The Church, the Schools and Evolution

by J. E. Conant

Not until God begins to contradict Himself will these two realms of truth ever be in conflict with each other.

The Church and the Schools, then, can never be in conflict until some abnormal condition creeps into the one or the other; for, although working in different realms of truth, each is yet receiving revelations of the one God who can never be in conflict with Himself.

When these two institutions are in normal condition, each will not only not destroy the work of the [p 9] other, but each will make every possible contribution to the success of the other, and antagonism between them will be impossible. When conflict occurs, therefore, it is because the teachers in one realm or in both have not arrived at the truth in their respective realms.

And so when the Church denies the facts—not the unproven theories, notice, but the clearly demonstrated facts—of science, something is wrong with the Church. And when the Schools put forth theories that undermine the very foundations of the Church and her work, there is something wrong with the Schools.

Now it is no secret that the Church and the Schools, broadly speaking, are in serious conflict with each other today. Where lies the cause? If the Church is denying and fighting the demonstrated facts of science, then the Church is clearly at fault and ought to get right at once.

But this is not so, for the conflict is altogether over unproven theories, and has nothing to do with demonstrated scientific facts. And so this takes us at once and completely out of the realm of science and lands us in that of speculative philosophy—a fact that shows how unreasonable and even foolish the conflict is. For the thing that has set the Church and the Schools into battle array against each other is that speculative guess concerning origins called the Theory of Evolution. This lies at the heart of the opposition that each of these great institutions feels toward the other.

It is true that a certain amount of the trouble arises from misunderstanding, because the term “evolution” is used in so many loose, illogical, and unscientific ways; but back of all misuse of the term there is a fundamental cause on which this antagonism rests, and [p 10] that cause is found in the nature of the theory and its effects on those who consistently believe it.

The technical meaning of the term may be said to be a structural change in the direction of development into higher forms of existence, brought about by internal force without external aid.

There is also a scientific classification of the subject, into sub-organic, organic, and super-organic evolution. Sub-organic evolution applies to the development of non-living matter; organic, to the development of vegetable and animal life; and super-organic, to the development of intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. But while the subject is thus classified for convenience, it is all one doctrine, and is meant to describe one process of development from the non-living realm to the spiritual.

There is also one theory which is called causal, and another which is called modal, evolution. According to the former, evolution is the first cause of all life, which, of course, excludes God as the First Cause; and according to the latter, evolution is the mode, or method, used by God in creation.