But do you see where this brings us? Straight back to Christ"s formula!
This is precisely what His formula involves, for when a man wills to do G.o.d"s will, he takes the first step in faith.
Then when a man comes into this att.i.tude toward G.o.d"s will, he will next inquire where he is to commence in the doing of that will, what the first step is in the will of G.o.d.
The Textbook tells us that the first step is to "repent and believe the Gospel." That this is the first step is self-evident, because the heart must be opened to Him who alone can give the knowledge of spiritual truth before that knowledge is possible, and repentance and faith are the opening of the heart to Him. For repentance is a coming into that att.i.tude of heart toward G.o.d in which the whole life is laid bare before Him exactly as it is, thereby opening the way for faith; and believing the Gospel is an entering upon that faith which accepts the Gospel--the Good News--of Christ"s finished work of atonement for sin through His shed blood on the cross, and reckons pardon for sin and new life in Christ to be now ours according to the Word of G.o.d. For faith, you remember, is both an att.i.tude and an act; an att.i.tude of surrender to G.o.d, and an act of receiving what G.o.d has for us; and this is precisely what it means to repent and believe the Gospel.
This means that the man of genuine scientific spirit will begin his pursuit of spiritual truth by sincere "repentance toward G.o.d" and "faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" for salvation through His shed blood, which, according to the Textbook, are the first steps in willing to do the will of G.o.d, followed by a moment-by-moment dependence on Christ, Who is now his life, to reveal truth to him as he continues, by faith, in the att.i.tude of an open heart. This is the only possible way of ever knowing that truth which alone can make us free.
It is true that it is quite the fashion these days for every unbeliever, agnostic, modernist, and unitarian to quote those words of Christ "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" in justification of the claim that something which he is pleased to call truth has given him what he fancies is freedom. But Scripture could not be more grossly perverted than by such a wresting of its plain meaning. The whole statement reads:
Then said Jesus unto =those= Jews that =believed= on =Him=, if =ye continue= in =My Word=, =then= are ye My disciples indeed; and =ye= shall =know= the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Only the spiritually blind can fail to see the meaning of such a statement.
It plainly means that the first step toward freedom is =faith in Christ=, the genuineness of which is evidenced by =continuance in His Word=; and that it is only in this att.i.tude of =faith= that it is possible to =know= the truth that makes us free.
The truth is, therefore, that to be free one must believe on Christ. This does not mean to give intellectual a.s.sent to this or that fact about Him, but utterly to commit the life to Him, sin and all, past, present, and future. For the Gospel tells us not so much what to believe as Whom to believe, and Paul tells us what faith in Christ means when he exclaims: "I know =Whom= I have believed," and then further unfolds what this involves by adding, "and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have =committed unto Him= against that day."
Faith is not simply giving mental a.s.sent to facts, it is primarily surrendering to a Person. This is what it means to believe on Christ, and anything short of this will neither give us knowledge of the truth nor make us free.
Then following this att.i.tude toward Christ, the believer evidences his faith by continuing in His Word, by which he comes into experiential knowledge of its truth and its meaning.
Then coming to know the truth by experiencing it through faith, he is where the Son of G.o.d Himself becomes his freedom. And there is no other freedom.
It is in the experience of =Himself=, not in an intellectual a.s.sent to facts about Him, that He makes us free by becoming the =way= to G.o.d for us, the =truth= about G.o.d to us, and the =life= of G.o.d in us.
It is therefore only he whom the Son sets free who is free indeed, for freedom from the curse of sin by the experience of Christ as Saviour, and freedom from the blindness of error by the experience of Christ as Truth incarnate, is the only freedom there is.
When the Word says, therefore, "Whatsoever is not of =faith= is =sin=," it contemplates both the object of faith and the cause of forfeited freedom.
For the Holy Spirit came to convict men of =sin= because they =believe not on Christ=. Unfaith in Christ is therefore the essence of sin. And sin is bondage, not freedom. Scripture describes the unbeliever in Christ as the bondslave of sin, held in chains of darkness and error. This is why it is impossible either to know even natural truth in any adequate way, or to be able to untangle it from error, without becoming a believer on Christ as the first step. So let no one who has not surrendered his heart to Christ in faith boast that he either knows the truth or is free.
