The Church, the Schools and Evolution.
by J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant.
FOREWORD
The following pages have grown out of a paper, following the same outline more briefly, which was read before the Pastors" Conference of the San Juaquin Valley Baptist a.s.sociation, the largest a.s.sociation in the Northern California Baptist Convention. At the close of the reading a request for its publication was enthusiastically and unanimously voted.
The author has since divided the paper into two chapters; in the first chapter has added to and cla.s.sified the quotations concerning evolution, has enlarged the remarks on the influence of evolution on Scripture doctrine, and has both enlarged upon and entirely rearranged the matter of the second chapter, in an attempt to make it both more obvious and more conclusive to the reader than it was felt to be to the hearers.
The term "Church" in the following pages is intended to cover that fellowship, of every name, which includes all who have been really born again. When organized church fellowship is referred to, the whole evangelical Protestant fellowship in general is meant, as distinguished from Roman Catholic, Greek church, or any other non-evangelical faith, although true Christians are to be found within every fellowship. The term "Schools," in its larger meaning, includes all inst.i.tutions of learning maintained at private, denominational, or public expense; more specifically, those dominated by the present evolutionary philosophy are meant. With notable exceptions in a few schools that refuse to be so dominated, the whole educational system in general, especially in the Northern States, has practically capitulated to the evolutionists, and the schools that have so surrendered are particularly in mind in the following discussion.
It is but a humble effort to point out what is obviously the only possible solution for the present distressing and destructive controversy between the Church and the Schools, but the author fondly hopes that it will prove to be a real, even though small, contribution toward the ending of that controversy.
It is sent out with the prayer that He who is Truth incarnate may lead those in both the Church and the Schools who really want to know the truth at all cost to a common att.i.tude toward Himself, to a common, because truly scientific, method of investigating truth in both the natural and the spiritual realms, and therefore to a common goal which will unite them against all those forces that seek to capture both the Church and the Schools for the enemy.
J. E. Conant.
The Church, the Schools and Evolution
CHAPTER I
The Present Controversy--the Cause
It must be so self-evident as to be axiomatic that there are two distinct realms in G.o.d"s universe. One is the realm that contains the Creator, and the other that which contains His creation. Of course, if we are pantheists, we will not admit that cla.s.sification; but those who believe and accept the Word of G.o.d are not pantheists.
It is inevitable, therefore, that the facts, the verities, the truths of the universe should be cla.s.sified according to their realms; those having to do with the Person and relationships of the Creator being separable into one realm, and those having to do with His creation into another.
That this cla.s.sification is universally recognized, is a matter of common knowledge. That cla.s.s of truth which has to do with G.o.d we call supernatural, or spiritual, truth, and that which relates to His creation we call natural, or scientific, truth.
It is precisely because of this cla.s.sification that there are two separate inst.i.tutions in the world, each of which is working in one of these realms.
The =Church= accepts it as her function to receive and propagate spiritual truth, as G.o.d has revealed Himself in His character; while the =Schools= accept it as their function to study and teach scientific truth, as G.o.d has revealed Himself in His works. This is the entire logic of the existence in the world of these two separate inst.i.tutions, both of which are engaged in the investigation and propagation of truth.
But although the Church and the Schools are entirely separate inst.i.tutions, and although they are engaged, one in the spread of spiritual truth and the other in the diffusion of scientific truth, yet =truth is an eternal unity=. This must be so, in the nature of things, for all truth proceeds from and reveals the one and only G.o.d Who is its Source and of Whom it is the consistent and perfect expression.
Conflict between these two realms of truth is, therefore, eternally impossible. Men talk of a conflict between science and the Bible, but no such conflict exists. If there is any contradiction, it is not between the statements of Scripture and the facts of science, but between the false interpretations of Scripture and the immature conclusions of science.
Herbert Spencer was right when he said:
It is incredible that there should be two orders of truth in absolute and everlasting opposition.
Not until G.o.d begins to contradict Himself will these two realms of truth ever be in conflict with each other.
The Church and the Schools, then, can never be in conflict until some abnormal condition creeps into the one or the other; for, although working in different realms of truth, each is yet receiving revelations of the one G.o.d who can never be in conflict with Himself.
When these two inst.i.tutions are in normal condition, each will not only not destroy the work of the other, but each will make every possible contribution to the success of the other, and antagonism between them will be impossible. When conflict occurs, therefore, it is because the teachers in one realm or in both have not arrived at the truth in their respective realms.
And so when the Church denies the =facts=--not the unproven theories, notice, but the clearly demonstrated =facts=--of science, something is wrong with the Church. And when the Schools put forth =theories= that undermine the very foundations of the Church and her work, there is something wrong with the Schools.
