The Relation of Science and Religion.pdf - Online Christian Library

INORGANIC ELEMENTS. 117can be originated or destroyed ? Is the doctrineof the conservation of energy to betaken as scientifically demonstrated? Thesethings science must decide, and beyond these,all is clear for ordinary intelligence. Of thetestimony of science on these two questionsthere is no doubt whatever. Religion, therefore,has no conflict with science here; it simplyaccepts the teaching of science, findingin it ample support for its fundamental position.What creation really means, or how wecan fittingly represent it to our minds, doesnot in the least affect the question here underdiscussion, for these are not points on whichscience can offer any testimony. Nor havethe defenders of religion any complaint tourge against the claims which science makesto explain all that belongs to nature. Butwhen those who make the largest claims forscience, acknowledge that science is baffledhere, their testimony gains in value by reasonof the strength of their antipathy to the acknowledgmentof the miraculous. When froman accredited scientific witness we have thesewords:-'' The investigation of nature does notshrink from enrolling life and the processesof life in the world of the comprehensible,"