Must not the recognition of these causes...

Must not the recognition of these causes, factors, events, and phenomena of nature lead inevitably to recognition of the Prime Cause whose Word started off the chain reaction of continuous creation? Where is the logic in claiming that the belief in God is confined to persons unaware of the processes of creation?

Should the scientist, who is aware of the natural causes and of the factors determining each step of creation towards perfection, of mankind's evolution, of the minute accuracy and exactitude that rules every change in the nature that surrounds us, come to believe that these wondrous laws and amazing interactions have somehow fortuitously emerged out of mindless matter?

Have his discoveries and insights merely brought him to a stage of thought which sees only blind concomitance and chance conjunctures in the exactly interacting phenomena? Close study shows that the rise of materialism in Europe was due to certain historical facts. Among these must be counted mistakes made by the Church authorities. (1) At the start of the Renaissance, Church authorities showed undue severity against partisans of the "new learning".

This was because, alongside its purely religious doctrines, the Church had inherited from the philosophers of earlier ages, both Hellenic and non-Hellenic, various views about the world, and judged it as heretical to question these views as to deny religious tenets. But "new learning" exposed the falsity of previously held cosmogonic theories.

Scientists who had discovered the facts, and expressed them in formulae which the Church declared heretical, in disgust turned against the Church, and discarded not merely the secondary views but also the Faith itself. To curb this mounting revolt the Church pressed harder. A desire for revenge rose in the hearts of the excommunicated.

This illogical passion, seeking not to establish objective truth but simply to avenge, led the learned to "throw out the baby with the bathwater"; not merely the institutions which claimed to stand for God, but God as well. To seek revenge on a group of people with ecclesiastical claims is one thing. To revolt against religion in the true sense of the word is quite another. This dichotomy they failed to grasp. Yet it is obvious that revenge is not a rational or scientific reaction.

Emotion has no place in intellectual pursuits.