The name is absent

32 The Rice Institute Pamphlet

significantly religious. More than faithful acceptance of past
knowledge is required because the religious life itself is one
of creative discovery.¹⁰ It is a common fallacy to suppose that
criticism of particular beliefs necessarily leads to the rejec-
tion of faith itself. In reality, inquiry and activity are both
marks of vitality. Prophetic criticism and individual de-
velopment require recognition that religious truth is com-
plex because it has to do with the inner life of persons. His-
torically, orthodoxies have perpetuated ideas of varying
worth and significance. Ethically sensitive religious leaders
have perennially recognized that retrogression as well as
growth is possible in the life of the spirit. No established
framework can resolve fully the problem of individual choice
and decision. Mature faith cannot escape the fact that each
man must encounter destiny for himself.

Although critical re-interpretation is inevitable, the indi-
vidual’s response to moral and spiritual values is not simply
one of idea. Rehgious education must seek to influence the
attitudes and feelings of the whole person. Murray calls at-
tention to the fact that it relates emotions and thought.¹¹
He argues at length that the conative, Vofitional aspects of
man’s fife are ignored only with great peril. In appraising
the training of tire emotions, Murray emphasizes that man’s
feeling life is cumulative, taking on more or less definite
character with maturity. An individual’s religious responses
are particularly dangerous when limited only to random re-
actions. Unless the emotions are informed and directed to
positive, creative ends, irresponsible moral actions as well as
bigotry are likely to follow.

The problems of religious education at this level are very
difficult and complex. Both psychologists and theologians
recognize that religious experience does not always continue
at a single level of meaning or life. A mature faith by its very

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