The Church, the Schools and Evolution Part 3

when Dr. H. C. Vedder, of the same seminary, says the Scriptures

"grew in ... accuracy" as they were written;

when Dr. W. H. P. Faunce, President of Brown University, can say:

Mr. Gladstone's last book is called "The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture." The very t.i.tle shows a conception of the Bible at the farthest removed from the present Biblical scholarship, to which the Bible is a growth, not a rock;

when Dr. Ernest D. Burton, of the University of Chicago, says:

Some among us have been constrained to admit that the books [of the Bible] are not infallible in history or in matters of science, and not wholly consistent and therefore not ultimately and as a whole inerrant in the field of morals and religion;

and when Dr. Shailer Mathews, of the same University, urges us to think the gospel

in terms of evolution,

and then shows us what that means to him when he says:

For in the New Testament there are conceptions which the modern world under the dominance of science [at the heart of which lies the evolutionary philosophy] finds it impossible to understand, much less to believe;

these men are simply demonstrating the fact that they still retain their intellectual integrity and consistency, and that they are therefore entirely unable to accept the doctrine of evolution and believe in an inerrant Bible at the same time. That is, the logic of the doctrine of evolution destroys for them the faith that, in its original ma.n.u.scripts, the Bible as it came from G.o.d to man was "truth unmixed with error," with the resulting confidence that He who gave it has preserved it to us by His providence essentially as it was given.

This means that these men and all who agree with them have rejected that Word which is forever settled in heaven, in order to accept a hypothesis which is never settled on earth; that they have given up the Book which has stood unchanged through the centuries against every conceivable form of a.s.sault, and taken in its place a set of scientific speculations that have either to be revised or discarded for new speculations every few years; that they have turned from an inspired, inerrant and authoritative revelation of G.o.d, and turned to an unproven theory which makes the Bible a human doc.u.ment, of supreme value, so they say, as unfolding the religious evolution of the race, but full of errors because of the human element in it.

The result of this is the so-called "scientific" or "historical" method of interpreting the Bible, which means, to quote Dr. Meeser, that while the Scriptures

have the wisdom of experts in religion, [yet] "authority" is scarcely the term to describe their value, and may, when applied to them, obscure their real character.

"But why make all this ado about it," say the evolutionists; "it is all simply a question of interpretation."

That is absolutely right. It is the interpretation of the evolutionists set in opposition to that of the Holy Spirit; and the true Church, compelled to make a choice, takes that of the Holy Spirit.

2. The logic of evolution destroys the doctrine of the =fall of man= and its result in total depravity.

After an address somewhat along these lines in one of the largest normal schools in the world, the science professor said to the writer, "Yes, but you know there is evolution and =evolution=."

That is indeed true. We are all aware of the fact that there are various kinds, shapes, and colors of evolution, from theistic to atheistic; but the fact still remains that =every= theory is =still evolution=, and that =any= theory of evolution whatsoever, if it means anything at all, means steady =progress= from lower to higher. Progress is certainly the one thought that is vital to any definition of evolution, and progress =downward= is excluded by the very meaning of the word, and so evolution under =any= theory can mean nothing but progress =upward=.

But the Word of G.o.d says that man has gone =down= from a condition of purity and innocence into a condition of such sinful enmity against G.o.d, that he is not only not subject to the law of G.o.d, but is utterly incapable of bringing himself into subjection to it. And the experience of every Christian gives sorrowful but certain evidence to that fact.

This condition the Bible describes as being =dead= in sin. And since death is not death at all until it is total, man, therefore, being dead, is totally dead--and this is total depravity.

This means that the only progress possible to man in his natural state is =progress in corruption=. For total depravity, which is total spiritual death, does not mean that the last limit of corruption has been reached, but that while death is total, corruption may have just begun.

The reality of the natural man's spiritual death is abundantly ill.u.s.trated in human history. After man fell into sin, and died, he was given fullest opportunity to recover himself and to demonstrate thereby that he was still spiritually alive. But the corruption of spiritual death worked until man was so far down in the filth of his moral putrefaction that the only way G.o.d could save the race from extinction was to save the one family that had accepted spiritual life from Him, and blot the rest of the race out in the flood.

Then, starting out again under more favorable circ.u.mstances than before, man went from bad to worse until, in one great universal brotherhood, he rose up and defied G.o.d at the Tower of Babel, and G.o.d had to smash the brotherhood into fragments by the confusion of languages.

