Science and the Unity of the Scriptures
By R.
SOME of our readers will be ready to accuse us of prejudice, and their accusation will take something of this form: “It is very easy to see why you stand for the literal days of Genesis and the doctrines of a special creation.” “Why so?” I ask, willing to aid the argument. “Because you are an observer of the seventh day, and therefore must hold to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures to uphold your view of a definite Sabbath day. If you admit that the days are not necessarily literal twenty-four-hour days, you thereby give up your principal reason for a definite Sabbath.” “You are perfectly right,” I answer. “It is the very point I have been endeavoring to make; namely, that according to the account in Genesis and the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, a special creation and the Sabbath are absolutely linked together. If we let the Sabbath go, we let go with it the special creation of God. For the special creation of the world by the word of God means its creation in six literal days of time. And the Sabbath as the seventh literal day is the climax and memorial of all the others and of what was made in them.” Furthermore, if we let the special creation of God go, and assume the idea of modern science, that the world was created during the lapse of untold ages, in which the numbers six and seven have no recognized standing whatever, we have no logical ground for observing the seventh day as a memorial of the same. Under such circumstances there is no fitness whatever in the sign. It is as incongruous as a blacksmith’s sign over the door of a fancy grocery store. The two could not go together. But I believe that the Word means what it says. The Word says that the Sabbath is to be observed because God created the heaven and the earth in six days and rested the seventh. I am to follow His example. Now, if He did not do this, but created the world in the long lapse of centuries, and has not rested from that work even yet—for modern science declares that “creation is a continuous process, and the work is still going on, and will for indefinite time, even to the attainment of perfection”—then I am told to do something for a reason which does not exist, and am consequently commanded to commemorate a lie. It may be charged against the Sabbath observer that he is prejudiced; that he argues as he does in order to hold for Sabbath observance; and that, if he interprets the first of Genesis in other than a literal way, it would be to his own logical undoing. But we are ready to charge and maintain that if the literal interpretation of Genesis is thrown out, not only will the Sabbath have to go, but every other thing that, with the matter of a special creation, touches on the miraculous. This is not only what follows logically, but it has followed literally in the case of all who have undertaken it. For example, a man of intelligence and learning many years ago set out to break down the truth of the first chapter of Genesis. He had no idea, when he set out on this excursion, just where his steps would lead; but it is very plain to-day, that this path he took led him away from the landmarks of the Scriptures. He tells us that he set out on a journey with the single purpose of exploring a certain province of natural knowledge. Straying, as he says, not a hair’s breadth from this path, he found, whatever route he took, a tall and formidable looking fence barring his way. He calls it a thorny barrier with a prohibitory notice board with words written thereon: “No Thorofare. By order. Moses.” Thus picturesquely does he describe to us the fact that the Word hindered his exploration in the realm of science. Whichever way he went, he found it denying what seemed to him to be true. Did he regard this Word? Did he respect this fence?—Not he! He tells us that the fence turned out to be, in his estimation, a mere heap of dry sticks and brushwood, and one might walk through it with impunity—and this he did. But he did not stop here. He went on, as we feel clear to say, from bad to worse. Grown bold by his trespassing on forbidden fields, he tells us that it was no responsibility of his, if he found the Gospels with their miraculous stories, of which the Gadarene is a typical example, blocking his way, as heretofore the book of Genesis had done. And then he proceeds to do all violence against the Gospels that he previously had done against the record of creation. I am well aware that many will think this case of Huxley’s an extreme one, and that it by no means follows that because he took such a plunge through his efforts against the idea of a special creation, others will do the same. But on this head I am ready again to charge5and maintain that if one takes his first step, all the rest logically and consistently follows, and it is the only logical and consistent thing that can follow. Huxley felt that he had been consistent, and that those who took a few of his first steps and did not take the rest were plainly inconsistent. Once go against the literal words of the Scripture because science controverts their truth, and you must logically go against the literal interpretation of all the Scriptures when science controverts their truth. Huxley himself said that his utmost ingenuity did not enable him to discover a flaw in the argument “that the demonstration of the falsity of the Hebrew records, especially in regard to those narratives which are assumed to be true in the New Testament, would be fatal to Christian theology.” (“Science and Hebrew Tradition,” page 207.) He says: “I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifice were not ordained by Jahveh; if the ‘ten words’ were not written by God’s hand on the stone table; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome,—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fiction for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” Do you see the direction that his logic leads him? Do you hesitate to follow where he leads? There is only one safe way. Do not take even the first step with him.