Section 7. Science and the Advent Faith - outline and explanation

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1. A Reasonable Faith

2. Miracles and Natural Law

3. The Evolution Theory Examined 

4. The Creation Doctrine Examined

1. A Reasonable Faith

Our Modern times have been distinguished above all else by the marvelous advances made in the field of natural science. Men have probed the far depths of space with telescopes and unraveled the mysteries of the infinitely small with microscopes. They have explored and exploded the atom. They have discovered and measured the laws that operate in many areas of nature. They have conquered innumerable diseases. All this modern men have done as a result of becoming better acquainted with certain of nature's laws.

Now, as scientists delved ever more deeply into the physical world, they thought they discovered that the laws of nature are unchangeable, invariable. For example, could they not forecast what the sun, moon, and stars would do in the future? And was this not because these heavenly bodies operated according to laws that change not? Thus, to many scientific minds the universe took on the quality of a machine, each part operating like a cog, and the whole going on endlessly without possibility of change, because for some reason the whole universe is constituted that way.

A False Attempt at Harmony

Certain religionists, who came to be known as modernists, thought they ought to accept what seemed to be the sure results of scientific investigation. At the same time they wished to hold on to religion. They did this by reinterpreting all the historic Christian beliefs in such a way as to harmonize them with the scientific views.

This modernizing process started with the idea of God Himself. He began to be viewed more and more as a kind of impersonal force in the universe. That eased the tension that naturally exists between the idea of a personal God who does all things according to His good pleasure, and a universe operating according to a set of unchangeable laws that make it function like an impersonal machine. But what the harmonizers gained in relief from tension of ideas, they more than lost by the disappearance of the soul satisfying belief in a personal God to whom we can pray.

The harmonizing, which began with God, had to go all the way through Christian beliefs. If the universe operates by unchangeable laws, and has always done so, then all the Bible miracles had to be explained away, because miracles are contrary to the known operation of natural laws. That included the creation, the virgin birth, the resurrection, and the ascension. The Bible accounts of creation and the virgin birth were labeled legends. The resurrection was spiritualized away, so that a kind of ghostly, spiritualized Christ moved about before the eyes of the disciples after that resurrection Sunday. The belief in a literal Second Advent of Christ disappeared, and for the same reason. Thus disappeared the most basic of Christian doctrines.

Now, it is evident that the application of such harmonizing methods to Adventist beliefs would do away with most of them. Certainly there is no place for the seventh day Sabbath. Why keep a memorial of an event that really did not take place? There was no literal creation week with its seventh day set apart, say the harmonizers. And, of course, we could hardly be Adventists, because, as stated, there is no place for the literal Advent of Christ if one's views are modernist.

No wonder the Seventh day Adventist Church views modernism and all the reasoning associated with it as a deadly foe to its faith and to all that this movement stands for. It is not that we are opposed to science. We have science departments in all our colleges, where the most modern principles of scientific study and research are not only accepted but applied. We believe in all the facts of science, in all that the test tube and the laboratory can disclose to us of the mysteries of nature. We differ with others not regarding the facts of science but regarding the interpretation that they place upon the facts.

It is right at this point that a difficulty arises for some in our ranks, particularly for those who have received a higher education in non-Adventist schools. They know that scientists have made great discoveries that have revolutionized the world and opened vast vistas before us. Naturally they view with awe the scientists who make such discoveries. And when they find these scientists interpreting, in a certain way, the facts revealed by test tube, microscope, or telescope, these Adventist youth are tempted to feel that that is the correct interpretation. But, if the scientists' interpretation is correct, then there must be something the matter with Seventh day Adventist doctrine. Hence, there arises in the minds of some Adventists the temptation to feel that Seventh day Adventism is archaic, out of date, in its views and beliefs. And that is a long step toward apostasy.

We may be thankful to God that there are not many of our members who have apostatized for this reason, but there are some, and doubtless there will be others in the future as the membership grows larger. Nor would we confine the danger to advanced schools. Wrong patterns of thought regarding God and the origin of our world may be formed in the grammar grades or in high school.

How to Meet the Danger

It is far better for us to face the danger openly, and thus place ourselves definitely on guard. Our hope does not lie in putting an absolute ban on attendance at non-Adventist institutions. There are certain instances where it is absolutely necessary for some to attend for specialized training. Indeed, the church has no authority to enforce a ban, even if it wished to do so.

