Now the only possible basis on which both the Church and the Schools can take their stand, if this controversy is to be settled without final disunion in the Church, was laid down by Christ in that scientific formula: If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.
To follow this formula in our search for common [p 46] ground is to be utterly scientific, for it is the laboratory method of experiment. The true Church has always believed and received the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, not because, in blind credulity, she has followed some irrational and unscientific impulse, but precisely because she has been scientific enough to work by this formula and carry the laboratory test to its final analysis. And for the Schools to follow this same formula with scientific accuracy would be for them to arrive at the same place at which the true Church has arrived. For when the Church and the Schools start out in search of truth and do not arrive together, it is either because they did not start together, or because one or both of them did not proceed all the way with scientific exactness. Truth is an eternal unity, and conclusions regarding it that are mutually exclusive and therefore the cause of controversy prove to a demonstration that somebody’s methods of investigation were unscientific.
If we really intend to be scientific, therefore, when we start out to investigate truth of any sort and in any realm, the first thing we will do will be to classify. We can neither start nor proceed together unless we do. Indeed, if we are to be scientific enough to follow the formula laid down by Christ, we will be compelled to classify before we can even begin our investigation. Therefore—
I. Truth Must Be Classified Scientifically.
1. The Realms of Truth Must Be Classified.
The first thing the true scientist does is to classify truth into realms. This we have already done by classifying the realm in which God reveals His moral [p 47] character to the hearts of all moral beings as the spiritual realm, and that in which He reveals His creative power to the minds of all intelligent beings as the natural realm.
If we do not distinguish these realms to start with, we invite confusion; and if we should reach right conclusions without this classification, it would be due to accident, rather than to scientific accuracy.
But that this classification is universally recognized is proved by the fact that the moment science reaches the line where the natural ends and the spiritual begins, it pursues its investigations no farther, on the ground that it has neither the implements nor the capacities with which to investigate in that realm. This proves as conclusively as anything could that the distinction between these two realms is so sharp, as well as so self-evident, that science is compelled to accept it and act accordingly.
2. The Faculties of Investigation Must be Distinguished.
The scientific man will next distinguish the faculties with which the investigating is to be done, according to the respective realms. That this classification is required by the fundamental difference in the nature of the truths in these two realms is so self-evident that it ought to be axiomatic to all who think with any degree of scientific accuracy. For in the nature of things, natural truth requires investigation by intellectual faculties, and spiritual truth by spiritual faculties. Indeed, this distinction is fully recognized when science halts its pursuit of truth at the boundary line of the spiritual realm.