Time after time G.o.d tried man and found his progress downward always, no matter how favorable the circ.u.mstances that surrounded him, until finally he came to earth Himself in the Person of His Son. This brought both the reality and the completeness of man's spiritual death to a demonstration that can never be refuted, for at the cross man displayed, to its eternal uncovering, the awful corruption of that spiritual condition that could not tolerate in its presence incarnate purity and holiness, even though he had to become the murderer of G.o.d manifest in the flesh to get away from it.

Even in his worship man's progress is steadily downward. Beginning with G.o.d, he progresses downward until he is worshipping birds, then beasts, and then creeping things.

But evolution says that man is =coming up= from primitive conditions into fuller life. And so the evolutionist cannot tolerate such doctrines as these which the Word of G.o.d sets forth. To a consistent evolutionist, man is not spiritually dead, for that would make progress out of the question.

And if progress upward is denied--if the only progress possible to the natural man is progress in corruption, then the whole doctrine of evolution is gone.

This is why it becomes necessary for Canon E. W. Barnes, of Westminster Abbey, when he accepts evolution, to reject the Bible. He says:

The inevitable acceptance of evolution means giving up belief in the fall and in all the theology built upon it by the theologians from St. Paul onward. Man was not made perfect and then marred; his evolution is still proceeding.

So here again it is utterly impossible for the consistent evolutionist to accept the Bible doctrine of the fall of man.

3. The logic of evolution destroys the doctrine of =sin=.

The Bible makes man's fall deliberate and wilful, and his continued att.i.tude of sinful enmity against G.o.d, in spite of all G.o.d's offered power to change it into love, one of excuseless lawlessness and rebellion.

This makes man entirely responsible for his sin and accountable to G.o.d for everything sin does in his life. And so the Bible says:

Every one shall give account of himself to G.o.d.

And those who go out of this life in the unconfessed and therefore unforgiven sin of rejecting G.o.d's mercy in Christ shall "go away into everlasting punishment," where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

But to the evolutionary philosophy, sin cannot be "exceeding sinful," for it is either inherent in the process of evolution, or, at worst, but an unfortunate slip in the working out of that process, if, indeed, it is not even a mark of budding virtue.

John Fiske says:

Theology has much to say about original sin. This original sin is neither more nor less than the brute inheritance that every man carries with him.

Rev. Dwight Bradley, a Cleveland, Ohio, pastor, says:

There is no escape for intelligent people today from the acceptance of the law of evolution.... It follows that what we call evil [sin] is the remains of a lower form of life....

We are in the midst of the slow process of ridding ourselves of our animal inheritance.

And Dr. Shailer Mathews follows the evolutionary philosophy to its logical and necessary end when he says:

But for men who think of G.o.d as dynamically imminent in an infinite universe, who think of man's relation to Him as determined not by statutory but by cosmic law, who regard sin and righteousness alike as the working out of the fundamental forces of life itself, the conception of G.o.d as King and of man as condemned or acquitted subject is but a figure of speech.

Such a doctrine as this absolutely and forever destroys man's responsibility for sin. For if sin is what Dr. Mathews suggests it is,--"the working out of the fundamental forces of life itself,"--then it is inherent in man's natural const.i.tution as a process of his evolution.

And if this is so, man is in no way responsible for his sin.

This altogether removes man's accountability to G.o.d, for he cannot be brought to account for that which is the working out of the fundamental forces of life itself, and which is therefore inevitable in the very workings of his nature. And even if sin is an unfortunate slip in the process of evolution, man cannot be held accountable for an accident.

This doctrine also puts a high premium on the whole beastly, selfish, l.u.s.tful, murderous history of the race, for it makes sin a ladder up which man is climbing to his high destiny.

Punishment for sin is therefore absolutely out of the question. For if man is not responsible for his sin, and if G.o.d punishes him for it, as the Bible says He will, even by the law of cause and effect, that would make G.o.d an infinite tyrant and an unspeakable fiend. And so if G.o.d is not a monster, and if evolution is true, there is no punishment for sin, and the Bible lies.

Thinking men see that this is the inevitable logic of the doctrine of evolution. Sir J. William Dawson, speaking of the evolutionary doctrines as speculations, says:

They seek to revolutionize the religious beliefs of the world, and if accepted would destroy much of the existing theology and philosophy.... With one cla.s.s of minds they const.i.tute a sort of religion.... With another and perhaps larger cla.s.s, they are accepted as affording a welcome deliverance from all scruples of conscience and fears of a hereafter.