A recent book makes the point that the old notion that science had
defeated religion has been banished more by what has happened in the
field of science during the last twenty-five years than by what has
happened in the fields of religion and theology. Certain implications
in this statement are worthy of consideration.
With all its vaunted moral ideals, the boasted Victorian age did develop
a rather marked and dangerous hostility to religion. It was the age of
Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley and, therefore, an age of discovery. The
newness of some of the conclusions it reached caused the public mind to be
carried away by its own enthusiasm. The pendulum is gradually coming to
rest, and the scientist now understands that a new discovery is not a
substitute for God.
The greatest sobering influence science has known has been its own
constant success in the field of discovery. The theory of development, at
first thought to have overturned God’s throne, when studied was found to
be full of previously unsuspected implications of the divine. Science
discovered that it was not a substitute for God, but only a new theory of
divine creation.
The only dogmatism as prejudiced and unreasonable as that of some
religionists is that of some scientists. No one is more prone than the
scientist to assume the finality of what is as yet only a hypothesis, and
to offer himself as a martyr to the cause of some fantastic phase of
scientific fundamentalism. The knowledge of science can grow, even as may
that of religion.
It appears to be a fact that unless the theologians gird themselves anew,
they may find the very gospel they were raised up to champion more
zealously and loyally defended by the scientists than by themselves.
Eminent scientists announcing their faith in and support of religion are a
growing company. The technique of the scientific laboratory forbids
compromise. The scientist discovers what is true and stands by it.
The theologian must do the same.