Now it is no secret that the Church and the Schools, broadly speaking, are in serious conflict with each other today. Where lies the cause? If the Church is denying and fighting the demonstrated =facts= of science, then the Church is clearly at fault and ought to get right at once.
But this is not so, for the conflict is altogether over unproven theories, and has nothing to do with demonstrated scientific facts. And so this takes us at once and completely out of the realm of science and lands us in that of speculative philosophy--a fact that shows how unreasonable and even foolish the conflict is. For the thing that has set the Church and the Schools into battle array against each other is that speculative guess concerning origins called the =Theory of Evolution=. This lies at the heart of the opposition that each of these great inst.i.tutions feels toward the other.
It is true that a certain amount of the trouble arises from misunderstanding, because the term "evolution" is used in so many loose, illogical, and unscientific ways; but back of all misuse of the term there is a fundamental cause on which this antagonism rests, and that cause is found in the nature of the theory and its effects on those who consistently believe it.
The technical meaning of the term may be said to be a structural change in the direction of development into higher forms of existence, brought about by internal force without external aid.
There is also a scientific cla.s.sification of the subject, into sub-organic, organic, and super-organic evolution. Sub-organic evolution applies to the development of non-living matter; organic, to the development of vegetable and animal life; and super-organic, to the development of intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. But while the subject is thus cla.s.sified for convenience, it is all one doctrine, and is meant to describe one process of development from the non-living realm to the spiritual.
There is also one theory which is called causal, and another which is called modal, evolution. According to the former, evolution is the first cause of all life, which, of course, excludes G.o.d as the First Cause; and according to the latter, evolution is the mode, or method, used by G.o.d in creation.
Now, the Church has vital reasons for fighting this philosophical guess.
One reason is, that it is entirely unsupported by =facts=, and is therefore altogether unproven. But if this were the only reason, the Church could be convicted of the supreme folly of her entire history, for turning aside to fight an unproven guess. A more vital reason is that the theory does not stop with the natural realm, but goes right on up into the realm of spiritual truth, and a.s.sumes to p.r.o.nounce on the most vital spiritual realities in such a way that the logic of the theory, if consistently accepted, utterly destroys both the foundations of the Church and the content of the Gospel. Indeed, evolution has been proclaimed to the world as the ally of a philosophy which boasts of its capacity to drive Christianity out of existence.
For the Church, therefore, to fail to fight a theory that strikes at her very vitals would be to become a traitor to the Lord who bought her and sent her into the world to preach His gospel. And so she is compelled to choose between submitting to an unproven and destructive theory, which has never saved =any= one who has believed it, and preaching the gospel of G.o.d"s grace, which has infallibly saved =every= one who has believed it.
The true Church is fighting the theory of evolution in order that the message she is commissioned to preach may not be rendered of no effect by a non-belligerent att.i.tude toward it being mistaken for approval of it.
Not only the fact that the theory is entirely unproven, but also and more particularly the nature of its influence on faith in the Bible compels the Church to reckon with it. We will go into these two reasons for antagonizing this speculative guess.
I. =The Theory of Evolution is Unproven.=
The reason we reflect on this for a few moments lies in what has already been said. If evolution is a fact, then for the Church to refuse it and fight against it would be to fight against G.o.d, which ought to bring her to swift judgment for her mad folly. But if it is only an unproven theory, then she is justified if she has good reasons for fighting its propagation.
We will therefore note what the scientists themselves have to say regarding the theory.
1. Testimony =for= Evolution.
There are teachers of science who do not hesitate to a.s.sure us that the doctrine of evolution is now no longer a theory but an a.s.sured fact. A few representative quotations from that cla.s.s will suffice.
Dr. P. C. Mitch.e.l.l says, in a late edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica":
The vast bulk of botanical and biological work on living and extinct forms published during the last quarter of the nineteenth century increased almost beyond all expectation the evidence for the =fact= of evolution.
Prof. S. C. Schmucker, of the West Chester, Pennsylvania, State Normal School, in his book, "The Meaning of Evolution," says:
Among students of animals and plants there is no longer any question as to the =truth= of evolution. That the animals of the present are the altered animals of the past, that the plants of today are the modified plants of yesterday, that civilized man of today is the savage of yesterday and the tree dweller of the day before, is no longer debatable to the ma.s.s of biologists.
Professor Fish, then of Denison University, Granville, Ohio, not long ago dictated to his cla.s.s, of which the writer"s daughter was a member, the following statement:
Organic evolution is the key to all biological thinking of today. It is not a =theory= but a =fact=, because the main facts are true. Man is the off-spring of the lower animals, and the ancestry can be traced back to the simplest forms of animals known. All medical research takes that fact into account.
Prof. S. W. Williston, department of paleontology, University of Chicago, says:
I know of no biologist, whether of high or low degree, master or tyro, who ventures to suggest a doubt as to the fundamental truths of organic evolution.