Fundamentals by B.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 7, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 39.

Fundamentals

By B.

The recent Seventh-day Adventist General Conference in San Francisco voted unanimously the adoption of a resolution that we think should have a wider circulation than in the cumbered files of a convention report. It has to do with present trends in religion that are avowedly modernistic and materialistic, and in antidote thereto it states lucidly and forcefully certain basic truths of Christianity that need constant asseveration in these days when every wind of doctrine and theory is blowing. Here is the resolution in part:

“We affirm that recognition of a personal God is fundamental, not only to Christian doctrine, but also to a correct interpretation of natural phenomena.

“While we accept fully and without question the remarkable discoveries regarding the laws of nature, we deplore the tendency to regard these laws as self-operating, thereby endowing nature with inherent powers. We repudiate the materialistic interpretation of science, and believe that in all fields of scientific research we must look for the cause of natural phenomena, not in resident forces, but in the active will of God, who is the source of power in the original creation and the continued maintenance of the universe.

“Believing the Bible to be the revealed word of God to man, we accept the Genesis record of a literal creation in six twenty-four-hour days as an authoritative statement of a historical fact. We deplore the present tendency to interpret the age of the earth in terms of long geological periods. We maintain that the theory of evolution rests on unproved hypotheses, and that the facts of science support the great fundamental doctrine of creationism, and also the idea of a flood as portrayed in the Bible.

“We affirm that the variations occurring in plants and animals do not indicate evolutionary processes, resulting in the formation of new species, and we utterly repudiate the teaching that man originated from any lower form of life.

“Accordingly, we declare our allegiance to God as the Creator, and our acceptance of the seventh-day Sabbath as the memorial of His creation; and recognizing that the reign of evil has brought in many disturbing influences in the natural world, as well as degeneracy among plants, animals, and human beings, we look forward with faith and hope to the soon coming of Christ, which will usher in the final restoration of nature to its original perfection.”

Seventh-day Adventists believe that the questions alluded to in this resolution are not side issues or of little import. They concern the life and continuance of Christianity itself. They hold that the truth that is at stake in the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy these days is most vital because it affects most profoundly one’s belief in God, which is the basis and starting point of religion. Every one who names the name of Christ should think these questions through in the light of Scriptural truth, so that he will not be deceived by the sophistries of a “science, falsely so-called.” B.