The refuge which Christianity has taken is the usual one resorted to by religions which find themselves in conflict with views more adequate than those they hold. The myths are either allegorized or thrust into the background. Allegorization of myth is only a work of fancy, but it always implies a tendency to self-deception. So long as we see tales like the stories of creation in a sanely historical way, we realize that these men of the past were stating their own naïve beliefs and were not teaching our own views in the guise of a poetic version. The only way to be true to ourselves is to give up any attempt at compromise and acknowledge that the account of man's creation given in "Genesis" has simply been outgrown.
Thus, step by step, the framework of nature and man's place in it as taught by Christianity has come in conflict with more thoroughly founded views and has had to give way. Before science arose, man guessed at things and appealed to the gods at every step. The gods, as superhuman powers capable of doing anything, were naturally introduced to account for origins and mysterious events. Such an agent seemed a sufficient answer to any problem. How did man arise? God created him. How did the earth come to be? God created it. But science has come to see that an agent which answers every question in this easy-going fashion does not really answer any of them. It is a verbal answer and does not give us any specific information. Investigation is gradually showing just how men did arise and how the earth once formed part of a larger whole from which it was whirled off.
The only valid position to take in the light of this retreat of the biblical view of the world is to accept the evident conclusion that those who wrote the various books of the bible told the beliefs of their time. Some half-hearted converts to this conclusion try to take the edge off the admission by saying that the bible does not teach science. Let us put it frankly and say that the bible taught the knowledge of the olden days, their science, but that this does not at all agree with what we have come to know by real investigation.
While the primitive view of the world had the strength which came to it from the sincere belief of Christians, it struggled valiantly against the new knowledge. Unfortunately, Christians were, by their training, dogmatists and sought to silence the rising whispers of doubt by persecution, rather than by frank appeal to fact and reason. Because of this attitude, there developed the tradition of antagonism between science and religion which is so often referred to. The primitive view of the world, woven into historical Christianity, because shot through the bible, was helpless in the face of this vigorous enemy which was nourished by the intellectual adulthood of man. Its partisans were shocked by the denial of beliefs that seemed to them bound up with the most sacred and important facts. What could be more natural than an appeal to force to put down such impious suggestions! The story is not a pleasant one but it should not be looked upon as unexpected. Christianity used its power but was defeated. The fight is to all intents and purposes over; the primitive view of the world has gone forever and Christianity is in the throes of the effort to loosen itself from it, as a swimmer tries to free himself from the embrace of a corpse which would drag him down.
But this is not the first time that Christianity has been forced to give up a belief that would not fit in with the facts of a wider experience. We saw that the early Christians believed in the coming of the kingdom of God upon earth in their own day and generation. This hope was relinquished by the Church as time passed and it was not fulfilled. The date of the great change was simply postponed indefinitely. But the problem which the growth of modern science caused could not be met so easily. The conflict was stern, and it was only after defeat stared her in the face that Christianity tried to adapt herself to the new view of the world.
Were this adaptation possible simply by giving up the mythical elements in the bible and in the traditional theology, there can be no doubt that it would be accomplished. Many protestant denominations have practically gone thus far. There is reason to believe that, sooner or later, the doctrine of the virgin-birth, with its only too evident dependence upon classic mythology and its obvious violation of biological facts, will be resigned and Jesus acknowledged to have been born as all men are. We moderns see no shame in such biological facts. Since historical criticism and biology point in the same direction, there can hardly be a doubt as to the outcome. However reluctantly, Christianity must yield to knowledge.
Even after Christianity has surrendered her mythical envelope and resigned herself to the less dramatic and pictorial account of the beginning and end of things, taught by modern science, she is not secure. The struggle has only passed from the outer works of religion to its very citadel. To yield the nonessentials, which were the wrappings of its early manhood, to this stern seeker after knowledge, in the hope of a treaty of peace, will only lead to disappointment. Because of her worship of the book, Christianity has set too high a value upon beliefs which were simply doomed to destruction. Hence she has no right to look upon her surrender of these beliefs as an act of great merit. It is simply a preliminary step to the basic conflict between science and religion. The question which confronts the human mind at the present time concerns the problem of the harmony or disharmony of the views of the world essentially connected with religion and science respectively. Before this fundamental problem, these minor conflicts which have occupied so much attention shrink into insignificance. This problem involves the character of the agencies at work in the universe. Can science admit the reality of a special providence at work in the world? Let us see to what issues this problem leads.