The Church, the Schools and Evolution

by J. E. Conant

We have now arrived at that point where we can sum up the logic of the scientific method of the laboratory as it applies to the investigation of the theory of evolution.

The man who is honest enough to want to know the truth at all cost, and accurate enough to insist on coming into a knowledge of the truth both by scientific methods and in the scientific order of primacy, will first acquire an adequate knowledge by experience, as we have already decided, of those statements [p 77] of the Bible that can be verified to the experience, and then he will for the first time be qualified to arrive at an adequate estimate of the statements that cannot be so verified.

Then recognizing that all the scientific references of the Bible, including those relating to origins, are in that class that can not be verified to the experience, he will decide to come to no conclusions concerning them except such as will maintain both the primacy of primary truth and the unity of all the realms of truth. He will do this because it is the only thing he can do and still maintain a truly scientific attitude of mind.

This will mean that he will interpret all the non-experimental statements of the Bible, including the scientific references, in harmony with and in the light of those spiritual and experiential truths which he has already had verified to him through his own personal relations with God through faith in Christ. In other words, he will maintain the primacy of spiritual truth by allowing no interpretation of scientific facts that will cast either denial or doubt on those fundamental doctrines which he now knows are true, because they have been supernaturally verified to him through the laboratory test of faith.

Take an illustration. Suppose an author on chemistry, who was also a historian, should include in his textbook a history of the science of chemistry. Now if a man puts his statements of chemical laws to an accurate laboratory test and finds them true, he has the presumption established that the history, which cannot be so tested, is also true.

[p 78] Yes, that illustration breaks down, but only at the point of human fallibility and imperfection. If that author were omniscient and infallible the illustration would be perfect.

Now apply it to the Word. When a man, through the unfailing laboratory test of honest faith, finds that the statements that can be put to the test of experience are infallible truth, he has not simply the presumption but also the absolute certainty established that all its other statements are true, because the infallible and omniscient Author has given it to us as His Word. It comes to us with a “Thus saith the Lord” ringing in our ears from beginning to end, and not with the multiplied repetitions of “We may well suppose” of the scientific guessers.

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, [p 79] 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 [p 80] 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.