A Challenge to Atheism by William J. Bryan

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 11, 1915

A Challenge to Atheism

By William J. Bryan

By William J. Bryan

Atheists and materialists declare that the Bible is merely the work of man; that it was written under the limitations that apply to human wisdom. Taking this position, they must necessarily contend that, unless man has degenerated in ability and declined in wisdom, he can now produce a book equal to the Bible. Let them produce it.

Judged by human standards, man is far better prepared to write a Bible now than he was when our Bible was written. The characters whose words and deeds are recorded in the Bible were members of a single race. They lived among the hills of Palestine, in a territory scarcely larger than one of our counties. They did not have printing presses, and they lacked the learning of the schools. They had no great libraries to consult, no steamboats to carry them round the world and make them acquainted with the various centers of ancient civilization. They had no telegraph wires to bring them the news from the ends of the earth, and no newspapers to spread before them each morning the doings of the day before. Science had not unlocked nature's door and revealed the secrets of rocks below and stars above. From what a scantily supplied storehouse of knowledge they had to draw, compared with the unlimited wealth of information at man's command today!

And yet these Bible characters grapple with every problem that confronts mankind, from the creation of the world to eternal life beyond the tomb. They have given us a diagram of man's existence from the cradle to the grave, and they have set up signposts at every dangerous point along the path.

We turn back to the Bible for the ten commandments, which form the foundation of our statute law; and for the Sermon on the Mount, which lays down the rules for our spiritual growth. The Bible gives us the story of the birth, the words, the works, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of him whose coming was foretold in prophecy, whose arrival was announced by the angel voices singing peace and good will; the story of him who gave to the world a code of morality superior to anything that the world had known before or has known since; the story of him who is the crowning figure of all time, whom the world is accepting as Saviour and as the perfect example.

Will They Attempt a Better One?

Let the atheists and the materialists produce a better Bible than ours, if they can. Let them collect the best of their school to be found among the graduates of universities, as many as they will, and from every land. Let the members of this selected

group travel where they will, consult such libraries as they please, and employ every modern means of swift communication. Let them roam at will wherever science has opened the way. Let them take advantage of all the progress in art and in literature, in science and in history. Let them use to the full every instrumentality that is employed in modern civilization. And when they have exhausted every source, let them embody the results of their best intelligence in a book, and offer it to the world as a substitute for this Bible of ours.

Have they the confidence that the prophets of Baal had in their god? Will they try? If not, what excuse will they give? Has man fallen from his high estate, so that we cannot rightfully expect as much from him now as nineteen centuries ago, or does the Bible come to us from a source that is higher than man—which?

No Refuge in Retrogression

But our case is even stronger. The opponents of the Bible cannot take refuge in the plea that man is retrograding. They loudly proclaim that man has grown and that he is growing still. They boast of a world-wide advance, and their claim is founded upon fact. In all matters except in the science of how to live man has made wonderful progress. The mastery of the mind over the forces of nature seems almost complete, so far do we surpass the ancients in harnessing the water, the wind, and the lightning.

For ages the rivers plunged down the mountain sides and exhausted their energies without any appreciable contribution to man's service; now they are estimated as so many units of horsepower, and we find that their fretting and foaming was merely a language which they employed to tell us of their strength and of their willingness to work for us. And while falling water is becoming each day a larger factor in burden bearing, water rising in the form of steam is revolutionizing the transportation methods of the world.

The wind that first whispered its secret of strength to the flapping sail is now turning the wheel at the well.

Lightning, the dread demon that, from the dawn of creation, has been raining down its zigzag path through the clouds as if intent only upon spreading death, has been metamorphosed into an errand boy, and brings us illumination from the sun, and carries our messages round the globe.

The Bible an Uplifting Power

Inventive genius has multiplied the power of a human arm, and supplied the masses with comforts of which the rich did not dare to dream a few centuries ago. Science is ferreting out the hidden causes of disease, and teaching us how to prolong life. In every line, except in the line of character building, the world seems to have been made over; but the marvelous changes by which old things have become new only emphasize the fact that man, too, must be born again; while they show how important are material things to touch the soul of man and transform him into a spiritual being.

Wherever the moral standard is being lifted up,—wherever life is becoming larger in the vision that directs it, and richer in its fruitage,—the improvement is traceable to the Bible, and to the influence of the God and Christ of whom the Bible tells.

They Must Confess It

The atheist and the materialist must confess that man ought to be able to produce a better book today than man, unaided, could have produced in any previous age. The fact that they have tried, time and again, only to fail each time more hopelessly, explains why they will not—why they cannot—accept the challenge thrown down by the Christian world to produce a book worthy to take the Bible's place.

Impress Is on the World

They have prayed to their god to answer with fire; prayed to inanimate matter with an earnestness that is pathetic. They have employed in the worship of blind force a zeal greater than religion requires, but their almighty is asleep. How long will they allow the search for the strata of stone and fragments of fossil and decaying skeletons that are strewn around the house to absorb their thoughts to the exclusion of the Architect who planned it all? How long will the agnostic, closing his eyes to the plainest truths, cry, 'Night, night,' when the sun in his meridian splendor announces that the noon is here?

The Bible has stamped its impress upon the map of the world. Its boundaries are clearly marked, and the light that emanates from the Christian nations is flowing outward toward those who sit in darkness. Back of the progress that marks the present day is the code of morals that Christ proclaimed, and back of the code of morals is the divine character of him who is both the Son of God and the Saviour of mankind.