The Scientist And The Bishop

Prof. K. Runia. Trowel & Sword. November 1963

Preamble: The battle between science and religion has been going for a long time. In essence, it is a battle (if one can use that word) between God and Satan – the wannabe god, which started in Eden with Satan setting out to recruit his first disciples, Adam and Eve. But wait! Can we really talk about “science” when referring to the ancient world? Emphatically, yes! Can we really speak about Babel, or the construction of the pyramids without acknowledging the scientific prowess of the builders in construction techniques? Even the Romans were able to make concrete which are still sound after two thousand years. Modern concrete buildings barely last more that a couple of hundred years. But Satan’s attacks are relentless. You may have heard the saying that if you repeat a lie often enough people will start to believe it. It has also been said that the more outrageous the lie, the more likely it is to be believed. Politicians have been using this principle for years. Not even church officials are immune. And so we come to the story of the scientist and the bishop as told by Prof. Runia.

The Scientist And The Bishop

Last week nearly all daily papers wrote about the bold statements which the famous Australian physicist Sir Mark Oliphant made about the Christian faith. One of our readers in Canberra was so kind to send us the Canberra Times of Saturday, October 12, in which the greater part of the lecture was quoted verbatim.

Ever since the famous Galileo case in the 16th century, when some groups in the Roman Catholic Church of that day forced this astronomer to recant his statement that the earth revolves around the sun (on the basis of Joshua 10:12,13), there has been a conflict between science and theology. In some centuries this conflict was more prominent than in others, but nearly always it was there. Especially in the 19th century it came into the open. The publication of Darwin’s books on evolutionism meant the end of belief in the Bible for many scientists. We do not need God any more, He is a superfluous working hypothesis. Evolution explains everything.

Prof. Oliphant also seems to belong to this purely rationalistic school of thought. In a way he does not make any new point. All the arguments used by him are as old as Darwin. Occasionally he is even very unscientific, as appears from some of his remarks about the ministers of the Church. At one point of his lecture he speaks of the difficulty a Christian has in believing in a loving God and at the same time having to explain diseases, pestilence, famine, etc. In this connection the scientist writes: “A fat prelate in Rome, London, New York, or Sydney, his belly lined with good food, claims greater knowledge of God than was possessed by Pasteur, by Newton, by Gowland Hopkins, by Einstein, or by Rutherford”. Such a bantering way of speaking is far below any standard!

But what does Sir Mark Oliphant believe for himself?

To be honest: nothing at all. He is a pure materialist. All religions (including the Christian religion) are explained as products of evolution. From primitive times onward man has always felt the need of explaining things. There must be a deepest cause of both good and evil. Thus people came to belief in gods and devils. Of course, all these beliefs are nothing  else than projections of the human mind. This does not all mean that they are unimportant. Prof. Oliphant graciously admits: “The creator of Heaven and Earth, of all things seen and unseen, the benevolent  Father of all mankind, has been a source of strength in adversity, of law and justice, of the most magnificent architecture and art, and of quiet, inner, hope and fulfilment, to countless human beings of many great religions”. Nevertheless, from the scientific point of view it is nothing else than projection. “Suppose, that on some other ‘earth’ in the universe, it was the porpoise, a creature with a large brain and great intelligence, which overcame the disabilities of its environment and evolved to as high a degree as man on this earth? Would the porpoise-beings imagine God as a super-porpoise?” 

But what then?

The only thing we know is that the universe is infinite, both as to space and time. “The universe of space, matter and radiation (light) is no ephemeral thing, but possesses in itself those attributes of creation, permanence, and limitlessness, which are associated with the idea of God. Surely then, if there is a God, he is this universe. Through it, and in it, he must express himself. In it and by it, he must have his being.” That is all that is to be said about ‘God’. As far as man himself is concerned, he is nothing else than a high product of this material universe. He is able to think, etc., but this is not unique, it is only a glorified aspect of his physical existence. The highest task of man is not to strive for salvation – “petty personal aim” – but for understanding of himself and of the world in which he lives.

It is obvious that this is pure, unadulterated materialism. Sir Mark Oliphant has no place for God in the universe. Sir Mark Oliphant has no place for God in his own life. Man is only a tiny part of nature, lives as such and presently will die as such, which is the absolute finish. God is only another name for the universe. That is, the universe is God, which is equal to saying: there is no God at all. There is only nature, creative and infinite.

In all this there is nothing new. It is the old, well-know scientific materialism, for years already defended by such men as Julian Huxley and others. It is the belief (yes, this too is a form of belief) of autonomous man, who refuses to see himself as a sinful creature and therefore ‘gives the sack’ to God. It is the through and through superficial unbelief of the scientist who is willing to accept only what he can see and measure with his instruments, and rejects everything that falls outside this scope. It is the proud unbelief of the sinner who refuses to acknowledge his own smallness and powerlessness, who refuses to be taught by the God of the revelation.

We do not believe that this lecture of Prof. Oliphant is very important. We have referred to it here only because it is a symptom of a very general attitude. At the same time we wondered: what would Sir Mark Oliphant say of the book written by Dr. J.A.T. Robinson, the Anglican bishop of Woolwich: ‘Honest to God’? I have the impression that he has not read the book of the bishop. But I have also the impression, that if he would read it, he would strongly applaud it! In actual fact there is no essential difference between the scientist and the bishop. I know that the bishop speaks much about God. It is a term which he still treasures. He also says many ‘profound’ things about God. But is there really much difference between the two? Really? The physicist says: the universe is god. The bishop says: God is the Ground of Being in all things. Surely, there are certain differences, but I do not believe them to be of an essential nature. In fact the bishop himself often appeals to Sir Julian Huxley, the materialist who wrote a book about ‘Religion without revelation’. The bishop definitely has certain reservations. He criticises the materialist, but ultimately he himself cannot get away from some kind of naturalism. There is no personal God existing apart from this universe. What is then really the difference?

Yes, this is the shocking situation: a bishop of the Church of England gives such a version of the Christian faith that essentially there is no difference between the ‘Christian’ bishop and the atheistic scientist! For this reason the bishop is a much greater danger than the scientist. The latter is an open, avowed atheist and as such he will not deceive anyone, neither a believer nor an unbeliever. The former is a ‘guardian of the truth’ in the Christian Church, but his teachings are as a spiritual lullaby for all unbelievers.They can even go on to call themselves Christians and be members of the Church (even Sir Mark Oliphant!), yet without regeneration, without conversion, without atonement, without the living God of the Scriptures. 

K. RUNIA

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