Natural Law in the Spiritual World

Henry Drummond

Description

The Scottish evangelical author writer Henry Drummond argues in Natural Law in the Spiritual World that the scientific principle of continuity extends beyond our physical world into the spiritual. After its publication in 1883, he became popular as serious readers found the common standing-ground they needed in Drummond's book.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775410867
• Langue: English

Extrait

NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD
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HENRY DRUMMOND
 
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Natural Law in the Spiritual World First published in 1883.
ISBN 978-1-775410-86-7
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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Preface Analysis of Introduction Introduction Biogenesis Degeneration Growth Death Mortification Eternal Life Environment Conformity to Type Semi-Parasitism Parasitism Classification Endnotes
Preface
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No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost saidderision, than those which deal with Science and Religion. Science istired of reconciliations between two things which never should have beencontrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which itprofesses not to need; and the critics have rightly discovered that, inmost cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused withit, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope andprovince of either. But although no initial protest, probably, will savethis work from the unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful mindwill perceive that the fact of its subject-matter being Law—a propertypeculiar neither to Science nor to Religion—at once places it on asomewhat different footing.
The real problem I have set myself may be stated in a sentence. Is therenot reason to believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual World,hitherto regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, are simplythe Laws of the Natural World? Can we identify the Natural Laws, or anyone of them, in the Spiritual sphere? That vague lines everywhere runthrough the Spiritual World is already beginning to be recognized. Is itpossible to link them with those great lines running through the visibleuniverse which we call the Natural Laws, or are they fundamentallydistinct? In a word, Is the Supernatural natural or unnatural?
I may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these questions in the form inwhich they have answered themselves to myself. And I must apologize atthe outset for personal references which, but for the clearness they maylend to the statement, I would surely avoid.
It has been my privilege for some years to address regularly two verydifferent audiences on two very different themes. On week days I havelectured to a class of students on the Natural Sciences, and on Sundaysto an audience consisting for the most part of working men on subjectsof a moral and religious character. I cannot say that this collocationever appeared as a difficulty to myself, but to certain of my friends itwas more than a problem. It was solved to me, however, at first, by whatthen seemed the necessities of the case—I must keep the two departmentsentirely by themselves. They lay at opposite poles of thought; and for atime I succeeded in keeping the Science and the Religion shut off fromone another in two separate compartments of my mind. But gradually thewall of partition showed symptoms of giving way. The two fountains ofknowledge also slowly began to overflow, and finally their waters metand mingled. The great change was in the compartment which held theReligion. It was not that the well there was dried; still less that thefermenting waters were washed away by the flood of Science. The actualcontents remained the same. But the crystals of former doctrine weredissolved; and as they precipitated themselves once more in definiteforms, I observed that the Crystalline System was changed. New channelsalso for outward expression opened, and some of the old closed up; and Ifound the truth running out to my audience on the Sundays by theweek-day outlets. In other words, the subject-matter Religion had takenon the method of expression of Science, and I discovered myselfenunciating Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics.
Now this was not simply a scientific coloring given to Religion, themere freshening of the theological air with natural facts andillustrations. It was an entire re-casting of truth. And when I cameseriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that itmeant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the SpiritualWorld. It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies of Phenomena rose into view—although material for Parable lies unnoticedand unused on the field of recent Science in inexhaustible profusion.But Law has a still grander function to discharge toward Religion thanParable. There is a deeper unity between the two Kingdoms than theanalogy of their Phenomena—a unity which the poet's vision, more quickthan the theologian's, has already dimly seen:—
"And verily many thinkers of this age, Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense, who understood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it, Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, line by line, Form by form, nothing single nor alone , The great below clenched by the great above." [1]
The function of Parable in religion is to exhibit "form by form." Lawundertakes the profounder task of comparing "line by line." Thus NaturalPhenomena serve mainly an illustrative function in Religion. NaturalLaw, on the other hand, could it be traced in the Spiritual World, wouldhave an important scientific value—it would offer Religion a newcredential. The effect of the introduction of Law among the scatteredPhenomena of Nature has simply been to make Science, to transformknowledge into eternal truth. The same crystallizing touch is needed inReligion. Can it be said that the Phenomena of the Spiritual World areother than scattered? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that thereligious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux? And when we regardthe uncertainty of current beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc ofinevitable as well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of earlyfaith by those who would cherish it longer if they could, is it notplain that the one thing thinking men are waiting for is theintroduction of Law among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? Whenthat comes we shall offer to such men a truly scientific theology. Andthe Reign of Law will transform the whole Spiritual World as it hasalready transformed the Natural World.
I confess that even when in the first dim vision, the organizing hand ofLaw moved among the unordered truths of my Spiritual World, poor andscantily-furnished as it was, there seemed to come over it the beauty ofa transfiguration. The change was as great as from the old chaotic worldof Pythagoras to the symmetrical and harmonious universe of Newton. MySpiritual World before was a chaos of facts; my Theology, a Pythagoreansystem trying to make the best of Phenomena apart from the idea of Law.I make no charge against Theology in general. I speak of my own. And Isay that I saw it to be in many essential respects centuries behindevery department of Science I knew. It was the one region stillunpossessed by Law. I saw then why men of Science distrust Theology; whythose who have learned to look upon Law as Authority grow cold to it—itwas the Great Exception.
I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in my own mind partly foranother reason—to show its naturalness. Certainly I never premeditatedanything to myself so objectionable and so unwarrantable in itself, aseither to read Theology into Science or Science into Theology. Nothingcould be more artificial than to attempt this on the speculative side;and it has been a substantial relief to me throughout that the idea roseup thus in the course of practical work and shaped itself day by dayunconsciously. It might be charged, nevertheless, that I was all thetime, whether consciously or unconsciously, simply reading my Theologyinto my Science. And as this would hopelessly vitiate the conclusionsarrived at, I must acquit myself at least of the intention. Of nothinghave I been more fearful throughout than of making Nature parallel withmy own or with any creed. The only legitimate questions one dare put toNature are those which concern universal human good and the Divineinterpretation of things. These I conceive may be there actually studiedat first-hand, and before their purity is soiled by human touch. We haveTruth in Nature as it came from God. And it has to be read with the sameunbiased mind, the same open eye, the same faith, and the same reverenceas all other Revelation. All that is found there, whatever its place inTheology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whatever its narrownessor its breadth, we are bound to accept as Doctrine from which on thelines of Science there is no escape.
When this presented itself to me as a method, I felt it to be due toit—were it only to secure, so far as that was possible, that no formerbias should interfere with the integrity of the results—to begin againat the beginning and reconstruct my Spiritual World step by step. Theresult of that inquiry, so far as its expression in systematic form isconcerned, I have not given in this book. To reconstruct a SpiritualReligion, or a department of Spiritual Religion—for this is all themethod can pretend to—on the lines of Nature would be an attempt fromwhich one better equipped in both directions might well be pardoned ifhe shrank. My object at present is the humbler one of venturing a simplecontribution to practical Religion along the lines indicated. What Baconpredicates of the Natural World, Natura enim non nisi parendovincitur , is also true, as Christ had already told us, of the SpiritualWorld. And