; and they will burn people for saying that science, after
all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.
Science and Theology
We should endow neither; we should treat them as we treat
conservatism and liberalism, encouraging both, so that they may keep
watch upon one another, and letting them go in and out of power with
the popular vote concerning them.
The world is better carried on upon the barrister principle of
special pleading upon two sides before an impartial ignorant
tribunal, to whom things have got to be explained, than it would be
if nobody were to maintain any opinion in which he did not personally
believe.
What we want is to reconcile both science and theology with sincerity
and good breeding, to make our experts understand that they are
nothing if they are not single-minded and urbane. Get them to
understand this, and there will be no difficulty about reconciling
science and theology.
The Church and the Supernatural
If we saw the Church wishing to back out of the supernatural and
anxious to explain it away where possible, we would keep our
disbelief in the supernatural in the background, as far as we could,
and would explain away our rejection of the miracles, as far as was
decent; furthermore we would approximate our language to theirs
wherever possible, and insist on the points on which we are all
agreed, rather than on points of difference; in fact, we would meet
them half way and be only too glad to do it.
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