The Bibliotheca Sacra (Volume 31) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ARTICLE III. NATURAL REALISM; OR, FAITH, THE BASIS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION. BY J. MACBRIDE 8TEBRETT, ASSISTANT MINISTER OP CHRIST CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N.Y. I. FAITH THE BASIS OF SCIENCE. Nothing is more common to-day than the confident assertion that truth is one, and so universal, immutable, and incapable of self-conflict or contradiction. But, notwithstanding this grand assertion, nothing is more common than to see the champions of truth in one department of knowledge contending bitterly with their co-laborers in other department. There are extremists in science and in religion ? bigoted scientists and bigoted religionists ? men with irreligious bias and men with scientific bias. The first seem anxious to expel God from the universe, and the other to make God in their own image. The antagonism, or the supposed antagonism, between science and religion, shows itself in some religionists by their jealousy of science, and in some scientists in their supercilious attitude towards religion. The one party makes difference from itself the measure of irreligion, while the other party makes a corresponding difference to be the measure of absurdity and superstition. The old "odium theologicum " is no longer without a rival. It has a later- born, but a stronger brother, in the rampant and unendurable odium scientificum. The older wanes and grows mellow and mild before the younger. Theologians, as a class, now show themselves most tolerant ? more than tolerant, even very friendly, towards science; while many scientific men show themselves most intolerant towards religion. Mr. Mivart, who is both a theologian and a scientist, tries to show that the most advanced scientific theories are not at variance with Christianity. But Mr. Huxley, who is only ascientist, pursues him with bitter...