Still further, if the universe has been created, then, just as its laws must be in harmony with the will of the Creator, so must our mental constitution; and man, as a reasoning and conscious being, must be made in the image of his Maker. If we discard the idea of an intelligent Creator, then mind and all its powers must be potentially in the atoms of matter or in the forces which move them; but this is a mere form of words signifying nothing, or, if it has any significance, this is contrary to science, since it bestows on matter properties which experiment does not show it to possess. Thus the existence of man is not only a positive proof of the presence of mind in nature, but affords the strongest possible proof of a higher Creative Mind, from which that of man emanates. The power which originated and sustains the universe must be at least as much greater and more intelligent than man as the universe is greater than man in the power and the contrivance which it indicates. Thus we return to the Pauline idea—that the power and the divinity of the Creator are shown by the things he has made. Legitimate science can say nothing more, and can say nothing less.
LECTURE VI.
SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
Thus far we have proceeded solely on scientific grounds, and have seen that Monism and Agnosticism fail to account for nature. We may therefore feel ourselves justified in assuming, as the only promising solution of the enigma of existence, the being of a Divine Creator. But this does not wholly exhaust the relations of science to religion. When Science has led us into the presence of the Creator, she has brought us to the threshold of religion, and there she suggests the possibility that the spirit of man may have other relations with God beyond those established by merely physical law. Science may venture to say: "If all nature expresses the will of the Creator as carried out in his laws, if the instinct of lower animals is an inspiration of God, should we not expect that there will be laws of a higher order regulating the free moral nature of man, and that there will be possibilities of the reason of man communicating with, or receiving aid from, the Supreme Intelligence?" Science undoubtedly suggests this much to our reason, and the suggestion has commended itself to most of the greater and clearer minds that have studied nature, whatever their religious beliefs or their want of them.
It may thus be allowable for us, without encroaching on the domain of theology, to inquire to what extent scientific principles and scientific habits of thought agree with or diverge from the religious beliefs of men. I do not propose to enter here into the inquiry as to the accordance of the Bible with the earth's geological history, or that of its representations of nature with the facts as held by science. These subjects I have fully discussed in other works, which are sufficiently accessible.[15] I shall merely refer to certain general relations of science to the probability of a divine revelation, and to the character of such revelation.
As to what is termed natural religion, enough has already been said. If nature testifies to the being of God, and if the reason and the conscience implanted in man, "accusing and excusing" one another, constitute a law of God within him, regulating in some degree his relations to God and to his fellow-men, we have a sufficient basis for the natural religion which more or less actuates the conduct of every human being. The case is different with revealed religion. Here we have an apparent interference on the part of the Creator with his own work, an additional intervention in one department to effect results which elsewhere are worked out by the ordinary operation of natural law. In revelation, therefore, we may have something, quite out of the ordinary course of nature. On the other hand, it is possible that even here we may have something more in harmony with natural laws than at first sight appears.
It cannot truly be said that a revelation from God to man is improbable from the point of view of science. Physical laws and brute instincts are in their nature unvarying, and neither require nor admit of intervention. But the reason and the will of free agents are in this respect different. Though necessarily under law, they can judge and decide between one law and another, and can even evade or counteract one law by employing another, or can resolve to be disobedient. Rational free agents may thus enter into courses not in harmony with their own interests or their relations to their surroundings. Hence, so soon as it pleased God to introduce in any part of the universe a free rational will gifted with certain powers over lower nature, only two courses were possible: either God must leave such free agent wholly to his own devices, making him a god on a small scale, and so far practically abdicating in his favor, or he must place him under some law, and this not of the nature of mere physical compulsion—which, on the hypothesis, would be inadmissible—but in the nature of requirements addressed to his reason and his conscience. Hence we might infer a priori the probability of some sort of communication between God and man. Further, did we find such rational creature beginning, on his introduction into the world, to mar the face of nature, to inflict unnecessary suffering or injury on lower creatures or on members of his own species, to disregard the moral instincts implanted in him, or to disown the God who had created him, we should still more distinctly perceive the need of revelation. This would in such case be no more at variance with science or with natural law than the education given by wise parents to their children, or the laws promulgated by a wise government for the guidance of its subjects, both of which are, and are intended to be, interventions affecting the ordinary course of affairs.
Of necessity, all this proceeds on the supposition that there is a God. But in certain discussions now prevalent as to the "origin of religion," it is customary quietly to assume that there is no God to be known, and consequently that religion must be a mere gratuitous invention of man. It is not too much to say, however, that any scientific conception of the unity of nature and of man's place in it must forbid our making atheistic assumptions. If man were a mere product of blind, unintelligent chance, the idea of a God was not likely ever to have occurred to him, still less to have become the common property of all races of men. In like manner, there is no scientific basis for the assumption that man originated in a low and bestial type, and that his religion developed itself by degrees from the instincts of lower animals, from which man is supposed to have originated. Such suppositions are unscientific (1) because no ancient remains of such low forms of man are known; (2) because the lowest types of man now extant can be proved to be degraded descendants of higher types; (3) because, if man had originated in a low condition, this would not have diminished the probability of a divine revelation being given to promote his elevation.
On the other hand, it is a sad reality that man tends to sink from high ideal morality and reason into debasing vices and gross superstitions that are not natural, but which, on the contrary, place him at variance with natural as well as with moral law. Thus the actual and the possible debasement of man, instead of proving his bestial origin, only increases the need of a divine revelation for his improvement.