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6 THE PRESBYTERIAh
The Defence of the Faith
A RATIONALIST ON RATIONALISM.
Amiel, brilliant but inclined to the rationalistic viewpoint,
in his Journal, page 78, writes:
"1 heard a sermon this morning, good but insufficient.
"Why was I not edified? Because Christianity from the
rationalistic point of view is a Christianity of dignity
not of humility. Holiness and mysticism evaporate; the
specifically Christian accent is wanting. My impression
ts always the same, faith is made a dull, poor thine bv
these attempts in the pulpit or elsewhere to reduce it
to a simple moral psychology. The simple folk will
say, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I know not
where they have laid him'; and they have a right to say
it, and I repeat it with them."
THE BEST METHOD OF UNDERSTANDING
TRUTH.
By D. J. Fleming.
The scientific method is undoubtedly comrenial to tho
modern mind. The results of this method, however,
have sometimes destroyed, after bitter struggle, various
religious beliefs; and therefore in some minds a feeling
has arisen that science and religion are necessarily enemies.
The following thoughts, however, are given with
the firm conviction that a young man not only can, but
must, deal with the great questions of his religious life
in a scientific spirit.
Every one now recognizes that a student makes much
better progress by handling materials and doing things,
tnan Dy merely reading about them. Every university
in India is insisting, as never before, on well-equipped
laboratories; and in most of the provinces, every student
of science has to do more or less practical work.
Teachers are convinced that a student cannot understand
specific heat until he has weighed out some metal,
and by the use of thermometer and calorimeter has
found it for himself. They feel that he cannot know
hydrogen from the pages of a book, but must actually
discover its properties himself. This "laboratory
method" has been applied not only to physics, chemistry
and biology, as in our Indian universities, but also,
in some advanced places in England and America, to
mathematics, to psychology and to sociology. In short,
we have discovered that we learn best by doing, and
that we know best those things which we have actually
discovered in our own experience.
The question now naturally arises, Is there a place
for the method of learning by doing in our religious
life? Let us suppose, for instance, that we wish to understand
the kind of life that Jesus lived while he was
on the earth. That life is described in our
Christian books; but the man who merely reads will
never realize what that life is. Here it is most certainly
true that doing is necessary to understanding and believing.
For Christ talks of self-sacrificing love, of forgiveness,
of self-forgetful service. But these things can
I OF THE SOUTH. January 20, 1909.
no more be known from the letters of a printed page,
than can the properties of an electric current. If we
would understand God's love, we ourselves must try to
love; if we wish to learn the full meaning of forgiveness,
we ourselves must forgive. Every disappointing
friend or disobedient servant furnishes a natural laboratory
where the deep significance of love and forgiveness
can be discovered.
Many men say that when they know, thev will act r
Jesus says that if they act, they will know. He knows
that light will come through doing, and not through
dreaming. No one can have a true idea of right until
he has done it, and reverence for a truth comes only
when its meaning has been made definite in experience
at some cost. In other words, experience makes both
understanding and appreciation possible. It is vital,
therefore, that we put present belief into action, in
order that belief may grow; for in this way alone do
we furnish ourselves with that deepening experience
which can lead to greater truth. Mighty convictions
are born from truth lived out.
But in a far more thorough-going way men are coming
to believe that truth that is merely intellectually
conceived has no meaning for us; that abstract truth is
_ 1 x ? -
almost useless; ana tliat truth acquires value only as
it is actually lived out in experience. Most people, for
instance, would hesitate to say just what electricity is;
what they do know, however, is what electricity can do.
In fact, people get their whole conception of the meaning
of the word "electricity" from experimenting with
it. Our clearest ideas of it are connected with what it is
capable of doing. Beliefs about it are beliefs to be
acted on. Apart from its actual manifestations in experience,
electricity has little meaning for any one. So
with gravity, light, radium and many other -things in
science. There is not one of these things that we really
unoersianu. we know only that they act on us in
certain ways; and these ways in which they affect us
in experience are all the truth we know about them.
Yet we accept this truth and use these things accordingly.
So I accept Christ. So I accept the mystery of the
cross. I do not wholly understand them, but their practical
effects I can perceive. In proportion as I abide in
Christ, and let the fact of his life sink in upon me, I
find results?results in tti#> rAilm ?.t
... ...V ivuiiw VJi kiiaidtici, Wlicre
alone true salvation lies. Thus not by the way of philosophy,
nor by the way of reasoning, but by the actual
test in experience do I approach him as my Savior.
This understanding of Christ as a practical Savior is
deepened as one uses him in relation to all the larger
needs about one. My heart goes out in loyalty to him
as I see the way he meets these larger problems, the
remedies he is actually inspiring, and the efforts toward
social service that spring naturally from his spirit. Not
only to me, but to my family, to my nation, and to the
world, Christ has a practical saving and redeeming use.
Judging after using Tiim, and with scientific* loyalty to
facts and willingness to take them into consideration, I
find the meaning of Christ to be?Savior. Christ's
significance lies in Christ's power, and one understands
hiirfas one usrs him.?The Bible Record.