But suppose a man should seek to know spiritual truth and yet refuse to surrender his heart to Christ in faith, then what? It could only be because he was so devoid of the scientific spirit that he did not want to =know the truth= at =any cost=. And no man who is in this frame of mind can ever come to know the truth. Haeckel defines the scientific att.i.tude of mind when he says of the scientific inquirer that his
sole and only task is to seek to know the truth, and to teach what he has discovered to be the truth, indifferent as to ... consequences.
This means, in the terms of our present discussion, that in order to know spiritual truth, the man of scientific mind will be willing to work by Christ"s formula no matter what it costs him, for that alone will give him the knowledge of eternal things which will make it possible adequately to interpret natural truth.
But suppose the inquirer doubts the possibility of entering into a scientific knowledge of spiritual truth by following this formula, what then? It can only be because he is so unscholarly as to make the blunder in logic of a.s.suming as untrue or impossible that which =remains to be proved=.
No matter on which ground he refuses to surrender to Christ, therefore, no inquirer after spiritual truth can be either scientific or scholarly who makes this refusal; for he thereby renders himself not only utterly incompetent to know spiritual truth, but also entirely unable to accord primacy to the spiritual realm by interpreting natural truth in its light.
Suppose a man should take this att.i.tude of indifference or unbelief toward natural truth. Suppose that after refusing to make the first experiment in the study of chemistry he should attempt researches in a realm whose facts required interpretation in the light of the chemical laws he had refused to learn in the laboratory. Then suppose he should dogmatically announce such interpretations of his discoveries in that realm as were altogether out of harmony with the most fundamental laws in the chemical realm. And then suppose that in order to maintain his unfounded and arbitrary interpretations he should so twist the statements of the textbook on chemistry into harmony with his theories as to destroy their essential integrity. He would win nothing but contempt from experienced chemists. He would certainly find no place in the ranks of scientists.
This is precisely why evolutionists and rationalists, using this method exactly, can win no response from experienced Christians, and why they ought to be outside the membership of our churches as long as they pursue this method. Believers can not listen for one moment to such interpretations of scientific facts by unbelievers as destroy the essential doctrines of the Christian faith and deny the inerrancy and final authority of the Word of G.o.d. For unbelievers have not only not secured a scientific knowledge of what they are talking about, but they have not even acquired the right to =pa.s.s an opinion= on the fundamental doctrines of the Bible.
How can they announce dogmatically so-called scientific interpretations of the facts of nature which give the lie to the unmistakable doctrines of the spiritual Textbook whose truthfulness they have refused to put to the laboratory test of experience, and yet at the same time claim to be actuated by the scientific spirit? Those who do such things know nothing about the scientific spirit! Canon Dyson Hague was scientifically correct when he said that the rationalists are being opposed, not on the ground of their scholarship, but
because the biblical criticism of rationalists and unbelievers can be neither expert nor scientific.
There is but one conclusion possible. The man who intends to accord primacy to the spiritual realm will first acquire a verified knowledge of spiritual truth by the laboratory method of experience, according to the formula of the Textbook. For when he does this he will then be qualified to take the next step and make the primacy of spiritual truth an actual reality.
=b.= This will Mean Interpreting Natural Truth in the Light of the Bible.
We have now arrived at that point where we can sum up the logic of the scientific method of the laboratory as it applies to the investigation of the theory of evolution.
The man who is honest enough to want to know the truth at all cost, and accurate enough to insist on coming into a knowledge of the truth both by scientific methods and in the scientific order of primacy, will first acquire an adequate knowledge by experience, as we have already decided, of those statements of the Bible that can be verified to the experience, and then he will for the first time be qualified to arrive at an adequate estimate of the statements that cannot be so verified.
Then recognizing that all the scientific references of the Bible, including those relating to origins, are in that cla.s.s that can not be verified to the experience, he will decide to come to no conclusions concerning them except such as will maintain both the primacy of primary truth and the unity of all the realms of truth. He will do this because it is the only thing he can do and still maintain a truly scientific att.i.tude of mind.
This will mean that he will interpret all the non-experimental statements of the Bible, including the scientific references, in harmony with and in the light of those spiritual and experiential truths which he has already had verified to him through his own personal relations with G.o.d through faith in Christ. In other words, he will maintain the primacy of spiritual truth by allowing no interpretation of scientific facts that will cast either denial or doubt on those fundamental doctrines which he now =knows= are true, because they have been =supernaturally verified= to him through the laboratory test of faith.
