The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version of the Bible and Its Influence on Life and LiteratureMcAfee, Cleland Boyd
Religion
The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version of the Bible and Its Influence on Life and Literature
McAfee, Cleland Boyd
Bible -- History; Bible -- Influence; Bible and literature; Bible. English -- Versions -- Authorized
It ought to be added that the Bible has greatly suffered in all its
history at the hands of men who have believed in it and have fought in its
behalf. Many of the controversies which were hottest were needless and
injurious. All the folly has not been on one side. Some one referred the
other day to a list of more than a hundred scientific theories which were
proposed at the beginning of the last century and abandoned at the end of
it. Scientific men are feeling their way, many of them reverently and
devoutly, some of them rather blatantly and with a readiness for
publication, which hastens them into notoriety. But there has been enough
folly on both sides to make every one go cautiously. It has been remarked
that in Dr. Draper's book _The Conflict Between Science and Religion_ he
makes science appear as a strong-limbed angel of God whereas religion is
always a great ass. The title of the book itself is not fair. In no
proper understanding of the words can there be any conflict between
science and religion. There can be a conflict, as Dr. Andrew D. White puts
it, between science and theology. There can certainly be contest between
scientists and religionists. Science and religion have no conflict.
It is interesting to observe how far back most of the supposed conflicts
actually lie. There is no warfare now; and, while our fathers one or two
generations ago felt that they must fly to the defense of religion against
the attacks of science, no man wastes his strength doing that to-day. That
period has passed. The trouble is that some good people do not know it,
and are just fond enough of a bit of a tussle to keep up the fighting in
the mountain-passes while out in the plain the main armies have laid down
their arms and are busy tilling the soil.
The period of conflict is past, partly because we are learning to
distinguish between the Bible as it really is and certain long-established
ideas about the Bible which came from other sources and have become
attached to it until it seemed to sustain them. The proper doctrine of
evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible. The great Dr. Hodge
declared that the consistent Darwinian must be an atheist. For that
matter, Shelley defended himself by saying that, of course, "the
consistent Newtonian must necessarily be an atheist." But fifty years have
made great changes in the doctrine of evolution, and the old scare has
been over for some time. Newton is honored in the church quite as much as
in the university, and Darwin is not a name to frighten anybody.
Understanding evolution better and knowing the Bible better, the two do
not jangle out of tune so badly but that harmony is promised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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