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Natural Law in the Spiritual World

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This book is a masterpiece of exposing how things in creation and nature (natural laws) reflect the Divine Truth of Christian spirituality. This book would be particularly appealing to agnostics, atheists, and skeptics. It contains dire warnings on false types of spirituality that lead to Death, not to Life. It's arguments completely integrate natural law (science) and spiritual law. (theology). Absolutely phenomenal.

It should be stressed that this is not an attempt to use science to "prove" religious truths. Drummond, who was both an accomplished scientist and a Christian missionary in the late 19th Century, is clear in his rejection of all such attempts from his opening sentence onwards. Yet he also rejects the idea that there is an artificial division between the natural and the Spiritual. To him, there is no such thing as "the supernatural". The Spiritual is simply the continuation of the natural by other means, or, rather, the natural is a lower order of the Spiritual. He appears to accept Darwin's theory of evolution in its entirety, but gives it a Spiritual purpose by arguing that the ultimate product of evolution, and its objective, is the Spiritual man. This is a thesis worthy of serious consideration. Drummond develops it by showing how several orthodox Christian doctrines are consistent with patterns already observed in the natural world. In describing the natural world, he is scrupulously fair, relying not on any special Christian view but on the scientific consensus of his time, and going out of his way to show respect for the opinions of the celebrity agnostics of the era, Spencer and Huxley. Ironically, this proves to be the central weakness of the book. It is hardly Drummond's fault - he was writing on the basis of the best scientific evidence then available - but 19th Century science is now very dated and, in many vital aspects, has been proved to be wholly inaccurate. His attempt to reconcile his Christianity with contemporary scientific consensus fails not because Christianity has been proved wrong but because his contemporary scientific consensus has been proved wrong. Today's scientists should reflect on this and be careful to quote our current scientific consensus only with humility. It is also a warning to Christians not to try to "prove" religious truths using contemporary scientific consensus: if truths are truths, then they are eternal truths, and need no proof, but contemporary scientific consensus is sometimes less solid than it pretends. If faith tries to prop itself up on science, it is science which may prove the broken reed. A Christian with a strong scientific background might be better employed in taking up the challenge Drummond set himself and restating Drummond's thesis in the light of the scientific advances of the last century. Many sincere Christians see the doctrine of evolution as hostile to their faith, but Drummond sees it as illuminating the central truths of Christianity, and, by illuminating, supporting. This could be a profitable line of study for a Christian with roots in mainstream science.

Since the mid-sixties I have had the book, Natural Law in the Spiritual World. My book is so old, it does not have a publication date! It is also so old, I can no longer use it for study purposes. I was delighted to learn that I could get a recent publication. Since the mid-sixties, I have tried to get greater understanding of Words spoken by Jesus in John 4.24: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth." That search is what led me to the book by Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World. I am not a "scholar," but I am one who sincerely wants to learn. Since the mid-sixties, every three or four years, I re-read Drummond's book seeking greater clarity. My review of the book is not a scholar's review but that of a Bible student. I regard the book as informative - beyond measure!