Religion and Science
5. Religion and Science
~ 86 ~
Positivism in their own bristling den’ (p. 84).
Morton White may have said this only about
Whitehead, but this applies to all the scientists
mentioned above.
This philosophical question as to the final reality
being mind or matter is actually concerned with the
question of whether the universe has developed
independently and spontaneously through some
material process, or whether there is a non-material
being who has created it at will. If we accepted the
former proposition, it would be just like saying that,
in the last analysis, a machine is simply a fortuitous
compound of iron and petrol. That is to say, that the
machine started off as iron and petrol, but owing to
some blind, automatic process, it took on the form of
a machine. All a pure accident! A machine, as we all
know, is the product of an engineer’s mind. That
mind, quite distinct from the matter, existed before
the machine. It conceived it, designed it, and brought
it into being. The machine’s existence was clearly
consequent upon the exercise of mind and will.
In determining the nature of the mind, differences
can be found among those who believe the mind to
