Religious Certitude in an Age of Science: The McNair Lectures, 1922, Delivered at the University of North CarolinaUniversity of North Carolina Press, 1924 - 102 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute justice affirm AGE OF SCIENCE anthropomorphic aspirations beauty believe Bible characters claim Confucius consciousness conviction coöperating Copernicus creature discovery divine earth ence energy establish eternal Everlasting evil facts and laws fixity of conception fulness and tone give heart heaven highest human nature ideals impulse Infi insight intellectual interpret Jesus Christ John Calvin McNair knowing faculties knowl liberty ligion literature lives loftiest MCNAIR LECTURES ment mind moral and emotional moral responsibility Mystery nature of things never noblest North Carolina ology possession Power not ourselves proper evidence prophets purpose Reality RELIGIOUS CERTITUDE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT righteousness rill saint science and religion SCIENCE ON MODERN scientists sense shining Sir Leslie Stephen soul sovereign spirit strength Supreme Worth thee theology tion true Tyndall ultimate universe UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN valid values and forces vidual virtues vital wages of sin word know word knowledge
Popular passages
Page 13 - Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
Page 60 - The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakespeare — not only a Boyle, but a Raphael — not only a Kant, but a Beethoven — not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed but supplementary — not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable.
Page 81 - And in his hours of health and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action has ceased, and the pause ot reflection has set in, the scientific investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking contact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him with a Power which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend.
Page 94 - 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.
Page 76 - The more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own), the more obvious it is to me that the wicked does not flourish nor is the righteous punished. But for this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the whole law— physical as well as moral—and that moral obedience will not atone for physical sin, or vice versa.
Page 83 - ... beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him...
Page 60 - ... turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith ; so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs — then...
Page 43 - Man is imprisoned in the external present ; and what we call a man's religion is, to a great extent, the thing that offers him a secret and permanent means of escape from that prison, a breaking of the prison walls which leaves him standing, of course, still in the present, but in a present so enlarged and enfranchised that it is become not a prison but a free world.
Page 61 - ... of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs — then, casting aside all the restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man. Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me to handle, but which will assuredly be handled by the loftiest minds, when you and I, like streaks...
Page 76 - The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any scientific fact. The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so — for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all — nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.