnate being who came for the express purpose of revealing to man sucii attributes of Deity as would otherwise have been missed. Each of these aspects was true; all of them were not exhaustive. CONCEPTIONS OF DEITY. How could we conceive of Deity? In answer to tlie question Sir Oliver Lodge used as an analogy the relation of the white corpuscles in (he blood to (he hitman body. Each corpuscle is, he said, a living creature endowed wii.li the powers of locomotion, assimilation, and reproduction by division. Suppose one of those corpuscles endowed with intelligence. What conception of the universe would it he able to form? If philosophically minded it might speculate on a being of which it and all its like formed a part., an immanent deity whose constituents they were, a being to whose existence they contributed and whose purposes they served or shared. So far they would be right. But if they entered on negations and surmised that that immanent aspect of the universe in which they lived was the only aspect, and that there was no personality, no mind, 110 purpose apart front them and their like, they would greatly err. All analogies failed at some point, but this analogy would hear pressing rather far. We were the white corpuscles of the cosmos, serving and forming part of an immanent, Deity. Our activity and service were really helpful, and we were really an essential part of His existence, which likewise included all the perceptible universe. But to suppose that this exhausted the matter, and that the Deity had no transcendent existence of which we could form 110 idea, and to suppose that what happened was not the result of His dominant and controlling personality, was to step beyond legitimate inference and to treat appearance as exhaustive of reality. Always distrust negations. Sir Oliver said, they commonly signify blindness and prejudice. THE FUTURE STATE. Sir Oliver Lodge said that the Incarnation was a fact. We were conscious of our own identity, our own mind, purpose. and will. We were also conscious of the matter in which it was incarnate and manifested. Both the spiritual and the material were real and true. Tt was not likely that we were the only beings with like powers in the universe. There might be higher grades up to the Divine, just as there were lower grades down to tlie amoeba. lie believed not only that continued existence was possible. but also that communication across the chasm was occasionally and with difficulty possible. He had come to this conclusion slowly, and it was either folly and self-deception or it was of great importance to humanity—-.(Hear, hear.) It was a subject which attracted cranks and charlatans, and he called upon the educated of the younger generation not to accept assertions without severe scrutiny, but to keep an open mind. The future stale had been spoken of as something altogether transcendental. It was not necessarily so at all; it might be something far more near terrestrial experience than we had imagined. Tt appeared to be a state which left personality, character and intelligence much as they were, There was no sudden jump into something supernal, but steady and continued progress—many activities and interests beyond our present ken, but full interest in the doings of those still on earth, together with great desire to help and encourage all efforts for the welfare of the race. THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF COD. The Christian conception of Cod, Sir Oliver went on, was humanly simple. That was t.he way with the greatest things. The sun was a glorious object, full of mystery and unknown forces, but the sunshine was a friendly and homely thing which shone in at a cottage window. The sunshine was not the sun, but it was the human and terrestrial aspect of the sun, and it was that which mattered in daily life. ''Thus," Sir Oliver said, "would*T represent the Christian conception of Cod. Christ is the human and practical and workaday aspect; Christ is the sunshine, that fraction of transcendental cosmic Deity which suffices for the earth, —(Applause.) Jesus of Nazareth is plainly a terrestrial heritage. His advent is the glory of the human race." Cod's views of things must be more akin to that pf the plain mail that) to that of the philosopher or the statistician. That was how it came that children were called fo the Kingdom of Heaven. Kxistence was a great adventure. It was a. real risk. There was a risk about creation as soon as it went beyond the inertia of mechanics. The granting of free will involved a risk. Men could have been kept right by main force. But Cod had a greater thing in mind, which was the creation of human beings who would do right, because they willed and not because they must, hi the universe there were probably higher grades of beings, and perhaps being who had fallen lower. That was the risk. Surely the risk was nearly over as regarded this planet.—(Loud cheers.)