VIII. THE LIMITS OF OUR INQUIRIES.
Let me not be misunderstood. Again I say, I am aware that there are limits to man's capacity to understand things that are. That God also in his wisdom has not yet revealed all things, especially respecting the Godhead; and that where his revelations have not yet cast their rays of light on such subjects, it is becoming in man to wait upon the Lord, for that "line upon line, and precept upon precept" method by which he, in great wisdom, unfolds in the procession of the ages the otherwise hidden treasures of his truths. All this I agree to; but all this does not prevent us from a close perusal and careful study of what God has revealed upon any subject, especially when that study is perused reverently, with constant remembrance of human limitations, and with an open mind, which ever stands ready to correct the tentative conclusions of today by the increased light that may be shed upon the subject on the morrow. Which holds as greater than all theories and computations the facts—the truth. These are the principles by which I have sought to be guided in these five Year Books of the Seventy's Course in Theology, and in some more than in the one herewith presented.
But some would protest against investigation lest it threaten the integrity of accepted formulas of truth—which too often they confound with the truth itself, regarding the scaffolding and the building as one and the same thing. The effective answer to that may be given in the words of Sir Oliver Lodge: "A faith dependent on blinkers and fetters for its maintenance is not likely in a progressive age to last many generations.(Science and Immortality, p. 130.) "From age to age, our knowledge is growing from more to more," remarks John Fiske, in his "Century of Science." "By this enlarged experience our minds are affected from day to day and from year to year, in more ways than we can detect or enumerate. It opens our minds to some notions, and makes them incurably hostile to others; so that, for example, new truths well nigh beyond comprehension, like some of those connected with the luminiferous ether are accepted, and old beliefs once universal like witchcraft, are scornfully rejected. Vast changes in mental attitude are thus wrought before it is generally realized." ("Century of Science," p. 145.) This holds good in theology as in science. Not that the universal and fundamental truths in theology which God has revealed change, but that men's method of viewing them and expounding them changes, and, let us hope, changes for the better, for the more clear and perfect understanding and development of them—else there would be no progress in theology—while in all things else there is progress. But here let me conclude Fiske's noble passage:
"In this inevitable struggle [between vanishing old ideas and incoming new ones] there has always been more or less pain, and hence free thought has not usually been popular. It has come to our life-feast as a guest unbidden and unwelcome; but it has come to stay with us, and already proves more genial than was expected. Deadening, cramping finality has lost its" charm for him who has tasted of the ripe fruit of the tree of knowledge. In this broad universe of God's wisdom and love, not leashes to restrain us are needed, but wings to sustain our flight. Let bold but reverent thought go on and probe creation's mysteries, till faith and knowledge "make one music as before, but vaster."