The Other Side of Evolution: Its Effects and FallacyPatterson, Alexander
Religion
The Other Side of Evolution: Its Effects and Fallacy
Patterson, Alexander
Bible and science; Evolution
Sir M. Monier said in an address in 1887: "There can be no greater
mistake than to force these non-christian writings into conformity
with some scientific theory of development, and then point to
the Christian's Holy Bible as the crowning product of religious
evolution. So far from this, these non-christian books are all
developments in the wrong direction. They begin with some flashes of
true light and end in utter darkness."
EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.
Evolution has a system or systems of Ethics. It traces the beginning
of the sense of right and wrong to the instincts of animals, such as
the parental instinct, the recognition of marital rights, and the
right to respective properties such as nests and burrows. So that
the animal, or man, came to see that it was best on all accounts to
be good to oneself and others. So Mr. Spencer's definition of right
is the happiness of oneself, one's offspring and others. Acts are
good or bad as they increase happiness or misery. He ignores the
moral instinct and exalts expediency and utility. This is the level
of the uncivilized or savage races.
Dr. James Thompson Bixby of Leipsic, makes humanity the goal of
Evolution's ethics. "The test of what is morally good is the
tendency of the given motive to help forward the progress of the
race toward the ideal humanity." (_Ethics of Evolution_, p. 212.)
Every Bible believer will see how far short these fall of the
standard of holiness and happiness the Bible places before us. But
when or where did any people ever aim to help forward the "ideal
perfection of humanity" who did not have the mighty impulse which
the Bible, and only the Bible, gives to that object? There is not
even the sense of brotherhood necessary for the motive. To point
natural man to that is to ask him to act outside his nature.
The law of the Struggle for Existence never taught Christian ethics.
The self-sacrificing Christian has something which never came from
Evolution. The Cross is the final test of Evolution. By it that
theory and all other false theories are weighed in the balances
and found wanting. The struggle for existence is the law of self
and is the antithesis of the Cross, which is the very opposite of
the struggle for existence. Nor is the struggle for existence the
law of the lower creature. That law is to bring forth fruit, to
propagate their species. That is the plant's goal; when it has so
done it retires or dies. The little bird will struggle more fiercely
for its young than for its food, or even for its life, which it
imperils often to save its brood. Below the unfallen creation and
regenerated humanity is the unregenerated selfish man. Not Evolution
but Revolution can create Christian ethics. History does not present
an instance of progress in ethics save as aided by the Bible.
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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