Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Seebohm, quoted in J. J. Murphy, Nat. Selection and Spir. Freedom,
76—“When we admit that Darwin’s argument in favor of the theory of
evolution proves its truth, we doubt whether natural selection can
be in any sense the _cause_ of the origin of species. It has
probably played an important part in the history of evolution; its
rôle has been that of increasing the rapidity with which the
process of development has proceeded. Of itself it has probably
been powerless to originate a species; the machinery by which
species have been evolved has been completely independent of
natural selection and could have produced all the results which we
call the evolution of species without its aid; though the process
would have been slow had there been no struggle of life to
increase its pace.” New World, June, 1896:237-262, art. by Howison
on the Limits of Evolution, finds limits in (1) the noumenal
Reality; (2) the break between the organic and the inorganic; (3)
break between physiological and logical genesis; (4) inability to
explain the great fact on which its own movement rests; (5) the _a
priori_ self-consciousness which is the essential being and true
person of the mind.
Evolution, according to Herbert Spencer, is “an integration of
matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the
matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a
definite coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained
motion goes through a parallel transformation.” D. W. Simon
criticizes this definition as defective “because (1) it omits all
mention both of energy and its differentiations; and (2) because
it introduces into the definition of the process one of the
phenomena thereof, namely, motion. As a matter of fact, both
energy or force, and law, are subsequently and illicitly
introduced as distinct factors of the process; they ought
therefore to have found recognition in the definition or
description.” Mark Hopkins, Life, 189—“God: what need of him? Have
we not force, uniform force, and do not all things continue as
they were from the beginning of the creation, if it ever had a
beginning? Have we not the τὸ πᾶν, the universal All, the Soul of
the universe, working itself up from unconsciousness through
molecules and maggots and mice and marmots and monkeys to its
highest culmination in man?”
(_b_) Development is recognized.—The Mosaic account represents the present
order of things as the result, not simply of original creation, but also
of subsequent arrangement and development. A fashioning of inorganic
materials is described, and also a use of these materials in providing the
conditions of organized existence. Life is described as reproducing
itself, after its first introduction, according to its own laws and by
virtue of its own inner energy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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