Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/253

Rh was upon them that all the animals passed in review before man to be named, and then after these events woman was made. There is obvious lack of harmony between these two Biblical accounts of creation so far as details of process and order of events are concerned; they are, however, in perfect accord in presenting the spiritual truth that God is the author and the administrator of the universe. And that is the sort of truth which we find in the Bible. It is a textbook of religion, not a textbook of biology or astronomy or geology. Moreover, it is just exactly the Biblical spiritual truth concerning God which rings clearly and unmistakably through every theory of theistic evolution. With it modern science is in perfect accord.

There are a number of reasons why sincere and honest Christians have recently come to distrust evolution. These reasons must he understood and discussed frankly, before the world will believe that science and religion are not in conflict. Some of the opposition to evolutionary science results from failure to read the Bible. Too many people who loudly proclaim their allegiance to the book know very little about what it really contains. The Bible does not state that the world was made about 6,000 years ago. The date 4004 B. C. set opposite Genesis i:1 in many versions of the Bible was placed there by Archbishop Ussher only a few centuries ago. It is a man's interpretation of the Bible; it is in the footnotes added recently; it is not a part of the book itself. Concerning the length of earth history and of human story, the Bible is absolutely silent. Science may conclude that the earth is 100,000,000 or 100,000,000,000 years old; the conclusion does not affect the Bible in the slightest degree. Or if one is worried over the progressive appearance of land, plants, animals and man on the successive six days of a "creation week," there is well known Biblical support for the scientists' contention that eons rather than hours elapsed while these things were taking place. "A day in the sight of the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day." Taking the Bible itself as an authority dissipates many of the difficulties which threaten to make a gulf between religion and science. The fact that the seventh day was stated to be a day of rest has no bearing apes the length of the other days. I have no doubt that the man who made that chapter of Genesis had in his mind days of twenty-four hours each, but I reserve for myself the right to make my own interpretation of the meaning of words, as does every ChristionChristian [sic], be he literalist, trivialist or modernist.

Another of the reasons for the modern distrust of science in the religious world is the idea that evolution displaces God. Many seem to think that when the scientist enthrones evolution as the guiding principle in nature he dethrones God, that the two words are somehow synonymous, that there is not room for both and one must go. But the facts are as follows: Evolution is not a power, nor a force; it is a process, a method. God is a power, a force; he necessarily uses processes and methods in displaying His power and exerting force. Many of us believe that science is truly discovering in evolution the processes and the methods which God, the spiritual power and eternal force, has used and is using now to effect His will in nature. We believe we have a more accurate and a more deeply significant knowledge of our Maker today than had the Hebrew patriarchs who thought a man could hide from God in a garden, or who believed that God could tell man an untruth. (Genesis ii:17 states that God told man he would surely die if he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge; man ate, he did not die, God knew he would not die therefor.)

Again there is the widespread misconception that if one accepts the evolutionary process as the method which God uses he will find himself in a moral dilemma. Regardless of sect or creed, all followers of Christ