The Bible account is circumstantial, with mention of places and rivers of undoubted historical character. It is accepted by subsequent Scripture writers and made the basis of their historical and spiritual teachings. The evolutionary account is lacking in all of this. There are no exact data nor any attempt to give any. No description save an imaginary one is ever given. As no one was there to see, the whole is fanciful.
The two accounts are utterly irreconcilable. Whatever the Scripture account means it does not mean Evolution, and literary justice demands that we do not impose upon a writer a meaning he did not intend or give.
Prof. Pfliederer writes, "There is only one choice. When we say Evolution we definitely deny Creation. When we say Creation we definitely deny Evolution." Prof. James Sully says, "The doctrine of Evolution is directly antagonistic to that of Creation." (Bible Student, July, 1901, quoted by Prof. Warfield.)
How anyone can accept both accounts passes all understanding. The late Dr. John Henry Barrows, president of Oberlin University, tells of meeting a Hindu boy in his visit to India, who had attended the mission schools and learned there the shape and situation of the earth. He had of course previously been taught the Hindu cosmogony that the earth was surrounded by salt water and that by a circle of earth and that by successive circles of buttermilk, sweet cane juice, and other "soft drinks" with intervening circles of land. Dr. Barrows asked the boy which belief he would hereafter hold. He replied that he would believe both. This might be possible to the Hindu boy, but it surpasses all previous intellectual feats that any intelligent person can accept both the Bible account and Darwin's account of the creation of man.
We will review the arguments for and against the evolutionary account of the origin of man from the following spheres and subjects:
1. The Argument from the Evolution of Species. 2. From Similarity of Structure in Animals and Man. 3. Rudimentary Organs in Man. 4. Human Characteristics in Animals. 5. History of the Evolution of Man from the Brute. 6. The "Missing Link." 7. The Brain. 8. Man's Mind and Consciousness. 9. Language. 10. Pre-historic Man. 11. Antiquity of Man. 12. Savage Races. 13. History of Mankind. 14. Religion. 15. Ethics. 16. Christian Experience. 17. Christ.
1. ARGUMENT FROM THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
On this argument rests the theory of man's animal origin. But for the desire to prove that such is man's origin, the argument would never have been conceived. We introduce it here again to call special attention to this fact. We have seen that there is decided difference of opinion on this theory; that many object to it; that there is not a single case of such origin of species known; that there is no law or force or cause agreed upon or known by which such origin of species could take place; that there are countless objections and facts against it; that its arguments are confessedly insufficient; and they are at best but inferences and only "the balancing of probabilities."