Take an ill.u.s.tration. Suppose an author on chemistry, who was also a historian, should include in his textbook a history of the science of chemistry. Now if a man puts his statements of chemical laws to an accurate laboratory test and finds them true, he has the presumption established that the history, which cannot be so tested, is also true.
Yes, that ill.u.s.tration breaks down, but only at the point of =human fallibility= and =imperfection=. If that author were omniscient and infallible the ill.u.s.tration would be perfect.
Now apply it to the Word. When a man, through the unfailing laboratory test of honest faith, finds that the statements that can be put to the test of experience are infallible truth, he has not simply the presumption but also the =absolute certainty= established that all its other statements are true, because the infallible and omniscient Author has given it to us as His Word. It comes to us with a "Thus saith the Lord" ringing in our ears from beginning to end, and not with the multiplied repet.i.tions of "We may well suppose" of the scientific guessers.
The man of scientific mind, therefore, will accept all the non-experiential statements of the Bible as infallible truth, including scientific and historical references and prophetic utterances. He will then accord the place of primacy to all understood scientific references of the Bible over all discoveries in the natural realm. He will do this by interpreting the few and fragmentary discoveries of finite and fallible man in the light of the statements that come to us as the Word of an infallible G.o.d, concluding that if there is any apparent inharmony, it lies in the partial discoveries or premature conclusions of scientists, rather than in any error of statement in the Bible. In other words, he will interpret science in the light of the Bible, and not the Bible in the light of science. And if at any time a harmonizing of scientific discoveries with the Bible seems impossible, he will withhold final conclusions until he has further scientific light, realizing that when he knows enough science he will then be able to understand the scientific references of the Bible, and the apparent inharmony will vanish. Multiplied ill.u.s.trations of this are so familiar that it is scarcely necessary to elaborate on it, as many will occur to the reader who is at all familiar with the essential harmony between the Bible and all real scientific knowledge, and with the fact that a mult.i.tude of scientific discoveries have been made, only to find that the Bible made reference to them in the most accurate scientific terms many centuries before their discovery.
A conclusion is now possible as to what att.i.tude a man who has faith in an inerrant Bible will be compelled to take toward the theory of evolution.
When he sees that the logic of evolution destroys every fundamental Scripture doctrine which he has already had verified to him by the Holy Spirit; when he learns that evolution is not only entirely unproven but even discredited by many competent men of science; and when he turns to the Bible and reads the statement repeated over and again that each species was created to reproduce only "after his kind"; he will be compelled to make a choice between evolution and an inerrant Bible, and, believing the Bible, he will reject evolution.
Then when he recalls that to Eve, Satan advanced an unproven theory which a.s.sumed to interpret, but had the effect of denying, the Word of G.o.d, and then reflects that the theory of evolution does precisely the same thing, he will become suspicious that the "father of lies" is behind the whole evolutionary propaganda. Other theories that are unproven and discredited fall by their own weight. The persistence of this theory must be accounted for on the ground that it can be used to destroy faith in the infallibility of the Bible.
It is quite true that there are many who say they believe the Bible and accept evolution also. But how those who are mentally sound and capable of logical consistency can accept two mutually exclusive propositions at the same time, it is impossible to understand. We will be compelled to let those who say they accept both the Bible and evolution explain how they do it--if they can! But meantime, if we take pains to make careful inquiry of such people, we shall find that in =every case= where logical and consistent thinking has any meaning whatever, a =choice= has been made between the Bible as an inerrant and infallible Book and the theory of evolution. It is quite possible for a man to hold the "scientific" or "historical" att.i.tude toward the Bible, which makes it a human book marred by many errors, and believe in evolution at the same time; but the man who holds that att.i.tude toward the Bible =does not believe it at all=! No one can accept the theory of evolution and the doctrine of an inerrant Bible at the same time.
And yet the attempt is being very skilfully made by many leaders in the Schools today to camouflage this impossibility. A very recent article by Dr. Shailer Mathews on "Christ and Education" is a typical ill.u.s.tration.
