The Meaning of Evolution

by Samuel Christian Schmucker

Such a fair-minded man must ask himself, what is the truth in the matter? If the scientific fact is true it is to be believed. It may run counter to what we have believed before. It may seem at first entirely incredible. But when once he becomes convinced of its truth the clear thinker must not only accept it, but must accept all legitimate deductions from it. If it seems true to us we must believe it. Absolute demonstrable truth, except in the simplest of matters is almost unattainable. The best we can ordinarily get is a close approach to certainty, and with this we must be content. In many matters, indeed in most matters, we must trust the judgment of others who are better trained in a particular line of thought.

As to the truth of geology we are certainly wise to accept for the present the facts and principles commonly accepted by competent geologists. In biology, we should respect the concurrent opinion of important biologists. We must not assume that a few biologists who think as we do are right against the biological world, or that a few geologists who think as we do are right against the geological world. For theology, we had better go to the educated theologian. But when it comes to reconciling two of these and to catching the inherent correspondence between them, it is often likely that each of these groups of men is unable to see clearly the view-point of the other. Here lies our freedom. Here we must either think for ourselves or think with those wiser than ourselves whose opinions seem to us to ring true and to focus for us our wavering and uncertain thought.

Among students of animals and plants there is no longer any question as to the truth of evolution. That the animals of the present are the altered animals of the past, that the plants of to-day are the modified plants of yesterday, that civilized man of to-day is the savage of yesterday and the tree-dweller of the day before, is no longer debatable to the great mass of biologists. To older men hampered by the convictions of an earlier age this dictum of modern science may still be a little uncertain.

The working biologists of the world have no doubt. They differ radically as to what brought about this change, they dispute vigorously as to the rate of change, but as to the fact of the change there is no difference of opinion. Under these conditions the thinking man is out of joint with the times when he sets himself against the idea of evolution. He may be so immersed in other lines as to be indifferent to the problem; but when he is hostile to it, he marks himself as clearly against his day. Many have been against their day and have been right. Very great men have often been against the opinions of their times and have come to be leaders of the world's later thought. But ordinary men in ordinary times who think differently on a special subject from the specialists of the times are not very likely to be right. It is safe for most of us to accept as true an opinion on which specialists on that subject agree. It seems clear to me then that the thinking man to-day has in the matter of evolution a double duty. He must become reasonably acquainted with the theory that so largely affects all present knowledge, and he must wrestle with the theory until it no longer hinders the hold of religion upon his life. He may be perfectly sure that he does not clearly understand both, but he must get them into reasonable concordance before he can be quite at peace.

Truth is true no matter how it is acquired. There can be no doubt as to the essential truth of religion: its fruits proclaim its worth. There can be no doubt as to the essential truth of evolution; the clarity it has brought into the sciences is the evidence of the value of the conception. That it will persist in its present form, that it will be unchanged by later additions to our knowledge is of course unthinkable. It may be incomplete, it may be undeveloped, but so far as it goes it contains the truth. Under these conditions, how can we bring peace into our own mind? These two important provinces seem so often to be at variance. The difficulty may lie in one of two places. In the first place, each truth may be stated in terms so peculiar to its own subject as to convey no meaning to the student of the other branch. There is a second, and more harassing possibility. The same words may be used by students in each branch but each side may put a different significance into the terms. Then each believes he understands the other, when he really does not.

Our theology is man's interpretation of God's revelations of Himself as recorded in the Bible. Our science is man's interpretation of God's revelation of Himself in nature. Each is God's revelation, and so far as we have understood it, that revelation is of the utmost importance in our lives. Each has all the inherent short-comings of man's interpretation. Each has all the difficulties necessarily found in any stage of a developing understanding. We may be sure if we could thoroughly understand God's revelation of Himself as recorded in the Bible and his revelation of Himself as recorded in the rocks and the tissues of animals as well as in the body and mind of man to-day, there would be no difficulty. When we understand both completely, as perhaps we never shall, there will be no contradictions of any kind between them. Even now if we are firmly convinced that truth must be in both, there will be little difficulty in reaching a workable unity which will satisfy the present needs of the human mind and will not be so crystallized as to prevent a future growth. If, however, we hope to find a unity between a belief in evolution and a belief in the inspiration and value of the Bible, we must accept both of these in the terms of to-day. To reconcile a twentieth century statement of science with an eighteenth century statement of theology would be as absurd as it would be to reconcile a statement of twentieth century theology with eighteenth century science. Each century must restate its truths in terms of its own time. The truths may be at bottom the same through many centuries but to be clearly intelligible in any century they must be couched in the terminology of the age.

