Evolution, Old & New: Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck,; as compared with that of Charles DarwinButler, Samuel
Philosophy
Evolution, Old & New: Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck,; as compared with that of Charles Darwin
Butler, Samuel
Evolution (Biology) -- History
Let us look a little more closely at the ground which the Church of Rome
and the Evolutionist hold in common. St. Paul speaks of there being "one
body and one spirit," and of one God as being "above all, and through
all, and in you all."[388] Again, he tells us that we are members of
God's body, "of his flesh and of his bones;"[389] in another place he
writes that God has reconciled us to himself, "in the body of his
flesh,"[390] and in yet another of the Spirit of God "dwelling in
us."[391] St. Paul indeed is continually using language which implies
the closest physical as well as spiritual union between God and those at
any rate of mankind who were Christians. Then he speaks of our "being
builded together for an habitation of God through the spirit,"[392] and
of our being "filled with the fulness of God."[393] He calls Christian
men's bodies "temples of the Holy Spirit,"[394] in fact it is not too
much to say that he regarded Christian men's limbs as the actual living
organs of God himself, for the expressions quoted above--and many others
could be given--come to no less than this. It follows that since any man
could unite himself to "the flesh and bones" of God by becoming a
Christian, Paul had a perception of the unity at any rate of human life;
and what Paul admitted I am persuaded the Church of Rome will not deny.
Granted that Paul's notion of the unity of all mankind in one spirit
animating, or potentially animating the whole was mystical, I submit
that the main difference between him and the Evolutionist is that the
first uses certain expressions more or less prophetically, and without
perhaps a full perception of their import; while the second uses the
same expressions literally, and with the ordinary signification attached
to the words that compose them. It is not so much that we do not hold
what Paul held, but that we hold it with the greater definiteness and
comprehension which modern discovery has rendered possible. We not only
accept his words, but we extend them, and not only accept them as
articles of faith to be taken on the word of others, but as so
profoundly entering into our views of the world around us that that
world loses the greater part of its significance if we may not take such
sayings as that "we are God's flesh and his bones" as meaning neither
more nor less than what appears upon the face of them. We believe that
what we call our life is part of the universal life of the Deity--which
is literally and truly made manifest to us in flesh that can be seen and
handled--ever changing, but the same yesterday, and to-day, and for
ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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