In the midst of the article Dr. Mathews frankly indicates his acceptance of evolution, because of which, he says, "the meaning of religion was enlarged" for him. Then he leaves the impression with the reader that the conclusions of modern science are to be taken without question, and also that our faith in Christ and the Bible are to be brought into harmony with these conclusions. That is, our faith must combine an acceptance of evolution with whatever att.i.tude toward Christ and the Scriptures the evolutionary philosophy makes possible. This puts reason above Revelation and makes the scientific realm primary in its relation to the spiritual.
The reader can judge, in the light of our previous thinking, whether this procedure is scientific or not.
Then in speaking of the fact that the educated man as truly as the ignorant man needs the saving power of Christ, he says:
But he must be saved as an educated man and not as an ignorant man. He cannot be forced to give up what he knows to be real. If he be told that Christian loyalty involves the abandonment of the a.s.sured results and methods of scientific investigation, he will refuse such loyalty.
This implied charge is later on in the article made specific when he says that some schools
"are refusing to let their students know the results of scientific investigation for fear lest such knowledge will ruin certain theological beliefs for which the schools stand"--a method he describes as putting a premium upon ignorance as a prerequisite for faith.
The reader knows as well as the writer that the whole att.i.tude of the Christian Church, and therefore of true Christian education, challenges those words and hurls them back at their author for proof. Both the implied and the direct accusations are utterly without foundation. Indeed, the thing Dr. Mathews charges is the one thing true Christian education does =not= do.
When did the Church ever try to force a man, educated or ignorant, to give up what he knows to be facts in order to become a Christian? When was a man ever asked by Christian schools to choose between the a.s.sured results and methods of scientific investigation and loyalty to Christ? When has that inst.i.tution which, above all others, has fought ignorance and fostered true scientific investigation used a method that put a premium on ignorance as a prerequisite for faith?
It is not =facts= that the Church either fears or refuses to accept, but such an =interpretation= of them by evolutionists and rationalists as to deny the scientific accuracy and therefore the inerrancy of the Word of G.o.d. It is altogether beside the truth to intimate that the Church is fostering an education that has to withhold a.s.sured scientific facts for fear their knowledge would ruin faith in any theological beliefs whatever "for which the schools stand." It is not the =knowledge= of scientific facts that true Christian schools ever withhold, but such =theories= and =speculations= concerning their meaning as would destroy the schools as Christian inst.i.tutions if the logic of them were followed to the end. And as for the Church ever abandoning the a.s.sured results and methods of scientific investigation, this is precisely the thing the Church is =fighting to maintain= against the efforts of evolutionists and rationalists. It is rather the =Schools= that have been abandoning scientific methods of investigation, thereby reaching "a.s.sured results"
that invalidate not only the doctrine of an inerrant Bible, but every other fundamental doctrine of the Scriptures. Indeed, this is the very reason why the controversy between the Church and the Schools is now on, and Dr.
Mathews" article is typical of the attempts that are being made to make it appear that faith in evolution and the Bible can be combined--an attempt toward which all believers in an infallible Book will always be irreconcilable.
And this irreconcilable att.i.tude is not without reason, but for the perfectly valid reason that the one who accepts evolution as a fact is utterly unscientific. For in the first place he accepts unproven a.s.sumptions and rationalistic speculations as demonstrated facts. And, in the next place, he thereby forces human interpretations of scientific facts to contradict the divinely verified doctrines of the Bible, thus thrusting confusion and contradiction between realms of truth which are in perfect harmony. And, still further, he interprets the Bible in the light(?) not simply of science but even of a false science, and thus compels unproven hypotheses to deny the truthfulness of the scientific and historical references of the Bible, thereby forcing into primacy a realm of truth that is not primary. And all of this because he refuses to follow the formula of the spiritual Textbook and put faith above reason and the Bible above science in his approach to truth. How can a man follow such methods and yet imagine that he is scientific?
One more thing remains to be said before this argument is completed. We started out with an unproven, though self-evident premise. Turn back to the very first paragraph in the book and you will find that the falsity of the pantheistic theory was a.s.sumed but not proved. Its falsity was a.s.sumed on grounds that have come to light as the argument has proceeded, and that might easily be turned to account now as conclusive proofs. For example, to refer to one of them, the self-evident distinction between the realm which contains the Creator and that which contains His creation science proves to be a real divergence in kind by being compelled to cease investigation with scientific apparatus the moment the boundary line of the spiritual realm is reached. And if there is as real a distinction between G.o.d and His creation as this indicates, the doctrines of pantheism are impossible.