p. 8 | Creation Versus Evolution by H. J. Williams

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 29, 1907

Creation Versus Evolution

By H. J. Williams

H. J. WILLIAMS

It is really remarkable how rapidly and completely the God-dishonoring doctrine of evolution is fastening itself upon the minds of the educated classes. One seldom meets a student of medicine or science who is not sadly contaminated with this falsehood of the arch-deceiver. However, this is hardly to be wondered at, since the professors of our leading universities in lectures to their students make such statements as the following: “Gentlemen, it is impossible for us as thinking men, in the light of scientific investigation of to-day, to believe the simple story we were taught at our mothers’ knees.”

Our purpose here is simply to contrast a few of the salient principles of these two most incompatible teachings. In order to do this we shall first state each one briefly:—

The account of the origin of man given us by the Spirit of God reads thus: “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. 1:25-27; 2:7.

This record of the Bible is not that of the lowest form of life evolving through long periods of time through the infinite variations of life until it at last reaches the highest form, man, but it is that of a completed work, an act of creation.

The account of man’s origin, according to Mr. Huxley, is as follows: “The whole world, living and not living, is likewise the result of the natural interaction according to definite laws of the forces possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed.”—“Critiques and Addresses,” page 305.

Haeckel, one of the leading scientists of this age, in his “Riddle of the Universe,” gives us a more comprehensive statement of the above: “The extent of the universe or cosmos is eternal, infinite, illimitable. Its substance, with its two attributes, matter and energy, fills infinite space, and is in eternal motion. The duration of the world is equally infinite and unbounded; it has no beginning and no end. It is eternity. Substance is everywhere and always in uninterrupted motion and transformation. This universal motion of substance in space takes the form of an eternal cycle or of a periodical process of evolution, from which results all the phenomena of nature, including man, whose mind and soul, with all its faculties, are functions of the brain and part and parcel of the one universal substance, matter, with its inherent properties, and are distinct from the body, but to be explained by purely natural laws.”

The sum of the declarations of these two noted scientists amounts to this: that inorganic matter is evolved into living protoplasm (“the physical basis of life”—Huxley), and that man is evolved from this protoplasm.

It is plainly evident that this theory rests absolutely upon a false foundation; its premise is mere assumption without proof, indeed, an outright contradiction. These theorists state that their cosmos, or universe of matter, is infinite in extent and eternal in duration. Even if this were granted them, how could it be possible for the eternal to evolve? That which is boundless in extent has no space in which to undergo evolution, for it occupies all space; and that which is eternal in duration has no time in which to evolve, for it fills all time. Infinity of extension and duration would necessarily be indivisible, for how could that which is boundless be divided or bounded. But Mr. Huxley says that protoplasm consists of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and further tells us that this lifeless matter can be converted into living protoplasm only when it is brought into contact with previously existing living protoplasm. How then did this previously existing protoplasm originate? (Spontaneous generation has never been produced, and never will be.) It could not have existed eternally, for these same scientists tell us of a time when the surface of this earth was intensely hot, so hot that living matter could not have existed. If the earth’s crust should again become intensely hot (as we are told will occur, 2 Peter 3:12), will not living protoplasm again cease to exist? We, therefore, think it plain from the above that the material universe, instead of being infinite, is finite, and that it sometime began to exist, and that it is likewise possible for it to cease to exist. We also believe that there is a Being of infinite duration and power, whom we call God, the Creator of the universe, who is unity; who, by the power of his word, created man.

Creation is founded upon the sure word of God, the storehouse of all true science and sound philosophy. Evolution is founded upon falsehood, contradiction, supposition, and presumption.

Creation gives a reasonable explanation of the origin of life. Evolution fails altogether.

Creation is in harmony with the existing order of nature; that is, all life is from antecedent life. Evolution contradicts this.

Creation promises physical, moral, and spiritual regeneration. Evolution promises absolutely nothing.

The great Virchow, father of science in modern years in Germany, in a speech before a scientific meeting held at Munich some time ago (when Haeckel and others proposed that it should be demanded that the new doctrine be taught), said: “So long as no one can define for me the properties of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in such a way that I can conceive how from the sum of them the soul arises, so long I am unable to admit that we should be at all justified in importing the plastidulic soul into the course of our education; on the contrary, I am of the opinion that before we originate such a hypothesis as the voice of science, before we say this is modern science we should first have to conduct a long series of careful investigations. We must therefore say to the teachers, ‘Do not teach it.’”

Edinburgh, Scotland.