LATENT CREEDS.
[To .a EDITOS or ear Sxn,—Like some other people that I know, I regard the Spectator as the best of newspapers for Sunday reading. Its outlook on the world of men and things and its sympathy with all who enjoy the benediction of Christian faith com- mend it to those to whom, even in the time of the Great War, Sunday is still Sunday—a time for reflection on the deeper things of life, It was therefore with pain, and some degree of surprise, that I read the following sentence in your sug- gestive article on "Latent Creeds" in your last issue "Even among professing Christians not very many can be found to uphold by reason or argument the efficacy of prayer for any but spiritual benefits." At a time when thousands are finding in prayer the one resource which can bring peace to their hearts, these words may be a source of much trouble. Are all the prayers which ascend from the hearts of wives and mothers, when they think of their dearest facing the cruel storm of shot and shell, offered in vain P Are such petitions irrational and unmeaning ? Yonr words imply that they are. Apparently you believe that the physical order of the world is so absolutely determined that it is absurd to pray to God about any event which is involved in it. If that is your belief, I think you are mistaken. If physical science has taught us any lesson, it is this that the forces of Nature are, within the sphere of human activity, subject to control by intelligence and will. In relation to us, the physical order is not all determined beforehand. Within certain limits we can control natural forces and make them do our bidding. All practical applications of science are illustrations of this truth. In fact, all human dealings with Nature, from the simplest to the most complex, reveal the fact that intelli- gent will is able to subdue physical forces with a view to the accomplishment of human purposes. Every part of our material environment bears witness to this power. So it is that man has changed the surface of the earth, made the ocean his great means of communication, and is even now subduing the air. This being so, it follows that if you are right man has far more power over Nature than God. The Almighty labours under a disability from which His creature, man, is free. He is so shackled by His own laws that He is powerless to respond in the physical sphere to the changing needs of His spiritual creatures. This I cannot believe. On the con- trary, I must hold that the Divine control of natural forces is infinitely larger and more varied than the human. When I find that man can intervene in the course of Nature to bring about results which that course unassisted could never produce, I must conclude that, in a far higher way and greater degree, it must be subject to the Will of God. But of course it will be said that the regular order of Nature is the expression of the Divine Will, and that what prayer asks for is that the Will of God should be changed. This brings us to the central question: How are we to conceive of the Will of God in relation to Nature? la He like a great engineer who, long ages ago, created the universe, making it a perfect machine working out all results with mechanical precision? Or is He the immanent Life of the whole, or (me judice better still) the conscious all-inclusive Life in whom we live and move and have our being P On the former hypothesis, the argument against prayer would certainly hold good. But that conception of Deity has long been discarded by all thoughtful minds. On the latter, the argument has no potency at all. God is Spirit, all-pervading, infinite, living, not in rigid immobility, but in continual response to the changing needs and circumstances of His spiritual creatures. The difficulty arises from the fact that we have got into the way of regarding Nature as a system of laws. It is nothing of the kind. The laws of Nature are mere abstrac- tions: the concrete life of the world is more and greater than they. And the most remarkable thing about the laws of Nature is that, instead of putting obstacles in the way of human effort, the knowledge of them is the very means by which man is able to control Nature for his own purposes. To suppose that they have an opposite effect upon the Almighty is a very strange conclusion. It is surely in- credible.—I am, Sir, dm., Cliaarass F. Down. [The Bishop of Down is quite sight to protest against an argument which appears to limit the power and mercy of the Almighty. Such was not our argument. What we desired
to insist on was that prayer and the instinctive resort to prayer hold their place even with those who believe that logic compels them to think that prayer involves a denial of God's beneficence or an attempt to dictate to the Omnipotent and Omniscient how He should judge and rule the universe. Our position has always been that pure reason is a very poor and weak guide, and that the instinct to pray is a better ground for prayer than any rationalistic argument, however apparently irresistible. We are not in the least concerned to disprove the argument against prayer, because we believe the matter to be beyond argument. We know that mankind in trouble or doubt will pray, and will rise the better for prayer.—En. Spectator.]
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