History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in ChristendomWhite, Andrew Dickson
Religion
History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
White, Andrew Dickson
Religion and science -- History
These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fashion for
several years. One distinguished clerical reviewer, in spite of Darwin's
thirty years of quiet labour, and in spite of the powerful summing up
of his book, prefaced a diatribe by saying that Darwin "might have been
more modest had he given some slight reason for dissenting from
the views generally entertained." Another distinguished clergyman,
vice-president of a Protestant institute to combat "dangerous" science,
declared Darwinism "an attempt to dethrone God." Another critic spoke of
persons accepting the Darwinian views as "under the frenzied inspiration
of the inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Darwin's argument as "a jungle
of fanciful assumption." Another spoke of Darwin's views as suggesting
that "God is dead," and declared that Darwin's work "does open violence
to everything which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures
of the methods and results of his work." Still another theological
authority asserted: "If the Darwinian theory is true, Genesis is a
lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and the
revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and
a snare." Another, who had shown excellent qualities as an observing
naturalist, declared the Darwinian view "a huge imposture from the
beginning."
Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most widespread
of American religious sects, declared that Darwin was "attempting to
befog and to pettifog the whole question"; another denounced Darwin's
views as "infidelity"; another, representing the American branch of
the Anglican Church, poured contempt over Darwin as "sophistical and
illogical," and then plunged into an exceedingly dangerous line of
argument in the following words: "If this hypothesis be true, then is
the Bible an unbearable fiction;... then have Christians for nearly two
thousand years been duped by a monstrous lie.... Darwin requires us to
disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A leading journal
representing the same church took pains to show the evolution theory to
be as contrary to the explicit declarations of the New Testament as to
those of the Old, and said: "If we have all, men and monkeys, oysters
and eagles, developed from an original germ, then is St. Paul's grand
deliverance--'All flesh is not the same flesh; there is one kind of
flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of
birds'--untrue."
Another echo came from Australia, where Dr. Perry, Lord Bishop of
Melbourne, in a most bitter book on Science and the Bible, declared that
the obvious object of Chambers, Darwin, and Huxley is "to produce in
their readers a disbelief of the Bible."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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