Our hope lies in pointing out clearly the dangers and in offering a better interpretation of the facts of science. The Advent movement has nothing to fear from facts, scientific or otherwise. We believe that the God whom we serve is the God who made all the universe, who established its laws. Hence, we ought to be the most ardent students of nature, exploring ever more fully its mysteries, and thus entering into the antechamber, as it were, of the great God whom we love and serve.

It is impossible to emphasize too much the primary point, that the facts of science and the interpretation placed upon the facts are two different things. It is a fact, for example, that the stars in their courses operate according to laws whose workings can be forecast. That is why we can have a nautical almanac to guide mariners. It is a fact that a planet of our own solar system maintains certain relationships to other planets and to the sun and moon. But it is an interpretation of the facts to declare that this proves that the universe is a machine, that there is no place for a God, and that if there is a God, He cannot change His laws without wrecking the universe.

Adventists, along with all conservative Christians, give a different interpretation to the facts. We see in these laws governing all the heavenly bodies so beautifully and efficiently, not simply great laws, but a great Lawgiver. Indeed, we consider it entirely an unreasonable attitude for one who has discovered that the universe conforms to law to argue that this proves there is no Lawgiver, no personal God.

Let us imagine, for a moment, that the universe is not orderly, that there is no evidence of any laws governing or coordinating heavenly bodies. Let us picture them, therefore, as going helter skelter, in unpredictable fashion, so that astronomers break out in cold perspiration for fear that at any moment there will be a general smashup. We wonder what scientists would think of those who argued that such a universe gives evidence of a personal God, a directing mind. We think that when the astronomers were not wiping the cold perspiration from their brows, they would be laughing cynically.

But the scientists have not discovered a disorganized universe. They have found one moving with such intricate precision that they can find no better analogy than that of a machine to describe the marvelously coordinated working of all the parts. Yet many scientists seem to forget that if the universe resembles a marvelous machine, then somewhere in the picture must stand a marvelous Inventor of the machine. Adventists accept all the facts of the amazingly machinelike precision of the universe, but insist on interpreting those facts in terms of the great Inventor of the machine. We go one step further-we insist that a marvelously intricate machine calls not only for an Inventor but for a Sustainer of it. No machine will run by itself, and the more intricate, the more in need of constant personal supervision.

Some scientists and those religious people who want to harmonize religion with science will declare vehemently that they believe in God, and perhaps they may even believe in a not-too vague or vaporous God. But they insist that changing in any way the operation of the laws of nature would bring chaos into the universe, and for this reason it is irrational to believe in miracles. What such persons do not seem to realize is that here again they are setting forth, not a fact of science, but an interpretation of the facts. Science has only the most elementary knowledge of the mysteries of nature and of how the laws of nature operate. How do we know that God could not invoke some law of which we have no knowledge, which would hold in check a presently known law, without violating that law and without creating chaos in the universe?

Reasoning Plausible but False

Let us take a simple illustration, drawn from the Middle Ages. At that time there were wise men who doubted the claims of some that the world is round. They were absolutely certain that if it really were round, no one could live on the underside of it. Was it not evident that such persons would be upside down, and therefore would fall off into space? Hold an orange in the air and place a midget doll on its feet on the underside. Is not the doll upside down? Release your hold. Does not the doll fall to the floor immediately? Probably in the history of human thought no piece of reasoning ever seemed more transparently clear and undebatable than this medieval argument that people could not live on the lower side of a round world. How impressively could they argue that the very idea was contrary to the most evident facts of life that could be tested.

What was the trouble with the reasoning of these medievalists? Simply this: They had not reckoned with the law of gravitation, a law at that time unknown. Gravitation is a mysterious force exerted by a body to draw other bodies toward it, with the strength of the drawing power in ratio to the size of the body. The world is very large in relation to man, and so man is held tightly to the earth, no matter where on the earth he may stand. The medieval wise men did not know that if this law of gravitation were not operating, men could as easily fall off into space on the "top" side of the earth as on the "under" side of it. What would there be to hinder them? 

We laugh at those men of long ago. Their erstwhile convincing argument stands revealed today as wholly foolish, and for the simple reason that they were ignorant of one law of nature, the law of gravitation. The facts are that this medieval reasoning began to be abandoned even before the law of gravitation was formally set forth by Sir Isaac Newton in the seventeenth century. And why? Because sailors began to travel around the world without falling off. No argument, no matter how plausible, about men falling off the underside of the world could last very long against the testimony of men who had been "down under" and had not fallen off. In other words, the testimony of men who had been sustained and protected, as it were, on the mysterious trip around the world and brought safely home again proved that there must be a fallacy in the reasoning of the wise men, even though at first no one knew where the fallacy lay. Sir Isaac Newton, by formulating the law of gravity, simply explained why men do not fall off the "under" side of the world.

