History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

by Andrew Dickson White

(12) For the citation from Lactantius, see Divin. Instit., lib. ii, cap.
xi, in Migne, tome vi, pp. 311, 312; for St. Augustine's great phrase,
see the De Genes. ad litt., ii, 5; for St. Ambrose, see lib. i, cap. ii;
for Vincent of Beauvais, see the Speculum Naturale, lib. i, cap. ii, and
lib. ii, cap. xv and xxx; also Bourgeat, Etudes sur Vincent de Beauvais,
Paris, 1856, especially chaps. vii, xii, and xvi; for Cardinal d"ailly,
see the Imago Mundi, and for Reisch, see the various editions of the
Margarita Philosophica; for Luther's statements, see Luther's Schriften,
ed. Walch, Halle, 1740, Commentary on Genesis, vol. i; for Calvin's view
of the creation of the animals, including the immutability of Species,
see the Comm. in Gen., tome i of his Opera omnia, Amst., 1671, cap. i,
v, xx, p. 5, also cap. ii, v, ii, p. 8, and elsewhere; for Bossuet, see
his Discours sur l'Histoire universelle (in his OEuvres, tome v, Paris,
1846); for Lightfoot, see his works, edited by Pitman, London, 1822;
for Bede, see the Hexaemeron, lib. i, in Migne, tome xci, p.21; for Mr.
Gosse'smodern defence of the literal view, see his Omphalos, London,
1857, passim.

The next important development of theological reasoning had regard to the DIVISIONS of the animal kingdom.

Naturally, one of the first divisions which struck the inquiring mind was that between useful and noxious creatures, and the question therefore occurred, How could a good God create tigers and serpents, thorns and thistles? The answer was found in theological considerations upon SIN. To man's first disobedience all woes were due. Great men for eighteen hundred years developed the theory that before Adam's disobedience there was no death, and therefore neither ferocity nor venom.

Some typical utterances in the evolution of this doctrine are worthy of a passing glance. St. Augustine expressly confirmed and emphasized the view that the vegetable as well as the animal kingdom was cursed on account of man's sin. Two hundred years later this utterance had been echoed on from father to father of the Church until it was caught by Bede; he declared that before man's fall animals were harmless, but were made poisonous or hurtful by Adam's sin, and he said, "Thus fierce and poisonous animals were created for terrifying man (because God foresaw that he would sin), in order that he might be made aware of the final punishment of hell."

In the twelfth century this view was incorporated by Peter Lombard into his great theological work, the Sentences, which became a text-book of theology through the middle ages. He affirmed that "no created things would have been hurtful to man had he not sinned; they became hurtful for the sake of terrifying and punishing vice or of proving and perfecting virtue; they were created harmless, and on account of sin became hurtful."

This theological theory regarding animals was brought out in the eighteenth century with great force by John Wesley. He declared that before Adam's sin "none of these attempted to devour or in any wise hurt one another"; "the spider was as harmless as the fly, and did not lie in wait for blood." Not only Wesley, but the eminent Dr. Adam Clarke and Dr. Richard Watson, whose ideas had the very greatest weight among the English Dissenters, and even among leading thinkers in the Established Church, held firmly to this theory; so that not until, in our own time, geology revealed the remains of vast multitudes of carnivorous creatures, many of them with half-digested remains of other animals in their stomachs, all extinct long ages before the appearance of man upon earth, was a victory won by science over theology in this field.

A curious development of this doctrine was seen in the belief drawn by sundry old commentators from the condemnation of the serpent in Genesis—a belief, indeed, perfectly natural, since it was evidently that of the original writers of the account preserved in the first of our sacred books. This belief was that, until the tempting serpent was cursed by the Almighty, all serpents stood erect, walked, and talked.

This belief was handed down the ages as part of "the sacred deposit of the faith" until Watson, the most prolific writer of the evangelical reform in the eighteenth century and the standard theologian of the evangelical party, declared: "We have no reason at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its transformation; that he was then degraded to a reptile to go upon his belly imports, on the contrary, an entire loss and alteration of the original form." Here, again, was a ripe result of the theologic method diligently pursued by the strongest thinkers in the Church during nearly two thousand years; but this "sacred deposit" also faded away when the geologists found abundant remains of fossil serpents dating from periods long before the appearance of man.

Troublesome questions also arose among theologians regarding animals classed as "superfluous." St. Augustine was especially exercised thereby. He says: "I confess I am ignorant why mice and frogs were created, or flies and worms.... All creatures are either useful, hurtful, or superfluous to us.... As for the hurtful creatures, we are either punished, or disciplined, or terrified by them, so that we may not cherish and love this life." As to the "superfluous animals," he says, "Although they are not necessary for our service, yet the whole design of the universe is thereby completed and finished." Luther, who followed St. Augustine in so many other matters, declined to follow him fully in this. To him a fly was not merely superfluous, it was noxious—sent by the devil to vex him when reading.

Another subject which gave rise to much searching of Scripture and long trains of theological reasoning was the difference between the creation of man and that of other living beings.