he miraculous birth of a Saviour
are features which it has in common with pagan religions--such
conclusions are supremely unedifying. It may be said that in themselves
they are not fatal to the claims of the current theology. It may be
held, for instance, that, as part of Christian revelation, such ideas
acquired a new significance and that God wisely availed himself of
familiar beliefs--which, though false and leading to cruel practices, he
himself had inspired and permitted--in order to construct a scheme of
redemption which should appeal to the prejudices of man. Some minds may
find satisfaction in this sort of explanation, but it may be suspected
that most of the few who study modern researches into the origin of
religious beliefs will feel the lines which were supposed to mark off
the Christian from all other faiths dissolving before their eyes.

The general result of the advance of science, including anthropology,
has been to create a coherent view of the world, in which the Christian
scheme, based on the notions of an unscientific age and on the arrogant
assumption that the universe was made for man, has no suitable or
reasonable place. If Paine felt this a hundred years ago, it is far

[191] more apparent now. All minds however are not equally impressed
with this incongruity. There are many who will admit the proofs
furnished by science that the Biblical record as to the antiquity of man
is false, but are not affected by the incongruity between the scientific
and theological conceptions of the world.

For such minds science has only succeeded in carrying some
entrenchments, which may be abandoned without much harm. It has made the
old orthodox view of the infallibility of the Bible untenable, and upset
the doctrine of the Creation and Fall. But it would still be possible
for Christianity to maintain the supernatural claim, by modifying its
theory of the authority of the Bible and revising its theory of
redemption, if the evidence of natural science were the only group of
facts with which it collided. It might be argued that the law of
universal causation is a hypothesis inferred from experience, but that
experience includes the testimonies of history and must therefore take
account of the clear evidence of miraculous occurrences in the New
Testament (evidence which is valid, even if that book was not inspired).
Thus, a stand could be taken against the generalization of science on
the firm ground of historical