September 29, 1923] 



NA TURE 



477 



I 



is unquestionably the result of " ordered knowledge 

 of natural phenomena and the relation between them," 

 is only one example, if perhaps the most marked one, in 

 our experience. A somewhat similar record could, how- 

 ever, be written on locomotive tyres and other matters. 

 I think I have shown adequately the debt which 

 transport, as well as other branches of our profession, 

 owes to the study of " ordered knowledge." That in 



the future this will be even more marked than at 

 present, one can say without fear of contradiction. 

 Not only so, but there must be more and more inter- 

 dependence between science and engineering. More 

 and more as we advance in the knowledge of natural 

 phenomena will the necessity of the practical applica- 

 tion of this knowledge on a large scale become necessary, 

 to confirm it and to bring out fresh features. 



The Influence of Science on Christianity.^ 



By Canon E. W. Barnes, F.R.S. 



IT is a commonplace that all religions, even though 

 their formularies and sacred books seem to 

 guarantee absence of change, are constantly modified. 

 Unless religion is moribund it is dynamic and not 

 static. It is a living process within the spirit of man ; 

 and, as such, it is profoundly affected by the ideas and 

 emotions of the community in which it exists. Religious 

 thought and feeling alike are influenced, for good or 

 ill, by contemporary political, social, and intellectual 

 movements. During the last century there has been 

 a movement of human thought as influential and as 

 valuable as that of Renaissance humanism. The 

 assumptions and methods of science have affected the 

 whole outlook of educated men. In particular, those 

 branches of science which are concerned with the 

 domains of physics and biology have radically changed 

 our conceptions both of the structure of the visible 

 universe and of the development of life upon this 

 earth. 



The effect of the scientific movement, alike on 

 organised religion and on private faith, has been 

 prodigious. In any circumstances it would have 

 been far-reaching. But unfortunately, representative 

 Christian leaders, with the eager support of their 

 communions, opposed the new scientific conceptions 

 as they appeared. Science was then compelled to 

 fight for autonomy on its own territory ; and, as 

 Dr. Hobson says in his recently published Gilford 

 lectures, the result has been a prolonged struggle " in 

 which theology has lost every battle." As a con- 

 sequence it is now widely believed by the populace 

 that Christianity itself has been worsted. 



At least a generation must pass before it is generally 

 recognised that, with regard to religion, science is 

 neutral. Educated men know that the traditional 

 presentation of the Christian faith must be shorn of 

 what have become mythological accretions. But 

 Christianity resembles a biological organism with a 

 racial future. In the struggle for existence it gains 

 strength and power by utili-sing its environment. It 

 seeks both freedom from old limitations and increased 

 mastery of hostile forces, Amid all change its essential 

 character is preserved, for it rests on historical facts 

 combined with permanent intuitions and continually 

 repeated experiences of the human spirit. The great 

 pioneers, whether in science or religion, are few. Men 

 usually accept both scientific and religious truth at 

 .second-hand. The expert speaks with the accent of 

 what seems to us to be unmistakable authority. We 



' From a sermon preached in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Cathedral on 

 Sunday mominR, September i6, in connexion with the visit of the British 

 Association to the city. 



make such imperfect tests as we are able to applv to 

 his teaching ; and perforce rest content. 



We must never forget that all human activity, and 

 not merely those aspects which we call science and 

 religion, rests upon unproved and unprovable assump- 

 tions. The existence of such assumptions is often 

 ignored. They are there, none the less. Often lazily 

 and hazily we conceal them under the term " common- 

 sense." Faith, however, is a necessity of existence. 

 Zealots sometimes have contended and still contend 

 that there is a moral value in blind faith. But the 

 modern world, so far as it has fallen under the sway of 

 scientific method, demands that faith shall be reason- 

 able and not blind. 



In science we build upon the assumption that the 

 processes of Nature can be represented by schemes 

 that are, to us, rational. There is, we postulate, a 

 unity between Nature's processes and the working of 

 the human mind. The address given this year by 

 the president of the British Association shows how 

 extraordinarily fruitful this assumption has proved to 

 be. But, when we consider the vast domains of 

 science which still remain to be explored, we must 

 grant that the rationality of the universe remains a 

 postulate of reasonable faith. As we pass from science 

 to philosophy and religion, we have to assume the 

 existence of a universal Mind in order to bind together 

 the sequences of phenomena which science observes 

 and describes. Then, as the basis of religious faith, 

 we further assume that the values, which we instinc- 

 tively deem supreme, express the quality of this Mind 

 to whom all natural process is due. We thus assert 

 that goodness, beauty, and truth are not private values 

 of humanity, but attributes of God. 



The different processes of the human mind, thought, 

 will, and feeling, cannot be decisively sundered. As a 

 consequence, the search for truth made by men of 

 science has in our own time profoundly affected our 

 religious outlook. Science has not merely created a 

 new cosmogony against which, as a background, religion 

 must be set. But, as the character of its postulates 

 and the extent of its limitations have become more 

 clear, science has given us a new conception of what 

 we mean by reasonable faith. In so doing, it has 

 strikingly altered the way in which we approach 

 religion. Some old modes of argument and their 

 attendant dogmas have rapidly become obsolete. A 

 great gulf has opened between constructive and merely 

 defensive types of theology. Among religious com- 

 munions there is, in consequence, much confusion, 

 some bitterness, fear of change combined with recog- 

 nition of its necessit)-. The direct influence of science 



NO. 2813, VOL. I 12] 



