What Is of Faith Respecting the Scriptures?
By Editor
In the Independent of April 19, Prof. Borden P. Bowne, D. D., of the Boston University, wrote on "What Is of Faith Respecting the Scriptures?" He remarks that "the present generation has seen abundant illustrations of how thought can readjust itself to new conceptions which were at first thought dangerous." And, in illustration of this, he says that "here and there some one is still distressed over astronomy, and geology, and interest for money, and the taking of oaths, and the recognition of civil government, and the keeping of Sunday instead of Saturday as a holy day; but for most of us these questions do not even exist, because they rest on a conception of the Bible and its function in the religious life of the world which Christians in general have outgrown." And the person who has not outgrown such a conception of the Bible, Professor Bowne says, "feels obliged to contend with all his might and mind and strength for Jonah's whale, for the ax that swam, for the great astronomical miracles of Joshua, for the literal days of Genesis, for the talking serpent, the speaking ass, and the formation of Eve from Adam's rib." The substance of the rest of the article, as well as of this which we have quoted, is that evolution must take the place of the spoken word of God. And from what we have here quoted, it is perfectly plain that this evolution is only another, and the "scientific," name for the old-fashioned infidelity. And Dr. Bowne is a Methodist.