To that
I demur, because I am not attempting to discuss theology, but
current conceptions of theology. If the advance in theology has
been so enormous, then all I can say is that the theologians fail
to bring home the knowledge of that progress to the man in the
street. To use a simple parable, what one feels about many modern
theological statements is what the eloquent bagman said in praise
of the Yorkshire ham: "Before you know where you are, there--it's
wanished!" This is not so in science; science advances, and the
ordinary man knows more or less what is going on; he understands
what is meant by the development of species, he has an inkling of
what radio-activity means, and so forth; but this is because
science is making discoveries, while theological discoveries are
mainly of a liberal and negative kind, a modification of old
axioms, a loosening of old definitions. Theology has made no
discoveries about the nature of God, or the nature of the soul; the
problem of free will and necessity is as dark as ever, except that
scientific discovery tends to show more and more that an immutable
law regulates the smallest details of life.
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