4 MODERN DIFFICULTIES 



methods of astronomy, nor can spiritual realities be 

 discovered or understood by the methods of the labora- 

 tory. To understand spiritual things requires the em- 

 ployment of a spiritual faculty, just as the perception of 

 beauty calls into exercise an aesthetic faculty. It also 

 requires a certain moral attitude — a predisposition 

 towards the consideration of divine things, and a readi- 

 ness to accept truths which can be seen to involve in 

 their acceptance an enlargement of responsibihties from 

 which carnally minded men recoil. The development 

 of this spiritual faculty and disposition depends upon 

 supernatural assistance by the Holy Spirit as well as 

 upon self-discipline. The sum of the matter is that 

 conditions have to be fulfilled, and methods have to 

 be employed, in the investigation of spiritual realities 

 which differ widely from the conditions and methods to 

 which most men are habituated and which they are 

 naturally disposed to appropriate. Theology appears 

 very unlike anything that the majority of modern 

 scientists are accustomed to regard as scientific, or as 

 concerned wdth true knowledge of reality. This 

 unlikeness is apt to suggest the conclusion that faith 

 and spiritual knowledge lie outside the domain of 

 reason altogether. Christian believers are able to see 

 that belief and knowledge do not cease to be rational 

 when concerned with spiritual things, and that divine 

 grace is not a substitute for sound reason but its 

 spiritual telescope, so to speak, and its equipment for 

 a spiritual line of activity. They can also see that 

 the reason which is employed in faith is the reason 



