will be able to use it in the perfecting of that Christian character which carries beyond this world into the realm of eternity. Take, then, another text from the sayings of our Lord to qualify the doleful observations of Ecclesiastes—“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”2 There you begin to get a sound reason for the accumulation of human knowledge. God gives it validity by making it a contributing factor in the preparation for eternal life. Knowledge divorced from God is a practical absurdity and a spiritual impertinence. When Agassiz, the great scientist, was performing an experiment, he always bowed his head in a moment of silence because, he explained, “I am about to ask God a question.”
All of this should mean something to us Americans with our comprehensive system of compulsory education, our enormous school population, and the cataracts of money we pour out every year in support of the program. If it is merely for the pursuit of this world’s knowledge, then we are chasing expensive rainbows. For the plainest thing about this world’s knowledge is that one day it will vanish.
At this very point may be found the solution of the fictitious conflict between science and religion. Properly speaking there is no such conflict at all because they are both meant to collaborate in a common purpose. The Christian religion sets the course toward that larger life which follows the completion of our human experience. Science provides some of the instruments with which we prepare ourselves for that greater future. The Christian is placed in the world to use it, and he needs to use all of it by the most intelligent methods he can devise. Every scientific discovery is therefore an asset in his onward march to eternity. The more we can learn of natural laws, the better equipped we shall be to pass out of the natural world into that which is over-natural. For this life is a training school for more life to come. Such a purpose dignifies science far beyond any mechanical interpretation which ignores man’s spiritual qualities. Religion has nothing to fear from science. Science has no cause to shun religion. If in times past religion has sometimes been timidly suspicious of scientific achievement, it is equally true that science has sometimes misconstrued religion and disparaged a straw man of its own invention. Fortunately a better day has come and such occasions of friction are rapidly disappearing while each learns to esteem the other more highly.
Even so one still meets, here and there, the superficial rejoinder that after all we know something about this world while we know little or nothing about any other; therefore the sensible course is to devote ourselves to what is here and decline to be concerned with any possible hereafter. If that were really the case, there is only one logical conclusion. Moral values promptly become extinct. Mercy, sympathy, self-control, good-will—all these become so many sentimental oddities. The practical mode of life is to seize all you can before someone else beats you to it. Gather the rose-buds while they are fresh because soon we will all be dead, sunk in an oblivion of endless nothingness.
The trouble is, there is something within us which shouts an emphatic No! Try as we will to be hard, and merciless, and indifferent to the claims of others, we cannot escape the innate conviction that there is a real difference between right and wrong. The worst men have their tender moments when they simply cannot be entirely selfish. The more thoughtful materialist will say it is because of future generations. We must maintain ideals, practice self-control, adhere to certain moral principles in order to make the world better for our children. We are beneficiaries of our fathers and we are thereby under obligation to improve what we have received for the sake of those who come after us. That is our future life. We must cultivate a long-range perspective and consider our descendants for whom we are literally responsible.
But there again our reason emerges into unreason. There is something appealing in the idea of self-sacrifice for the benefit of those who come after us until we are brought up abruptly to face the fact that someday nobody will be coming. It is all well enough to labor for future generations, but what about the time when there will be no future generations? Let us go in for a really long-range perspective. The day arrives when this world comes to an end. Just when or how is a matter of no consequence. It may be next week or a million years hence. Some scientists think the earth will eventually be absorbed into the sun and vanish in vapor. Others suggest that it is more likely to cool off and become a dead world incapable of sustaining life. Either way the conclusion is the same. Some day this world ends and there will be no future generations. Then what becomes of our carefully-guarded ideals and principles? What is the good of our labors and sacrifices if finally they all end in nothing? We are simply pyramiding futilities.
Christ’s way is more credible to our intelligence and more creditable to our efforts. We may die but we shall not perish. “God hath given to us eternal life.”3 The best efforts we can put forth here will never be lost because there is a hereafter. Human life is not a temporary illusion. It has a meaning which outstrips time. That is why the faith and practice of a Churchman becomes of paramount importance. The Christian Gospel offers a way of life in this world which finds its bloom in the world-to-come. How we live now determines how we shall be prepared to live then. If this be not true, there is no sense in submitting to the injustices, trials, and indignities which our daily experience visits upon us. We might better call the whole thing off, turn out the light, and be decently obliterated. But “now is Christ risen from the dead,”4 and “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”5
1 Ecclesiastes 1:18.
2 St, John 17:3.
3 I John 5:11.
4 I Corinthians 15:20.
5 I Corinthians 15:57.
II
BELIEF IN GOD
Nothing can ever be proved absolutely. Everything in this world is related to everything else. Therefore if you are to understand anything completely you must be able to understand everything. For the same reason, to prove any one thing absolutely means that you must be able to prove everything. That is rather a large order for human intelligence.
Nevertheless, when we tell one another that we can prove this and that, our statements do really have a meaning. We do not say that we have complete proof for anything, but that we have enough for working purposes. It is not absolute evidence that convinces us, but a preponderance of evidence that one thing is more true and accurate than another.
It is important to keep this distinction in mind when we are considering religious matters. There is a good deal of loose popular clatter to the effect that religious convictions rest upon wishes and imagination while legal, logical, and scientific conclusions are based on demonstrable facts. The latter, we are told, constitute proof while the former is not much more than charitable conjecture.
Yet it is a matter of common knowledge that many things are known to be true which can never be legally proved. Conversely, the court records are full of instances where something has been legally proved which turns out later to be entirely false.
Similarly our systems of logic are of human contrivance and are therefore bound to be vulnerable. For example, there is the classical bit of logic taken from the Psalms of David:
David said, “All men are liars”;
Therefore, David, being a man, was a liar;
Therefore, what David said is not true;
Therefore all men are not liars.
Of course, it is nonsense but it is logical.
Scientific proof is generally considered more dependable and, on the whole, it is. But there also the footing
