The Doctrine of Creation by George Mc Cready Price

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1914

The Doctrine of Creation

By George Mc Cready Price

GEORGE MC CREADY PRICE

I WONDER how many of us realize that the doctrine of a literal creation in a definite limited period of time, is as much a Seventh-day Adventist doctrine as is that of the Sabbath itself, and far more peculiarly ours than the doctrine of the second coming of Christ?

With the rise and spread of the modern form of geology, the Protestant churches long tried to harmonize the first chapters of Genesis with the findings of this new science. First it was the interval theory, sometimes called the restitution theory, that was depended upon to make peace between the Bible and science. When this would no longer serve the purpose, the day-period theory was adopted, and prevailed during the greater period of the nineteenth century. It is still held (in a very loose, indefinite way) by a few of the more orthodox Protestants, and by many Roman Catholics. But almost all well-informed Protestants, and that large wing of the Romanists called the modernists, have openly and boldly ceased trying to equate the first chapters of the Bible with the discoveries of science, and call themselves “Christian evolutionists.” But I do not know of an intelligent person in the civilized world, with as much as a high school education, who believes in a literal creation in six days, and in the record of a universal flood, except Seventh-day Adventists. There may be such a person; but I have never seen him.

Hence we see that these doctrines are as truly characteristic of us as a people as is the Sabbath. Indeed, these two doctrines go together. The one is the complement of the other. It is useless to try to prove the importance of the Sabbath to a man who believes that creation was a long gradual process, with no sharp dividing line separating it from the changes now going on. How futile to try to convince him of the Sabbath as a memorial of a thing that he doubts or denies. True, we may by the inexorable logic of the Bible, accompanied by the influence of the Spirit of God, bring even such a person to receive and obey the memorial of a literal creation; but in general it is difficult just in proportion as the people believe the present theories of false science in opposition to the plain teachings of the Bible.

Considering the hundreds of thousands who are yearly being graduated from the universities, the colleges, the high schools, and academies throughout the civilized world, all of whom have without exception been diligently trained to believe in the long ages of the scientists, some of them schooled in the evolution doctrine out-and-out, we see what a tremendous work we have to do to teach the present generation the truths for this time. For the evolution doctrine is no longer a mere scientific speculation; it is a new religion, and all the educational systems of the modern world have been made over into missionary societies for its propagation.

But there is a brighter side to the picture. The great God of heaven has sent us with a special message to this age of evolutionists, calling upon them to “worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” So we see that he has timed this message just right to meet the present situation; and then he has been bringing from his buried archives witnesses in stone, telltale records engraved by nature herself, that testify to the truthfulness of the Bible record of a universal flood, thus confirming also the record of a literal creation.

It seems to me that we have a duty to perform to bring these scientific facts to the attention of the world. There are facts in plenty that the evolutionists cannot answer; but we are the only people to bring them forward, because we are the only ones now left who believe in the flood as the cause of the geological changes.

The Sabbath is the memorial of a literal creation; and the record of rocks as read by a true science of geology is the strongest material evidence we have of there ever having been a real creation. Hence this true science of geology, correctly interpreting the rocky record, is the younger sister in the circle of truth, the handmaiden of the gospel message, and gives strength and assurance to us as we try to carry this message to the classes who have been so falsely educated away from the truth of God’s Word.

Cannot some plan be devised to train our own workers, our own young people, in these facts about the rocks, so essential for them to know at the present time? And cannot some method be adopted to bring these facts so essential to a correct understanding of the subject of creation to the attention of those people whom we have always found so hard to meet,—the highly educated classes?

Surely we ought to be doing more in regard to this subject.

— Lodi, Cal.