) 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHUSTAIN RELIGION 183 



cles, or answers to prayer, or special providences, 

 for these imply interference with law, which would 

 mean inconsistency on God's part and confusion 

 on ours." 



But Christianity answers, " interference with law 

 is of continual occurrence. You cannot stand up 

 or walk, or so much as raise your hand without 

 interfering with the law of gravitation or attrac- 

 tion. We can modify or direct the action of forces 

 without violating their laws. Violation of God's 

 laws on God's part would mean inconstancy. Di- 

 rection of his own energy to any point He wills as 

 in evolution, for example is no violation of law; 

 neither are what are termed miracles, special provi- 

 dences and answers to prayer violations of law, 

 but evolutions in accordance with law, as law stands 

 for God's mode of working in the control of the 

 universe." 



Then says the scientist, "I cannot reconcile the 

 two ideas of 'infinity' and 'personality.' Person- 

 ality implies limitation; infinity asserts absence of 

 limitation, a being cannot be at once limited and 

 unlimited." 



"But why should we suppose personality to in- 

 volve limitation?" says Christian theology. "Even 

 in man the essential idea of personality is not limi- 

 tation. Personality in philosophy and theology re- 

 fers not to the body but to consciousness and will. 

 What difficulty is there in believing that the Infi- 

 nite God is infinitely conscious and volitional and 

 therefore personal." 



There is a mighty force in the material meta'- 

 phors of the Bible, but these all stand for spiritual 

 realities, and its fundamental postulate is "God i 



