EVOLUTION | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 16.

EVOLUTION.

THE theory of evolution, although sometimes not very clearly defined nor very well understood, is accepted by many persons, and among them many ministers of religion, as fully established, and as worthy of cheerful acceptance. Although the doctrine of evolution, in its last analysis, is denied by some of the greatest living scientists, yet we sometimes hear it proclaimed from the pulpit with as much assurance as if it were enforced by a "thus saith the Lord." Men who so readily accept the doctrine of evolution, to reconcile the Bible and science, do not seem to be fully aware of the effect of their admissions. Unless evolution is accepted in its strictly scientific sense, and the Bible is made to harmonize with it in that sense, nothing is gained for the cause of religion by its acceptance. If we adopt some unscientific theory of evolution, and make the Bible harmonize with it, we do nothing to break the force of the argument against the Bible, based on what is claimed to be strictly scientific principles. It would be well for men, and especially ministers of the gospel, before they accept the doctrine of evolution, and attempt to correct the errors of Moses, to carefully examine the whole subject in all its bearings.

There are several theories of evolution advanced and advocated at the present day. The first of these is the strictly scientific theory, which is pure naturalism. It is simply the name of a process in the operation of purely natural forces, by which a purely natural thing under the influence of purely natural environment, passes into a higher form of existence. It excludes all forces not strictly inhering in nature. It claims that all the elements entering into the higher type were previously existing in nature and were evolved by natural forces, and consequently, according to this hypothesis, there can be no recognition of anything but nature. It is a system of pure materialism, and recognizes nothing in all the operations of nature but purely material forces.

According to this theory man, as well as all the material forms about him, has been evolved from inferior forms, by the operation of purely natural causes. This theory admits of no Creator, no moral lapse, no redemption, and no final retribution. It is simply the operation of natural forces, producing natural results, without any reference to moral causes or moral accountability. How can such a system as this be accepted by any Christian man? How can it be made, in any sense, to harmonize with the Bible? Mr. Spencer must smile at the ignorant attempts made to harmonize the Bible with evolution, as the theory is held by him. The thing is so absolutely contradictory that we had almost said no sensible man would attempt it.

Another theory of evolution, which is termed the organic or theistic, and by some the creative theory, recognizes, in some sense, a Creator, who has stamped certain unalterable laws upon matter, which, under the force that he originally imparted to them, have operated in evolving one form from another in an ascending series, until all the forms of nature that exist have been produced. This theory recognizes a God back of nature, who acts only through fixed laws, and who by the laws which he has imposed on nature, has produced, by a long and imperceptible process, all the forms, organic and inorganic, that are found to exist. This is the theory of evolution which is accepted by many Christians and many Christian ministers, and which they attempt to harmonize with the Bible; or, rather, they attempt so to explain the Bible as to make it harmonize with this theory.

Man's place in any system of evolution is one of the difficult problems to be solved. According to some, man's entire nature, embracing that which he has in common with lower orders, and that which he is believed to possess in advance of them, is the simple outcome of an evolutionary process as truly, and in the same sense, as the anthropoid ape is the outcome of that process working upwards from the lowest forms of life. Man's great superiority to the highest of the creatures below him is admitted, but at the same time it is maintained that however high we may rate man's spiritual powers, and with whatever dignity we may invest him as a free moral being, all this may be explained in harmony with the theory of a "slow and steady growth from the sensible and emotional life peculiar to the animal world." Moral choice and obligation, the two terms which are supposed to indicate a spiritual nature and a capacity for sin and for fellowship with God, it is contended by Darwin, Spencer, and Haeckle, are but designations for the fact that man, as we know him, has consolidated and registered the experiences of his long line of human and brute ancestry. Such a theory as this is incapable of being harmonized in any sense with the teachings of the Bible.

Others hold that man is included in the scope of organic evolution only so far as his animal nature is concerned, and that in this respect he has been evolved from lower forms, but that the moral and spiritual differentia of man is such as to forbid the possibility of his being only an outgrowth of brute intelligence. According to this view, man's higher nature

was a direct creation. This, if we understand it, is the theory entertained by Professor Woodrow. Here questions arise outside of science, and so far as man's higher nature is concerned, an unscientific position is taken. Scientists assume that there is but one method for the whole nature, and that "to suppose one part to be through a process and the other to be direct is to introduce dualism in the order of the universe."

Another view entertained by some evolutionists is, that man is not included in the scope of organic evolution; "that he, being the head of all creatures, has been directly, truly created, while all the rest have been evolved, according to a divinely ordered law, out of the simple primordial germ of life." They claim that while there is strong cumulative evidence in favor of evolution up to man, the evidence fails to prove the evolution of man as a scientific fact. Here these evolutionists and the scientists part company,

From this mere glance at the subject, we perceive that the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution in its strictly scientific form, involves, of necessity, not a new interpretation of the Bible, but its utter rejection. To accept the theory in part and reject it in part involves us in all the scientific difficulties consequent upon its entire rejection. If God could create man, with his exquisite organism, by the word of his power, why could he not create the universe in the same way? This question, if not pressed, is well worthy of being considered. When the whole subject is candidly examined, the difficulties connected with any theory of evolution will be found to be quite as great as those connected with the errors imputed to Moses.—Methodist Recorder.