Life living upon death. So the fair show,
Veiled one vast, savage, grim conspiracy
Of mutual murder, from the worm to man,
Who himself kills his fellow”?[17]
§ 3. The Bible Account of Creation Irreconcilable with Science in Each and Every Respect.
The hypothesis respecting the past history of Nature, which was formerly, and is still very largely, accepted by Christians, is the doctrine fully and clearly stated in the immortal poem of John Milton—the English Divina Commedia—Paradise Lost. There is the best of reasons for the popularity of this doctrine. It agrees literally with the plain words of the Bible. The hypothesis is briefly this: “That this visible universe of ours came into existence at no great distance of time from the present, and that the parts of which it is composed made their appearance, in a certain definite order, in the space of six natural days, in such a manner that on the first of these days light appeared; that on the second the firmament or sky separated the waters above from the waters beneath the firmament; that on the third day the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon it a varied vegetable life, similar to that which now exists, made its appearance; that the fourth day was signalised by the apparition of the sun, the stars, the moon, and the planets; that on the fifth day aquatic animals originated within the waters; that on the sixth day the earth gave rise to our four-footed terrestrial creatures, and to all variations of terrestrial animals except birds, which had appeared on the preceding day; and, finally, that man appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of the universe from chaos was finished.”[18] This interpretation is that which has been instilled into most of us in our childhood; but, “if we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis—as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake—is not the meaning of the text at all. The account is divided into periods that we may make just as long or as short as convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of structureless rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvellous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.”[19]
Furthermore, we are to understand that there is no disagreement between theology and science in the sequence of the six acts of creation. Here at least we are not asked to twist words round so that one may mean a million. We have a definite statement which science either supports or it does not. The reader who knows that the verdict of science is negative may ask: “What is the use of wasting my time over a Christian argument which has long since been exploded?” I crave his pardon and patience; but, however true it may be that Mr. Gladstone’s position was shown to be untenable, it is equally true that an enormous number of persons still persist in maintaining that there is a remarkable coincidence of the Pentateuchal story with the result of modern investigation, and that science supports them in this conclusion. The Very Rev. Henry Wace, D.D., Dean of Canterbury, in his address before the Christian Association of University College, London, on May 7th, 1903, reminded his hearers that a President of the British Association (Sir William Dawson) had stated that “it would not be easy even now to construct a statement of the development of the world in popular terms so concise and so accurate” as the first chapter of Genesis. And Dr. Wace asks: “From whence could have come this marvellous approximation, to say the least, to the facts which science has been slowly revealing but from the Divine wisdom which alone was cognizant of them, and could alone make them known to mankind?”
A short time ago a lady very kindly sent me a little pamphlet, entitled Roger’s Reasons; or, The Bible and Science, written by the Rev. John Urquhart. In this there is a resurrection pie of the old, old arguments, dished up again in such a guise as to take in the unwary and ill-informed, who would have no suspicion that the food thus given them for their refection was not only stale, but had been condemned as unfit for mental consumption by the whole of the scientific faculty. The lady above mentioned considered the reasoning perfectly convincing, and so possibly would ninety-nine Christian ladies out of a hundred. Mr. Urquhart is now much in evidence as a Christian apologist, and his pamphlet is being distributed broadcast (81,000 have already been issued), so that it does seem worth while taking some notice of the attempts that are still being made to treat the Creation myth as a Divine revelation. That modern science does not support either the interpretation put upon the Bible story of the Creation by Mr. Urquhart or by Mr. Gladstone, or any interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the narrative, can be ascertained by anyone who will read Professor Huxley’s essays, “The Interpreters of Genesis” and “Mr. Gladstone and Genesis.” A few quotations from these essays may enable the reader to form a slight idea of the decisive manner in which the assertion that modern science supports the Bible narrative is controverted by science herself.
Speaking of Mr. Gladstone’s contention that the statements in the first two verses of Genesis are supported by the nebular hypothesis, Professor Huxley remarks: “But science knows nothing of any stage in which the universe could be said, in other than a metaphorical and popular sense, to be formless or empty; or in any respect less the seat of law and order than it is now. One might as well talk of a fresh-laid hen’s egg being ‘without form and void’ because the chick therein is potential and not actual, as apply such terms to the nebulous mass which contains a potential solar system.”