D*****r
发帖数: 6791 | 1 The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the
firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this
ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the
rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent cause of
natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with
the natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science,
for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which
scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded
that such behaviour on the part of the representatives of religion would not
only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain
itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its
effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress....
If it is one of the goals of religions to liberate mankind as far as
possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears,
scientific reasoning can aid religion in another sense. Although it is true
that it is the goal of science to discover (the) rules which permit the
association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also
seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number
of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after
the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest
successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run
the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusion. But whoever has undergone
the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain, is moved
by the profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By
way of the understanding he achieves a far reaching emancipation from the
shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble
attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason, incarnate in existence, and
which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude,
however, appears to me to be religious in the highest sense of the word. And
so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of
the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious
spiritualisation of our understanding of life. |
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