Some Things We Ought to Know by George Mc Cready Price

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 20, 1914

Some Things We Ought to Know

By George Mc Cready Price

GEORGE MC CREADY PRICE

I FEAR that very few among us realize how prevalent are false ideas regarding creation and the origin of things. We have a message calling upon the people of this age to “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters,” and we teach the Sabbath as a memorial of a literal creation. Most of us know in a sort of vague way that other people do not agree with us on these points, and that a great many believe the evolution doctrine. And yet I am convinced that very few could give a clear and accurate statement of the essential difference between the doctrine of evolution and that of creation. Hence I fancy that a definition of terms and a statement of principles is the first thing in order; so that thereafter we can the more easily estimate the work we have to do in teaching the truth on this point to the world. A certain old-time scholastic, who frequently had charge of discussions and debates, always used to say before he would allow a discussion to begin, “Gentlemen, define your terms.” And so it may be a good plan for us to understand the terms we are using, so they will give to our minds definite and correct impressions.

If asked to define evolution, many would say that evolutionists believe that man came from the monkey. This is a very crude and wholly misleading statement; and besides, even if it were true, it would not be getting at the real essential difference between the evolution doctrine and the doctrine of creation as taught in the Bible.

No intelligent person believes that man came from the monkey. Few would say that man originated from the ape,—a very much more general term. What evolutionists do say is this: That man has come up from some ape-like ancestor which was probably quite different from any animal now living on the earth, and different from any fossil animal found in the rocks. Scientists universally acknowledge that there is no creature whatever known to modern science that can be pointed to as the direct source of origin of the human race.

But as I have said, all this is not the essential idea of evolution. The origin of man is only an incident in the larger and more general scheme; and to discuss the origin of man is to concern ourselves with a mere detail, leaving the general proposition still untouched. Even the question of the “origin of species,” the point on which Charles Darwin won his reputation, is itself a part, a minor part,—I was almost going to say a mere side issue,—in the great general problem, the most tremendous, the most vital problem in all science, and one of the most important that can engage the attention of the human mind.

Let me state the issue here clearly and concisely, and then proceed to explain what it means. The keynote of the evolution doctrine is uniformity: it says that the present is the correct measure of the past; it says that in all the various departments of nature, among plants, animals, and rock changes, what is now going on is identical with or similar to what has always been going on; that the present operations of nature are as much a part of the beginning of things (or “creation”) as anything that ever took place in the past. The self-contradictory expression, “a continuous creation,” is a favorite one with evolutionists to describe their idea. In other words, they say that there never was a time in the past that we can point to and say, Here things originated; here was the period of creation. This, I say, is the essential idea of the evolution doctrine; and we can readily see that it is a point-blank denial of the doctrine of creation. The two ideas are incommensurable, irreconcilable, and mutually destructive.

On this basis we can now understand why evolutionists are interested in the question of the “origin of species.” We can now see why we have had this anxious search of heaven and earth and the sea and the dry land to find examples of one species changing into another. Here is the real reason for the perennial interest in the report every now and then appearing in the daily papers that Professor So-and-so has at last succeeded in producing life from the inorganic. This is why in geology they want to make it appear that there never was any great aqueous catastrophe (such as the flood) in the history of the world; but that the present slow changes of land and water are the gauge, the standard, by which to measure all the changes in earth and water in the past. All these departments of thought are points on which science is capable of throwing some light on the dispute between the evolution doctrine and that of creation; but it can be readily seen that the evolution doctrine itself is rather a philosophical problem, an attitude of mind with which the questions of science are approached. And hence the difficulty of refuting these false ideas, the difficulty of really proving creation. But it is with much satisfaction that we now see that on every one of these points the Lord has been revealing facts and principles in the natural

world demonstrating that there must have been a real creation at the beginning, as the Bible declares.

A little consideration will also readily show that the most essential department of the evolution doctrine is the geological. The earth and the sea have been ransacked to find examples of species changing sufficiently to entitle us to declare that it is a real “new” species. So perplexing a problem is capable of being decided in almost either way, according as we view the general problem. And though no very definite and decisive examples have been found of such a change, yet, assuming the general proposition, and thinking that the rocks show a definite order of progress from the little to the big, from the low to the high, from the more simple to the more complex, almost the whole modern world have accepted the general evolution doctrine; even though it is most freely acknowledged that we do not know exactly how the process was brought about, or how one form of life grew into another form.

I do not have the space here to enlarge on the point that the real key to the evolution doctrine is in geology. Nor do I have space to show how the geological part, though so essential, is nevertheless the very weakest part of the whole thing; while modern discoveries are confirming in a most remarkable way the Bible story of a flood, and thus, indirectly, demonstrating the reality of a literal creation at the beginning.

In conclusion, let us briefly study one portion of Scripture, where the Spirit of God looked down the ages and saw how things would be; and we shall see that no more accurate picture of the present situation could be asked for than the marvelous way in which, two thousand years ago, the Bible charted out beforehand the very teachings that have now so universally taken the world captive.

In the third chapter of Second Peter we have a picture of scoffers or mockers who say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” And the Scripture goes on to explain that they deny the coming of Christ, and the future end of the present order of things by fire, because they have grown accustomed to denying the former destruction of the earth by water. And the reason given by these last-day scoffers is a perfect example of the arguments of the modern evolutionists who, as we have seen, are always uniformitarians. They say, “For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” This is uniformity, surely, the very essence of the evolution doctrine, as we have seen. And the Bible gives it as the prevailing view of those in the last days who mock at the coming of Christ.

But two very important points in this passage are liable to be overlooked or misunderstood:—

1. They say that “since the fathers fell asleep” all things continue according to regular order, with no great convulsion of nature (such as the flood). They intimate that in the days of “the fathers” it used to be thought that there had been such an event; but we now know better. “All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

2. It should be expressly noted that this uniformity is said to be “from the beginning of the creation.” This is often understood as if it read, “from the close of the creation.” No, it says from the “beginning” of the creation. Thus creation itself is included in this scheme of uniformity. I do not see how we could have a more accurate and vivid picture of the present-day situation, even if we were to write it ourselves now with this doctrine so prevalent all around us. We have seen that the real essential feature of the evolution doctrine is this point of uniformity; and here in this book of Peter we have this given as one of the characteristics of the last days, and one of the chief reasons why people reject the doctrine of the second coming of Christ.

Thank God for such a guide; thank God for such a truth.

Lodi Academy, Lodi, Cal.