It seems to me if we are to understand, in conformity with the thought of the age, any particular book in the Bible, there are three steps through which we must pass. We must first ask ourselves the kind of people to whom the book was originally written. We must know their habits of life and of thought. Until this is clear in our minds the book can have little significance. Having built up as nearly as may be the life and thought of the time, we must next decide what is the inherent truth taught to the people of that time by the book under consideration. Much that is written must be simply the setting in which alone that truth could reach them. This extraneous detail gives vigor and color to the message but is not the message itself. The last step and the hardest one to take, the one that to some minds seems almost irreverent, is to decide the form that message must take to-day to convey to our minds the same truth which the original message conveyed to the people of its time. In so far as we succeed in taking these three steps, we shall get the true message which this book holds for us to-day.

When Paul in his first burning letter told the Corinthian congregation that their women should be silent in their churches, he is not, it seems to me, giving a message which in those terms applies to the world to-day. If a woman has anything that is worth saying she has a perfect right to say it in church. In any denomination in which religious observance is not ecclesiastically formal she will be allowed that privilege. By an interesting peculiarity of mind on our part she may be permitted to do so upon Wednesday evenings, when our early prejudice still prevents her speaking on Sunday. What is the truth of the teaching of Paul in this matter? The Christians of Corinthian times had already begun to suffer from persecution. They were already despised and distrusted. Men had come to speak ill of them. Paul's injunction concerning the silence of women in churches was simply an injunction against their doing those things which in the thought and habit of those times were associated generally with looseness of character. Fine Corinthian women did not speak in public. A woman who would consent to speak before a group of men of Corinth of that day would by that fact have proclaimed herself a woman of loose morals. Paul's injunction is that, in this desperate struggle Christian women should do nothing which could possibly bring them into disrepute. The lives of Christians must be above suspicion. This message is certainly as true to-day as it was in the time of Paul and Corinth. Whether or not a woman speaks in church to-day has no bearing whatever upon the question. The question is how she speaks and what she says. If her life gives force to her message and her message contains God's truth she is entirely free to speak.

In similar fashion we have changed most beautifully the message which we have come to love, as the Mizpah message: "The Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent one from the other." We have absolutely transformed and glorified the message. It was once the calling down of the wrath of Jehovah upon one or other of two herdsmen if either of them should fail to comply with the agreement to remain within his own boundary. These men whose herdsmen were constantly stealing each other's cattle agreed to separate because they could not live in unity. They set up a heap of unhewn stone, and called upon God to guard and to see that neither of them passed beyond the boundary of the other. What was once a threat between warring herdsmen has become a binding link between Christian brothers. No longer do we call upon the Lord to guard in our absence lest our enemy encroach upon our domain. Now we call upon him to bind our hearts together so that neither time nor circumstance can bring division between us. The menace of a herdsman's wrath has become one of the tenderest messages of Christian love.

In the light of the principles stated above, what is the essential truth that lies back of the earliest chapters of Genesis? First, that there is one God. Slowly it had been borne in upon the Hebrew mind as upon no other tribe in the world that the Lord God is one God. Nearly all the world besides believed in many gods. Each nation had a God peculiarly its own, each city had a minor god caring for it particularly. There were gods of the woods, gods of the oceans, gods of the streams. Gods and goddesses were everywhere. To this people wandering through the terrible monotony of the sandy desert, the "Garden of Allah," there came the inspired comprehension of the eternal oneness of Almighty God. First, he was to most of them the God of the Hebrew, stronger than the gods of the nations. After a while under the teaching of prophet after prophet there finally came to the entire nation the exalted conception that God is one and there is no other God. This is one of the imperishable revelations of all time. Beside this, all suggestions of fifth or sixth day, of hours or of ages are absolutely insignificant. These are but the clothing of the idea which makes it acceptable to its time. This clothing must change with every age if it would reach thoroughly the minds of the age. Underneath and forever lies the glorious truth that the Lord God is one God.