Page:The church, the schools and evolution.djvu/31

 That is indeed true. We are all aware of the fact that there are various kinds, shapes, and colors of evolution, from theistic to atheistic; but the fact still remains that every theory is still evolution, and that any theory of evolution whatsoever, if it means anything at all, means steady progress from lower to higher. Progress is certainly the one thought that is vital to any definition of evolution, and progress downward is excluded by the very meaning of the word, and so evolution under any theory can mean nothing but progress upward.

But the Word of God says that man has gone down from a condition of purity and innocence into a condition of such sinful enmity against God, that he is not only not subject to the law of God, but is utterly incapable of bringing himself into subjection to it. And the experience of every Christian gives sorrowful but certain evidence to that fact.

This condition the Bible describes as being dead in sin. And since death is not death at all until it is total, man, therefore, being dead, is totally dead—and this is total depravity.

This means that the only progress possible to man in his natural state is progress in corruption. For total depravity, which is total spiritual death, does not mean that the last limit of corruption has been reached, but that while death is total, corruption may have just begun.

The reality of the natural man's spiritual death is abundantly illustrated in human history. After man fell into sin, and died, he was given fullest opportunity to recover himself and to demonstrate thereby that he was still spiritually alive. But the