Publication: The Christian Recorder
Date: June 7, 1900
Title: FOR WHAT PURPOSE SHOULD A CLERGYMAN STUDY SCIENCES.
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I was led to this subject from reading an article which the erudite Prof. Chas. A. Briggs D.D., contributed to "The Forum" some time ago, in which he hid this to says "The official teachings of the denominations is apart from the thought of the age. Therefore those who have been trained in the thought of the age, the whole class of learned men, are out of sympathy with the theology of the denominations. How can a man of science have any patience with the doctrine of creation and the theories of miracles and prophecy which are commonly taught in the theological schools and from Christian pulpits? How can a man who has been trained in modern psychology, metaphysical ethics fail to be repelled by the crude philosophy that underlies the dogmas of the systems of theology which are regarded as the standards of orthodoxy?

There are thousands of men who have been trained in modern science who have accepted the Bible as the only infallible rule of faith and practice. It can be shown that some of the foremost students of science, have accepted the entire Bible as the word of God. It seems almost incredible that a man who reads the Bible in both Hebrew and Greek and who therefore understands the philosophy of the several tongues in which it is written, should make such statements. There are more scholarly men in sympathy with the Bilge than against it.

The objective point in the article above referred to is that the Bible is untrue. If science stands for, or if the ultimate design of science is to destroy the Word of God, then away with science. But that is not the ultimate design of science, such may be the purpose of a few who have studied it, but the master thinkers who laid the foundation even upon which Prof. Brigs had to build, by their researches have handed down to those who desire to follow them a complete refutation to their statements made by Prof. Briggs and all who represent that destructive school, knows as "The Higher Critics." A clergyman who has studied science may be a free thinker and still not be an infidel. It is a great mistake to say that a free thinker is an infidel. The infidelity of today is due in a great measure to an unregenerate heart rather than to science.

Dr. Cummings has this to say, "in looking at the opposers of Christianity after all its is natural to ask, what are the attainments and what is the character of those men who, especially in these days, make a parade of objections to the Scriptures? Are they the Newtons, the Kelpers, the Stewards, and the Lockes, and the Bacons of the world? Not at all. They are men who have occasionally peeped through a telescope and then have learned to tell us that the stars contain no proof that there is a God; men who have once in their life looked in a microscope and then come to tell us that its revelations are not proofs of Deity and design. Yet such are the men, who stand up with an effrontery unparalleled and tell us that all evidence is useless, that all claims are inadmissible that Robert Owen is a better man than the Apostle Paul, and the filthy abominations of Socialism more worthy of the acceptance of sinners than the inspiration of the Holy and Blessed Jesus. There is no conflict between science and religion. There is a conflict between sin and righteousness. These are men who misname themselves scientific in order to array themselves against the teachings of that book which points the way to heaven. Science is not in opposition to revelation and this is why every clergyman should study it. One of the sciences which many pseudoscientific scholars make such a noise over is geology. They attempt to wage war on the Mosaic record of the creation of the world by saying that the record as given by Moses is not geological therefore it is a myth. The man who studies geology carefully will find that geology it followed to its logical sequence, will confirm, instead of contradicting the Word of God. For instance there is a class of scientists, like Sir Charles Lyell, have concluded from the positions and associations in which human remains have been found, that man has existed upon the earth thousands of years before Adam, who is regarded as the ancestor only of a particular variety of the race. Suppose such a conclusion is true. It weighs nothing against the positive teaching of the Scriptures, since the facts upon which the conclusion is based are not all certainly substantiated and have not been thoroughly digested and in any event prove nothing as to the relation of Adam to the race but only that he was created longer ago than we suppose.

The above is only one of the many conclusions to which that class of scientists have come who have sought to discredit that narrative in the Bible which Moses tells of the creation of the world.

Every clergyman should acquaint himself with science to the extent of being able to see the motives which underlie all the attacks upon the Bible. In his efforts to thus fortify himself, science will be found to be his friend instead of his foe. It must be admitted that a superficial knowledge of science has led more into the paths of infidelity than the conclusive teachings of science has.

For another instance take Hume and his opposition to miracles. In the first place Hume denies that the human mind is an immaterial substance underlying mental phenoma. "What we call mind," says Hume, "is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions."

Prof. Hurly affects to be very candid, and says that Hume "May be right or wrong in this but the most that he or any one else can prove is that we know nothing more of the mind than that it is a series of perceptions. In order to discredit miracles. Hume commences his argument by saying "what we call mind is nothing but a heap or collection of perceptions!" But that there is no such things as an immaterial and spiritual substance Hume and Huxly are agreed.

A man who ahs a conscience which ever and anon points to God doubts his own immortality. As a climax to this pseudoscientific scene, that the miracles which Jesus wrought were not miracles, because miracles, he says, contravene the laws of Nature, when the Galilwxa, the Kelpers and Newtons, the Liebultzers, the La Places and Herschels have brought forth their postulates which prove conclusively otherwise, we can not accept the statements nor appreciate the position as held by Mr. Hume or Prof. Huxley.

Every clergyman should study science not only to refute such teaching, but in order to know more about the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation. A clergyman should not study science in order to discredit the truths which the Word of God contains. It were better that one had never heard of science than that he should lead those who he influences in the wrong way. A clergyman should not study science in order to display cheap erudition in the pulpit. Science should be his helper in his search for the truth. He ought simply to state the truth, as found, that is all.

The advancement of public education in this country, that is the introduction of science primers into thousand of schools in which only secondary instruction is given, makes it well high imperative on the part of every clergyman who desires to lead the young people who are being thus trained to at least acquaint himself with the elementary principles of sciences. The man who depreciates the force of this fact will not have a hearing long among that class whose salvation he should seek. That which the fathers did not know will afford him no shelter when the youth of his charge ask him to explain the terrestrial adaptations of the earth for instance, the length of the year, the mass of the earth, the cosmically arrangements of the world and a thousand other such questions which prove conclusively, design and designer and that the designer is God. The man who stands as the representative of God, should study all of the ways by which God is manifested. For instance in viewing man as a proof of the truths of natural religion, look at his physical constitution. You will find that the human body consists of solid and fluid substances variously constituted and constantly acting upon each other. Now according to some there are nineteen and all agree that there are seventeen simple constants composing the human body. To know the nature of these several substances, in order to state the doctrine of natural theology from this standpoint, one must fir of all understand the science of physical philosophy which treaties of the forms and properties of material bodies. Instances might be multiplied all of which would go to show that science if properly applied will help the clergyman in many ways to enforce with greater perspicuity the truths of natural and revealed religion than he could otherwise.

I will close this article with the beautiful and searching words of Prof. Alexander Mitchell, than whom it is conceded that there is no better scientific authority in this country. "A revelation respecting man"s moral relations and future state must touch upon topics beyond the reach of science and philosophy. The search for verities here leads into the inscrutable thoughts and purposes of the Omniscient. Such a revelation as science itself gives us ground for anticipating must be a revelation involving important statements that transcend the reach of demonstrators, and must be accessed solely on the established authority of the Revelator. Faith is the logical corollary of science and the highest flight of reason. Thus we are led to believe that the cultivation of science and philosophy is not only harmless but lead the candid mind to a reverent knowledge of God and an implicit faith in the most mysterious utterances of His sacred word."

ALBERT LONG .