The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 by Frederick Temple
page 43 of 147 (29%)
page 43 of 147 (29%)
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and show itself in that manner to us. But this always is and must be
secondary. The spiritual faculty alone can receive and judge of spiritual truth, and if that faculty be not reached a truly religious belief is not yet attained. External evidences of revealed religion must have a high place but cannot have the highest. A revealed religion must depend for its permanent hold on our obedience and our duty on its fastening upon our spiritual nature, and if it cannot do that no evidences can maintain it in its place. This account of the fundamental beliefs of Religion when compared with the fundamental postulates of Science shows that the two begin with the same part of our nature but proceed by opposite methods. Both begin with the human will as possessing a permanent identity and exerting a force of its own. But from this point they separate. Science rests on phenomena observed by the senses; Religion on the voice that speaks directly from the other world. Science postulates uniformity and is excluded wherever uniformity can be denied, but compels conviction within the range of its own postulate. Religion demands the submission of a free conscience, and uses no compulsion but that imposed by its own inherent dignity. Science gives warnings, and if you are capable of understanding scientific argument, you will be incapable of disbelieving the warnings. Certain things will poison you; certain neglects will ruin your health; disregard of scientific construction will bring your roof down on your head; to enter a burning building will risk your life; some of these things you may learn by ordinary experience, some of them by that combination of experience which is called Science. But if you are capable of the necessary reasoning you cannot doubt, however much you may wish to do so. And yet to defy these warnings and take the |
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