AN APOLOGY FOR THE CHXTRCH'S PERSECUTION OF SCIENCE 1 67 



men peace and courage and character. She can perform that function 

 in no other way than by furnishing men convictions. It is not enough 

 that she teach helpful doctrines. She must, if she is to succeed in her 

 task, teach her members that those doctrines are absolute truths. The 

 inerrancy of the church's teaching is for her a locus standi aut cadendi. 

 Unless she holds her teaching to be inerrant, and convinces her con- 

 verts that it is inerrant, she must fail in her mission and be uprooted 

 as a cumberer of the ground. She will always find those who will 

 gladly share her assurance. Those who find in her doctrines solace 

 and salvation will be eager to accept and defend their inerrancy. 



One root of the conflict between the church and science is here laid 

 bare. Science and the church have different interests. The scientist 

 is in search of wider knowledge and a deeper understanding of things. 

 His animating conviction is that he does not know. Doubt is the very 

 life-breath of science. The impUcit acceptance of existing conceptions 

 means for science paralysis. On the other hand, doubt is the paralysis 

 of the soul. Conviction is the only possible fount of human activity 

 and peace. The church, as the physician of the soul, must war upon 

 doubt as upon the soul's chief disease. The opposition in interest 

 between science and the church could hardly be more radical. What 

 wonder if it has often led to open conflict ? When we recall the effect 

 of doubt upon character, the church's frequent efforts to inculcate 

 inteUectual Bourbonism become intelhgible. They seem almost 

 salutary. 



Ill 



But no belief can be accounted for simply by the wiU to believe. 

 The most alluring belief cannot be entertained unless in some measure 

 it satisfies the intellect as well as the heart. At the very least it must 

 be thinkable. If widely held by rational men, it cannot be utterly 

 absurd. The inerrancy and finaUty of the Christian faith has in all 

 ages been widely held by rational men. We are impelled to inquire 

 whether the finality of Christian doctrine is after all so inconceivable 

 as it is sometimes represented. For once the field of formal logic seems 

 attractive. We are tempted to explore it that we may ascertain 



