Page:The church, the schools and evolution.djvu/56

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

they are utterly unscientific if they fail to use that faculty in their investigation which the Textbook itself prescribes.

To sum it up, faith opens the way for God to quicken into activity a spiritual capacity through which He educates a man in spiritual things entirely independently of the schools.

The man who really intends to be scientific, then, will approach the Bible in that attitude of faith which will lead him to will to do God's will as the Bible reveals it. He will then be where he can believe his way to an understanding of spiritual truth.


3. The Different Kinds of Truth Must Be Separated.

Another classification which the scientific man makes is to distinguish between the two kinds of truth in each respective realm, and to separate that kind which may be demonstrated to the experience from that which must be taken on hearsay. That is, in the natural realm, in the department of chemistry, for example, the laws of chemical action can be put to the laboratory test of experiment, while the history of the science of chemistry must always be taken on hearsay. And, in the spiritual realm, those truths stated in the spiritual Textbook which have to do with our spiritual relations with God can be put to the laboratory test of the experiment of faith, while all the rest must be taken on hearsay.


4. The Primacy of Primary Truth Must Be Maintained.

One thing more which the scientific man does is to accord primacy to that realm of truth which is primary