Spiritual need doubt

New chaplain speaks on wisdom

Man has no spiritual needs said the University Chaplain.

"The Church cannot administer to man's 'spiritual' needs," the Rev. Peter Jennings said in his sermon at St. Andrew's Church on Sunday after being commissioned National Council of Churches Chaplain to the University.

"I doubt if he has any spiritual needs," Mr. Jennings said.

"We can't be cut up into parts. We are all parts together or we are nothing."

"The Church must be in all of university life—or in nothing.

"We—you and I —are not an outpost of the Church but an integral part of the university.

"We are not here with only a spiritual concern, nor to listen primarily to people with problems.

"If people have problems, their solution is essential to wisdom.

"I, and all church members must help however we can.

But you do not need the Church only when trouble strikes.

"Come to me when you are in trouble—but look to me even more when all is well.

"We need each other if we are to gain wisdom," he said.

Membership of the University helped in growth toward this wisdom, he said.

"It's difficult to pinpoint what makes a man wise."

It was certainly not knowledge alone, though it was difficult to see how it was possible to be wise without some knowledge.

True wisdom had a practical outcome.

It could not be gained in isolation.

Revelation in the Bible came through community experience.

"When the Church is together, then the Spirit guides us," Mr. Jennings said.

He expected people could agree that the words "God", "Spirit" or "revelation", if they at least meant that wisdom grew through interaction with others, were true.

There was also a moral aspect to wisdom.

Discipline was necessary, as was a setting of values.

The undisciplined did not become wise.

Yet this discipline did not deny freedom—it was the way to greater freedom. Freedom of enquiry was necessary for wisdom.

Wisdom was something wider than an academic activity.

The Hebrew word represented an attitude of the total personality not an attribute of the mind.

"How then does membership of the University help us to grow in wisdom?" Mr. Jennings asked.

The first task of the university was to make available some of man's knowledge.

The Hebrews valued more than academic knowledge the use to which knowledge was put.

The university gave a basis of comparison.

By dirrecting attention to achievements of others, it helped in seeing whatever was being studied in proper perspective.

"Since we have seen that wisdom is gained only in community, the University gives us such a community—where ideas may be questioned," he said.

"We are given the responsibility for our futures herein the University. Mr. Jennings said.

The University accepted its responsibility for providing guidance in the use of this responsibility.

Students were encouraged to break out of former patterns of thought, to learn to be self-questioning and to gain the freedom they could achieve if they could leave behind their inhibitions and prejudices.

The University, through its cultural, political, religious, and athletic activities, bore witness to the involvement of the whole man in the pursuit of wisdom.

"How can the Church play its part in the university in this task?" Mr. Jennings asked.

It had a part to play in the provision of factual knowledge.

But the Church was no longer regarded as the guardian of a body of revealed truth.

Nevertheless there was knowledge in the Church that was different from the knowledge gained in academic fields.

Both types of study were needed to complete the picture.

It could also be a unifying agent within the University.

The Church must be prepared to safeguard freedom? to say, where necessary, that even the University was not being free enough.