The Meaning of Evolution

by Samuel Christian Schmucker

The second truth which seems to me to underlie this magnificent parable of creation is the truth that this great God has created the universe and that he cares for his people. Gods before had been objects of terror. Gods before had lived lives such as the people themselves would not have respected among their companions. Gods before were to be shunned. If one could but escape the attention of the gods it was his greatest good fortune. Now we have the conception of an all-knowing, ever-present God to whom his people are dear. The terms in which it was stated in those days matter but little. To modern psychologists even the idea that people are dear to God seems speaking too humanly. Yet the truth involved must come in terms that the people of to-day understand. We can best comprehend God if we think of Him as loving and chastening, even though down in our hearts we know that these terms are not high enough, are too human to apply to an Eternal God. But we know no better and they tell us the truth even though the terms may in time pass completely away.

Last of all and perhaps most characteristic of the Hebrew people is the great lesson that this Eternal God, who created the universe and cares for his people, demands righteousness of his people. To the nations round about religion was not a matter of righteousness. For them religion had nothing to do with morality. Thieves might have gods favorable to them quite as well as righteous men. The worship of Diana of the Ephesians or of Astarte in the groves of the Asia Minor coast could be so unspeakably licentious and vile as not to admit of description to-day. Yet this was all religion. To the Hebrew came the inspired, exalted conception of a God who demanded righteousness of his people. Beside this wonderful revelation to the human mind details of serpents, and of apples, of names of men and of women, of gardens and of swords are absolutely but the transitory clothing. This brought them to the minds of the times. The value of the form is evidenced by the fact that it brought the conception. But we must not lose the glory of the conception in an over regard for the clothing in which the idea came.

Does this mean that Genesis has served its purpose and is to-day to be conceived of as a beautiful relic of the past, to be reverently enshrined but not seriously accepted? Far from it. The glory of the Genesis story lies in its wonderful power to grow. It strengthened the minds of a persecuted tribe wandering in the desert who finally settled in a small and barren country. It brought the truth to them so clearly that they have persuaded much of the world of that truth and bid fair to persuade the rest. The story has grown with the mind of man. As it served the Hebrew in his time it has grown to serve others to this day. Each generation has read the story in the light of its own times and each generation will continue to read the story in the light of its advancing knowledge. The only part of the story that can be affected is the clothing, the inherent truth remains forever. Furthermore, the story which persuaded the childhood of race is the story which will persuade the childhood of to-day. In no other form could the great truth of the Bible be brought to our children as well as in the form of these early chapters. In early life our children will accept these stories as literally as the ancient Hebrew accepted them. As they grow in knowledge, unconsciously and without jar, if we do not jar them, our children will read into the story what God has taught them in the world outside. The shock which came to their elders need never come to them. It is our fault if our children are disturbed by the conflict between religion and science which disturbed us. There is no difference between God's revelation of Himself, as we have it in the Bible, and God's revelation of Himself in nature. The better we know the Bible and the better we know nature the clearer this will be to us.

Perhaps the most severe shock that has come to the mind of religious man from the teachings of science has been the at first almost unsupportable idea that man is the descendant of creatures of which the ape is to-day the nearest representative. He had learned from Genesis the altogether adorable conception that he was made in the image of his Maker. It lifted him; it strengthened him; it gave him more power to struggle. He might know that he had marred that likeness by wrong-doing, he might understand that the fullness of the glory of God's image could not shine through his own face. Yet he believed that he was, in spite of all his imperfections, made in the image of his Maker. Now comes this horrible linkage with a miserable brute to either shock and confound him or to degrade him. We can easily imagine, some of us have bitterly experienced, the shock of this changed conception. But it was only because we mistook the clothing for the truth in both cases. We read science in its own terms; we read Genesis in its own terms. They did not use the same language and they jarred us to the very soul. Slowly, however, we are coming out of the darkness of that battle; slowly the glorious light of the beautiful truth is breaking into our minds and our hearts.

