Science and Christian Faith 99 before him had affirmed that Christianity would be overthrown by the discovery of the law of gravitation and would not survive a century. Newton, the humble-minded Christian discoverer of the law of gravitation, had no such fear, and time has shown that it was he, not Voltaire, who was right. These are specimens of the “conflicts” of Christianity with science. The so-called “astronomical objection” to Christianity more specially takes the form of enlarging on the illimitable ness of the universe disclosed by science in contrast with the peculiar interest of God in man displayed in the Christian Gospel. “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” (Psa. 8:4). Is it credible that this small speck in an infinity of worlds should be singled out as the scene of. so tremendous an exhibition of God’s love and grace as is implied in the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Sacrifice of the Cross, the Redemption of Man? The day is well-nigh past when even this objection is felt to carry much weight. Apart from the strange fact that up to this hour no evidence seems to exist of other worlds inhabited by rational intelligences like man—no planets, no known systems (on this point A. R. Wallace’s “Man and the Universe” may be consulted)— thoughtful people have come to realize that quantitative big ness is no measure of God’s love and care; that the value of a soul is not to be estimated in terms of stars and planets; that sin is not less awful a fact even if it were proved that this is the only spot in the universe in which it has emerged. I t is of the essence of God’s infinity that He cares for the little as well as for the great; not a blade of grass could wave, or the insect of a day live its brief life upon the wing, if God were not actually present, and minutely careful of it. Man’s position in the universe remains, by consent, or rather by proof, of science, an altogether peculiar one. Link between the material and the spiritual, he is the one being that seems fitted, as Scripture affirms he is, to be the bond of unity in
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