him to attain his full development. It is a fact of universal consciousness that fullest development can come only through the proper adjustment of the forces within with the forces without. Now religion is just this readjustment; it is just this proper relationship of the self within with the life without. And precisely this is the most real need and the deepest consciousness of humanity. Millions of men testify that by this proper relationship they have found new power for development. To them religion is real.

The only way, therefore, to set aside the reality of religion. is to deny the power of our own inner life to give us the truth. If there is no reality corresponding to this need, and likewise to this consciousness of experience, then there is no such thing as finding truth. If there is nothing to correspond to the fundamental human need, then this is a cheat world. There is no honesty here. It is precisely as if I had eyes but there were no light; or as if I had hunger and there were no food. If we cannot trust our nature, when tested by the experience of universal nature to give us the truth, the truth cannot be found. This ends in nothingness. There not only cannot be any religious truth; there can be no truth of any kind. This makes us of all creation the most miserable part. We have within us a yearning for truth, but we have no way of finding it, or verifying it when found. No sane man can rest in such a conclusion. And yet to avoid that we must trust our natures to give us the truth. If we do that, these natures tell us religion is real. We must therefore accept religion as a reality, or else deny the possibility of finding truth. I see no way out of this conclusion.

And when man questioned, "What if there be love,"

He reasons, "Since such love is everywhere,
And since ourselves can love and would be loved,
We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,"
How shall ye help this man who knows himself,
That he must love and would be loved again.
Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ,
Rejecteth Christ through very need of him?

I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ
Accepted by thy reason solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it
And has so far advanced thee to be wise.'

-Browning's "A Death in the Desert."

STUDY IX.

FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

STUDY IX. FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN

FAITH.

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place

In all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,

Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
(Ps. xc. I, 2.)

PART 1. IS BELIEF IN AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE [GOD] CONSISTENT WITH SCIENTIFIC TRUTH?

If we were successful in our last study in making clear that religion is a genuine reality, the next question we will wish to ask is, What is the heart and center of this religion? What is this environment outside us with which we need to relate ourselves? Is it force or is it person. In the University of North Carolina last year I had a number of the brightest men in college asking just this question. What is this force in the universe which seems to make for righteousness? One of these men was specializing on science, and thought science made it impossible for him to believe in God, so I began with him on his positive beliefs. I said to him: "Science proceeds on the assumption that there is a uniformity in the action of nature. If I drop a stone here it will fall to the ground. If I drop it in China next year it will fall likewise. The laws of nature hold good at all times and at all places. Nature acts in accordance with the principle of uniformity." This he readily accepted. Then I said uniformity is just another way of saying unity. In other words, science proceeds on the assumption that behind all the forces of nature there is one supreme force which knits all together into one complete and perfect whole. This he again readily admitted.

This was one good step; for while we had not arrived at God, we had agreed there was a unity at the heart of the universe.

Science proceeds, in the second place, I said, on the basis of an intelligible world,—that is, science takes for granted that the truth of the world can be understood. The world is made in such a fashion that my mind can take hold of it. If this were not true, there could be no science. If my mind and the nature of the universe were of absolutely different kind, then there would be no common ground and I should not be able to know anything about the world. But the fact that the world is so constituted that it is intelligible is not the result of mere accident. There is a uniform process, and that uniformity is intelligible, hence nature must be the handiwork of an intelligent cause. If there were no intelligence in nature corresponding to my intelligence, then this process of nature would be completely incomprehensible to me. But since these processes are intelligible, I must conclude that the unifying force behind the forces of the universe is intelligent.

This student went away feeling that it was not only possible to believe in an intelligent first cause, but more, it was necessary if he was to have any genuine basis for his science. Science must proceed on the basis of a God that has at least intelligence and power.

ΙΟ