How is theology "the queen of the sciences"?

Let us boldly declare that the Bible is the true university. Necessarily, this does not mean that God has given us the details of those things which we can glean from nature by reverent and persistent search; but He has given us certain great principles as to all the various branches of knowledge which would enable us, with the light thus obtained, to enter into every field of research, with confidence that we could understand that which we would find.

Further: we are also here supplied with a divine, perfect key, which shall open the door to all knowledge. We take the first chapter of our Bible, and we fearlessly approach the great problems which Geology, Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, Botany, Zoology have to present. Christ is the key which is to unlock these. They are but parts of the one vast purpose which God has "to head up all things in Christ" (Eph. 1). If we forget this, we will lose the thread of the narrative which God Himself has given us. Little wonder, then, that science has groped in the midst of untold riches of truth poured out before her gaze in nature, and, if at enmity with God, only ended in excluding Him from the very works which cry aloud of His wisdom, power and goodness. Faith gladly holds the key, and ever remembers the manifest purpose of God in His works, which is not to display human skill nor to satisfy human curiosity, but to bring man into the place where he can enjoy all in the presence of God.

This learning from God is the privilege of every Christian, regardless of his social-economic-educational position. Christ said, "Labour not for the food which perishes, but for that food which endures to everlasting life" (John 6: 27). This food is spiritual knowledge - knowledge of the highest kind, which is needful for the proper control of every other kind of knowledge. Since "all things were created by Christ and for Him" (Col. 1: 16), it is not possible to see things aright until we connect them with Him for whom they were created. Then, all natural science will become spiritual science; all -ologies will work into theology. What value will the world be to me if it is not God's world? Since the world and even the universe were made to manifest Him, how great should my interest be in them! Christians are partly guilty for the neglect which has allowed the natural sciences to become the possession of unbelieving men. So, instead of Christianity standing firm on the two feet of Nature and Scripture which both testify of God, it limps along with one useless foot a burden on the other.

Now, if Christ be indeed the One by whom and for whom all things were created, it is only the one to whom Christ has become what we see He was with the apostle, who can be at the centre of any branch of knowledge. All roads must lead to Him. The spiritual must everywhere underlie the natural, give meaning to it, make it really what it is meant to be, clothe it with the power that should belong to it. No science but must run into theology. All the analogies of nature become but witnesses of this inner reality, without the knowledge of which the savant and scientist becomes indeed but a pitiful agnostic all his utterances but broken fragments of sentences, — the stammerings of infirmity and impotence itself.

Is this knowledge? No. The reasoning on facts, even without God, even in that which is the legitimate sphere of experimental science, is only the leaving man to the wandering of his own mind, who never will, and never can, know creation without knowing a Creator; that is, without that faith which believes that the worlds were framed by the word of God, and that the things which are seen were not made of the things which do appear. When we turn to moral things and intellectual philosophy, it is evident there can be no knowledge without the fear of God; for then I enter on the sphere of relationships and obligations; and how can I be right, when I leave out the first and principal one? I cannot think of mind and find it sufficient for itself within itself. In point of fact, it has aspirations, and longings, and thoughts of a Being above us, power out of our reach, goodness, good and evil - of an end of our being, which is not apparent. If mind cannot suffice for itself, is it to turn to what is below it and exercise merely its powers? If above, what is God? what are my relationships with Him? where do they end, how begin? Will they end? I must know God to be at rest, God must have His place. Now putting God in His true place - that is the fear of God - is the true beginning of all knowledge.

Why do we thus speak of all true education and culture being dependent upon the Scriptures? It is because all knowledge apart from God leads into the darkness. We see this in the science of the day. How infinitely pathetic and solemn it is to think of learned men spreading out before us a vast area of facts as to the heavens above and the earth beneath our feet, and being absolutely ignorant and blind to the fact which the babe in Christ exults in — that all has been created by Christ and for Him! "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" and "the knowledge of the Holy is understanding." If the glory of God is not seen in the heavens, all that science can tell us about heavenly distances, sizes, laws, and all else, is comparatively worthless; and so, too, with every other department of human knowledge.

The Bridegroom coming forth of His chamber, who is at the same time the "Sun of righteousness" that "shall arise with healing in His wings," source of light, of life, of fruitfulness, to the whole earth rejoicing in His beams: shall we look at this picture and yet find Theism indeed, but not Christology, in nature's lessons? Or shall we speak slightingly of "parables" as after all merely the ingenious play of fancy, brilliant perhaps but unreal, not rooted in the nature of things? able to give, therefore, no deep, true, (if you will,) scientific glance into that nature? Nay: this is their real spiritual equivalent, and spirit is the essence of things, and gives the law of external nature. As it is said of Israel's history, that "all these things happened unto them for types," so it is true of nature that all these things are arranged and ordered so that it should be the true reflection of the glory of God; — so that its voices should tell Him forth. And instead of being unscientific, to follow this out would give us truest science, would relieve us of much that causes sorest perplexity, would bring the material and spiritual into perfect reconciliation, and God into everything that He has made. Is this to be desired? It is the one thing which gives all knowledge value. It is that which alone can establish science itself; nay, lift it up into the sphere of the eternal! It will be its immeasurable exaltation. Finally, it will make our Bible the unifier and key of every kind of knowledge, and Christ, in result, the sum of it. Is this, Christian reader, a thing desirable? Is it to you a thing credible? It is that of which the apostle assures us, that the knowledge of the "new man," "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him," is that "Christ is ALL, and in all." (Col. 3:10-11.)

The Doctrine as to God — the Trinity The knowledge of God is, as some have put it, "The noblest of all sciences." We guard however against the thought that we can gain a knowledge of God as we would of the natural sciences. Indeed these do not yield their true meaning until we couple them with God, for surely He is revealed in all the works of His creation; but the knowledge of God as given to us in the Scriptures, and particularly in the New Testament, is a moral, rather than an intellectual, acquirement. It is this which our Lord declares when He says: "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

One thing more, a person may pass from that condition of infancy into the next stage, or even into the highest condition, that of a "father." But the blessedness of the infantine state is not lost, though he may be, as I say, even a "father," though he may know "Him who is from the beginning." And that is the very highest thing. The highest knowledge in the things of God is the knowledge of Christ. It is not the knowledge of things about Christ, but of Christ Himself. And the most excellent of all sciences is the knowledge of Christ. There is no science like it.

The highest knowledge of all is obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ alone! Advanced religious thought and modernism deny this! While they profess to reverence Him in measure, they refuse the honour which essentially belongs to Him as the Revealer of the Father.