Scientists and the Bible.
By Millenarian
It has been the boast of a certain class of scientists that the Bible was in conflict with the truths of science, and that it could not stand the test of rigid scientific criticism. Indeed, the class aforesaid have deemed it essential to their profession to have it well understood that the Bible and Christianity belonged to the age of superstition and ignorance. We have heard these things from our boyhood, and have been at a loss to know why it was that men who stood as the interpreters of nature and her laws should openly denounce the Bible and its doctrines. It is certain that every moral precept, every spiritual truth, and the most rational and consistent views of God and a future life, have been set forth with a power beyond the ordinary grasp of the human mind. We have been led to make these remarks in view of certain papers read at the American Scientific Association at Portland. To show the absurdity and folly of those who claim to be above the authority of the Book, and who glory in the wisdom of this world, we shall here summarize some of the leading views set forth in the meeting aforesaid. Prof. Young, the most eminent living student of solar physics, read a paper on the sun. That body, he argued, is a gigantic bubble, whose crust is gradually thickening, and whose size is diminishing. There is a constant loss of heat, which will end in its extinction as a producer of warmth and light. . . . It will grow smaller and more compressed, and become surrounded by this crust until it will be so hidden and muffled as to be practically excluded from the economy of the universe. The result will be intense cold and darkness, a cessation of all animal life, and an immediate return to original chaos. This gentleman, having effectually put out the sun by his wonderful scientific discoveries, gave place to Geo. J. G. Barnard, who described the interior of the earth as a molten fluid. The tenure of the world's existence, therefore, is exceedingly uncertain. Any greatly disturbing influence—the breaking out of a volcano, any change in its surface that would render it brittle, the impact of a heavy meteor or comet—may, in a moment, immolate it, leading humanity to whirling death amid the horrors of inorganic space. The third paper was read by Mr. H. F. Walling, on the “Dissipation of Energy,” as follows: “Since the days of the ancients it has been known that all motion is gradually developed by friction, and must finally cease unless maintained by external power.” The heat power of the sun, which he regarded as the motive power of the earth, is being exhausted by the prodigious lavishness of its expenditure. It is supposed, he said, that the satellites will fall into planets, planets into suns, and suns into a common center, after which “darkness, silence, and death will reign.” Prof. F. B. Hough then followed with a paper in which he foretold a perpetual drought, the result of a clearing off of the forests. Land will become unwatered and, consequently, sterile; crops will lessen in volume until the arid and treeless plains refuse to respond to the incitement of the farmer; universal famine will ensue, and the world will be entirely depopulated by starvation. The new president of the association, Dr. Le Conte, read a paper on the enormous increase and destructiveness of injurious insects. The doctor went so far as to say that the plague of insects would be greater than that of ancient Egypt, and that man himself would be eaten by them. The above summary presents the views of five leading scientists of the American Association. These men, like the philosophers at Athens, have spent their time either to tell or to hear some new thing. Well might Paul say, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Col. 2:8. These scientists have devised a variety of ways by which to annihilate the earth and all animal existence. The one would have man freeze to death, another would have him starve, and another would have him eaten up by voracious insects. Laying aside the many palpable contradictions set forth by these harbingers of coming woe, we must emphatically deny one and all of these wild and extravagant notions. These men, in their search after strange and unheard-of theories, seem to forget that the universe is controlled by an all-wise Creator, by whom are all things, and who upholds all things by the word of his power. Truly, the world by wisdom knows not God. Speculation takes the place of sober common-sense, and extravagant theories are promulgated regardless of a great First Cause. Scientists are the men who deplore fanaticism among religionists, and regret that men are groping their way in ignorance of the natural universe, and yet they are as changeable as the seasons of the year, and as foolish in many of their views as the Babel builders of old. Human philosophy has always been opposed to the word and promises of God. Abraham was pronounced a fanatic for accepting the unity of God instead of the idolatry of his times. Moses was opposed by the combined wisdom of Egypt. Christ was rejected by those who claimed the keys of knowledge, and Paul was denounced as a vain babbler at Mars' Hill. Indeed, there has ever been an impassable gulf between the simple and Heaven-born truths of the Christian religion and the world's politics and philosophy. When men accept the truths of Revelation, they have little to fear from the “wreck of matter” or “the crash of worlds” of the poets and scientists. We do not wish to be understood as depreciating science, but we do protest against so much wild speculation as to the final destiny of the physical universe. As long as we believe in the existence of an all-wise Creator, whose power and wisdom are infinite, and who has projected a plan, the magnitude of which is infinitely above the ken of finite man, so long must we reject, as unworthy the name of science, those fine-spun theories which augur only starvation and death to the race of man. The apostle's letters to the Corinthians are a most perfect commentary upon these unreasonable and unscriptural theories. In conclusion, we say in the language of the apostle, “Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so-called.” 1 Tim. 6:20.—Millenarian.