Evolution: An Investigation and a CritiqueGraebner, Theodore
Religion
Evolution: An Investigation and a Critique
Graebner, Theodore
Evolution; Religion and science
standing forth the clearer to my mind, the longer I occupied myself with
the subject.
I determined to investigate for myself the data on which the
speculations whose mazes I had trod these years were built up. The
leisure hours of three years were devoted to the study of first-hand
sources of Comparative Religion. The result of this research was
deposited in two articles contributed to the _Theological Quarterly_ in
1906 and 1907. I fear that the forbidding character of the foot-notes
served as an effective deterrent to the reading of these articles. I
have now given, in several chapters of this little volume, in popular
language the argument against evolution to be derived from the study of
Religion. The reading of Le Conte's and Dana's text-books of geology
and various other treatises supplied the data on palaeontology embodied
in the first chapters of the book. The notable circulus in concludendo
("begging the question") of which evolutionists here are guilty was
first pointed out to me by Prof. Tingelstad of Decorah, Iowa, who was
in 1908 taking a course in Evolution at Chicago University, and who
called on me for discussion of the doctrine as he received it from
"head-quarters."
An an excursus in the subject of Pedagogy, I have treated in my
Seminary lectures the past years, under the head of natural sciences,
the argument against evolution, and the outlines of these lectures have
furnished the framework for the present volume. It is hoped that
especially our young men and women who take courses at our universities
will examine the case against the fascinating and in some respects
magnificent conception of evolution as this case is presented in the
following chapters. I realize that they, as well as intelligent readers
generally, may not meet with confidence the statements of a theologian
on a scientific question, least of all when he essays to treat such a
question from the standpoint of science. He is presumed to be at home
in theology, but a stranger in the domain of geology, astronomy, and
biology. It is for the purpose of obtaining a hearing at all that these
introductory remarks are written. But the argument must stand on its own
merits. The writer will now retire to the background. The facts shall
speak.
TH. G.
EVOLUTION.
CHAPTER ONE.
An Outline of the Theory.
Definition.
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