* A Scientist's Faith in the Resurrection
Dr. A. C. Ivy, Department of Chemical Science, University of Illinois, states his faith in the bodily resurrection of Christ: "I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. As you say, this is a 'personal matter,' but I am not ashamed to let the world know what I believe, and that I can intelligently defend my belief. . . . I cannot prove this belief as I can prove certain scientific facts in my library which one hundred years ago were almost as mysterious as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the basis of historical evidence of existing biological knowledge, the scientist who is true to the philosophy of science can doubt the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, but he cannot deny it. Because to do so means that he can prove that it did not occur. I can only say that present-day biological science cannot resurrect a body that has been dead and entombed for three days. To deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the basis of what biology now knows is to manifest an unscientific attitude according to my philosophy of the true scientific attitude." —Cited by Wilbur M. Smith, in article "Twentieth. Century Scientists and the Resurrection of Christ." Christianity Today, April 15, 1957.
* Hands Across the Gulf
A European archbishop has employed similar language to that used on page 588 of The Great Controversy.
"We have, thank God, got beyond the period in which confessional strife was placed above the great national interests. The emphasis upon what is common to all Christians has never been so strongly and actively stressed as in the last decade. The two confessions have reverently laid the great Cross of Christ across the gulf that separates them in questions of faith. So a holy bridge has been built which makes it possible for us, without difficulty, to stretch out a brotherly hand to one another. Nobody knows when the blessed day of reunion will come." —Archbishop Grober of Freiburg, quoted by Adolph Keller in Christian Europe Today, p. 260.
* Science and Philosophy
"There are questions which science cannot answer but which, nevertheless, can be answered and can be answered by philosophical knowledge, capable of evidential support, rather than by unfounded personal opinion. The questions which philosophy can answer and science cannot are radically different in type from the question science can answer and philosophy cannot; and this difference in the problems and objects of philosophical and scientific inquiry is correlated with the fundamental difference in their methods of inquiry. . . .
"Yet the methods of both are methods of learning what is true or probable, and so the methods of both, properly applied, are able to increase the store of human knowledge, each with respect to its own objects and problems. Both in short, are methodical pursuits of objective truth. . . .
"The utility of science is technological or productive. It builds bridges and cures diseases. But scientific knowledge can also, of course, be used to bomb bridges and to scatter disease on the winds. Science gives us atomic or thermonuclear energy for constructive or destructive purposes, but it does not tell us whether to make peace or war, or how to govern a just and free society, or how men can become wise and happy after they have been made powerful and comfortable.
"Philosophical knowledge produces absolutely nothing. But where science has a technological or productive utility, philosophy has a practical or moral utility. It cannot tell men how to make things, but it can direct them toward making a good rather than an evil use of them. It directs the conduct of the individual life and of society by the moral and political truths it is able to teach about war and peace, justice, liberty, and law, duty, virtue, and happiness.
"When Bacon said 'knowledge is power,' he was thinking only of productive power, and hence only of scientific knowledge. Power without wisdom is a dangerous thing, since it can be used for good or evil; and the more power we have, the greater is the catastrophe we risk bringing upon ourselves by its misuse. That is our situation today, in a world dominated by science, from which philosophy has been effectively exiled
"To return once more to the metaphors I used at the beginning, let me conclude by saying that philosophy is not in the suburbs of the city of knowledge, nor out on the mountain tops, nor up in the clouds. Philosophy should be pictured rather as one great state in the federal republic of knowledge, in which science is another. Each has a certain autonomy; each exercises the sovereignty of its methods in its own realm."—Mortimer Adler, Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, San Francisco, "The Questions Science Cannot Answer," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April, 1957.
* Writer Asserts World Church Becoming Demonic
[Interesting observation on Revelation 18:2, "the habitation of devils."'
"I believe in love, the greatest thing on this earth. . . . But I don't believe in the commandments and the casuistry of a church which tries to impose her mastery on our conscience.
"With the reign of the Spirit begins the transvaluation even of the Christian values. The Church of the World, the Church as institution, as Power, as Authority, as a knowing and ruling church, has become demonic. She pretends to know and to rule but she does not know more than I myself about the inner wisdom of the soul."—A well-known writer whose name has been kept confidential, quoted by Adolph Keller in Christian Europe Today, p. 76.
* Liberty More Important Than Peace
"We have repeatedly demonstrated that liberty is even more important to us than peace. Therefore, in the search for peace, we must not create institutions that lower the risk of war by raising the risk of freedom. This is not yet the time for world government or for a United Nations with powers of enforcement, because three-fourths of the people are still inexperienced in democracy. If given a chance, that great majority, through political immaturity plus the aggressions of Communists and Fascists, might snuff out the torch of liberty everwhere."—Allan F. Matthews, geologist and resource specialist (has served on the staffs of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and National Security Resources Board), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February, 1957, "The Cost of Preparedness and Risk of War."