Michael Angelo painted a wonderful picture of "The Judgment." Here, seated upon a throne, which after all is only a magnificent chair, sits a venerable figure of what is really but a nobly-proportioned man, to whom the nations come for their final reward. He separates the righteous from those who must forever be sundered from their God. Seen through the distant past it still remains a majestic picture; but no painter would think of repeating its conception to-day.

Quite in the modern spirit is the beautiful lunette which John Sargent placed in the Boston Library, above his well known frieze of "The Prophets." It represents "Jehovah confounding the gods of the nations." The naked figure of suppliant Israel stands before an altar of unhewn stones, on which burns the sacrifice. The smoke ascends to Heaven. On one side stands the mighty figure of Assyria with uplifted mace ready to strike its awful blow upon the shoulders of helpless Israel. On the other side the lithe, subtle form of Egypt, clasping the knout, watches its chance to bring its treacherous thong upon the helpless shoulders of suffering Israel. But Jehovah may not appear, man may not look on God and live. Jehovah is seen as a glory behind the cloud of smoke shrouded by winged cherubim. From one side of the cloud comes a mighty hand meeting with power the force of Assyria. From the other side, a lithe and sinewy hand thwarts the subtlety of Egypt. But Jehovah is behind the cloud.

Again we understand that we are made in the image of our Maker. Again we understand the power of the uplift of this idea. From the conflict it has emerged in new and glorified form. Hath a God eyes that he may see? Hath a God ears that he may hear? Hath a God hands that he may work? These we know to be but human forms of speaking. Eyes, ears, and hands we may owe to the brute from whom we have sprung; in our eyes and ears and hands we show the relationship we bear to them. These are not the image of God. God is a deeper, a finer, a nobler something than hands, than ears and eyes. The image of God lies within ourselves: the image of God is that which makes us what we are. In every noble purpose, in every earnest endeavor to uplift ourselves or our fellowman, in every thought that turns us from the evil of a repented past, in every desire with which our hearts yearn to strengthen, support and sustain our friends and even our enemies, shines forth the image of Almighty God. This it is that links us with the Eternal: this it is that makes it worth while that we should be Eternal. Besides this what are hands and ears and eyes? We are made, all in us that is noblest and highest, in the image of our Maker.

A word in closing. The time is ripe for a broader conception of theology and of science on the part of those who are not trained to be specialists in either. We are becoming more and more inherently religious. We are becoming more and more enamored of the truth in all its forms. The times are ripe for us to cease the struggle and to strive for peace. So long as men insist that the important things in faith are the things on which men differ there will be eternal strife. So soon as men endeavor to find the common ground between them and each tries to state his belief in forms acceptable to himself but involving no hostility to his neighbor, we shall be working for peace.

Some of our finest men of to-day are being trained in modern science and in modern theology. There is no scorn in their minds for early science or for early theology. Each served its age, and each taught its truth. But its truth must be restated in terms of to-day. The old creeds will always be loved. The old creeds will always hold our reverence and allegiance. But each age must be at liberty to interpret these creeds in the terms in which that age best understands truth. Each age must be at liberty "to restate the doctrines of the past in accordance with the newness of the age and with the ancient verity of truth." How feeble my own attempt is in this matter, I quite understand; I am still a child of the struggle. It has all come in my lifetime and I have seen and felt not a little of the bitterness of it. I believe the time is ripe for a definite peace. I believe our children, if we do not hamper them, will never know the struggle we have had. In every great institution throughout this broad land men of earnest mind and noble soul are teaching the truth as God gives it to them to know the truth. Let us not hesitate to entrust our children to their hands. To us they may seem to be teachers of discord but they are not speaking in terms that we understand. They are using the language of a new age. Underneath their teaching lies the everlasting truth. Out of their teaching will come everlasting life. Let us trust God in the world. Let us believe that in this age he is teaching men's lips and dwelling in men's hearts. Only so can we give to our children the best their times can give them. If we insist in holding these men back to our conception we but deny them the privilege of moving with God's great procession. We make them laggards when they should be in the front ranks, their faces lighted by a nearer and clearer vision of Almighty truth.