The Church, the Schools and EvolutionConant, J. E. (Judson Eber)
Religion
The Church, the Schools and Evolution
Conant, J. E. (Judson Eber)
Evolution; Religion and science
The man of scientific mind, therefore, will accept all the non-experiential
statements of the Bible as infallible truth, including scientific and
historical references and prophetic utterances. He will then accord the
place of primacy to all understood scientific references of the Bible over
all discoveries in the natural realm. He will do this by interpreting the
few and fragmentary discoveries of finite and fallible man in the light of
the statements that come to us as the Word of an infallible God, concluding
that if there is any apparent inharmony, it lies in the partial discoveries
or premature conclusions of scientists, rather than in any error of
statement in the Bible. In other words, he will interpret science in the
light of the Bible, and not the Bible in the light of science. And if at
any time a harmonizing of scientific discoveries with the Bible seems
impossible, he will withhold final conclusions until he has further
scientific light, realizing that when he knows enough science he will then
be able to understand the scientific references of the Bible, and the
apparent inharmony will vanish. Multiplied illustrations of this are so
familiar that it is scarcely necessary to elaborate on it, as many will
occur to the reader who is at all familiar with the essential harmony
between the Bible and all real scientific knowledge, and with the fact that
a multitude of scientific discoveries have been made, only to find that the
Bible made reference to them in the most accurate scientific terms many
centuries before their discovery.
A conclusion is now possible as to what attitude a man who has faith in an
inerrant Bible will be compelled to take toward the theory of evolution.
When he sees that the logic of evolution destroys every fundamental
Scripture doctrine which he has already had verified to him by the Holy
Spirit; when he learns that evolution is not only entirely unproven but
even discredited by many competent men of science; and when he turns to the
Bible and reads the statement repeated over and again that each species was
created to reproduce only "after his kind"; he will be compelled to make a
choice between evolution and an inerrant Bible, and, believing the Bible,
he will reject evolution.
Then when he recalls that to Eve, Satan advanced an unproven theory which
assumed to interpret, but had the effect of denying, the Word of God, and
then reflects that the theory of evolution does precisely the same thing,
he will become suspicious that the "father of lies" is behind the whole
evolutionary propaganda. Other theories that are unproven and discredited
fall by their own weight. The persistence of this theory must be accounted
for on the ground that it can be used to destroy faith in the infallibility
of the Bible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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