Strictly speaking, he did not explain the law of gravitation; he only described it. Neither he nor anyone else from his day onward has been able to explain the mystery of gravity. Great as has been the work of scientists, there have been real limitations to their work. They describe, sometimes in vague outline and sometimes in greater detail, the workings of the laws of nature; but they do not really explain these laws. And there is a world of difference in this.

If scientists cannot really explain the mystery of the great laws, such as gravity or electromagnetism, are they not on dangerous ground when they dogmatize regarding the character of these laws and the chaos that would follow if God should hold in check some law? Seeing that they cannot truly explain the mystery of the laws that they have discovered, how do they know but that some other law, of which they as yet know nothing, may not force them in time to provide us a somewhat different description of the presently known laws? Might not the discovery of some new law make a great deal of plausible scientific reasoning today seem as foolish as the medieval reasoning concerning the impossibility of people living on the "under" side of the world?

Has the Crane Operator Brought Chaos? 

As Christians we need not be overawed when some interpreter of the facts of science assures us, with a dogmatism never exceeded by a medieval theologian, that it is unreasonable to think of God's interfering with any of the laws of nature, that indeed any interference would cause chaos. Such a person should go out to a railroad yard and watch a mighty electromagnet, suspended from a crane, lift tons of scrap iron from the ground high into the air. The pieces of iron seem to fly upward toward the magnet, and then are carried still higher by the crane.

If we personified gravitation, we might imagine its crying out from the earth that violence was being done to it by the operator of the crane, that it was contrary to the laws of nature for objects to fly upward from the earth. But is not the crane operator employing a law of nature when he uses the electromagnet? And does chaos ensue because these two laws actually operate at times in a way to make one neutralize the other? Of course, the man who controls the electromagnetic crane might cause a minor chaos by using the force within his power in an irrational way. But that is something else. Reference will be made later to the factor of the lawless action of man's free will.

Now, we need not go out to the railroad yard in order to see a law of nature being suddenly held in check. All one needs to do is hold his hat in his hand. No, the illustration is not absurd, except as it shows the absurdity of those who argue that nature's laws cannot be interfered with except at the risk of chaos in the universe. The reason the hat does not fall to the floor is that another law is operating, a law which is the expression of the mind of the man who holds the hat. He does not wish it to fall to the floor, and he gives expression to his wish and will through the muscles of his hand.

Here is the will, the law, if you please, of the mind of a man, operating to hold in check another law-the law of gravitation. But did chaos follow as a result of the man's expressing his will in a way that prevented the law of gravity from operating on a particular object, the hat? Not In fact, the law of gravity was still operating while the hat was being held. It was simply that the law of the mind of the man, expressed through the muscles of his body, was stronger than the law of gravitation.

2. Miracles and Natural Law .

The Orderly operating of the laws of nature that so amazes both scientists and devout religionists, may be viewed simply as a revelation of the orderly way in which God carries on the activities of His universe. These laws are not a group of independent entities; they are but the expression of the will and the mind of God. It is God who is unchangeable. That is why the scientist, in viewing the laws of nature, sees in them absolute consistency and dependability.

But the God of nature, who is far more jealous than the scientist about order in His universe, is not the slave of His laws. How could a personal being be the slave of that which is simply an expression of His own will and mind? Can He not extend His hand, as it were, to invoke some law of which we may not know anything today, and thus stay the operation of various laws that the scientists have been so faithfully watching? Why is it so scientific and reasonable to believe that the God, whom we know so imperfectly, and whose laws we understand in such small part, must always confine Himself to an expression of His will and purposes in terms of those few partially known laws? And if a scientist agrees, as he does, that the law of gravitation is not violated and no chaos ensues when a man lifts an object from the floor, why should anyone say that it is contrary to scientific laws. And thus impossible to believe, for example, that God will lift men bodily out of this world by translation at the day of Christ's Second Advent?

Of course most modernists and sonic scientists will say at this point. "We are not contending for a moment that God could not lift men up, but simply that it is unreasonable to believe that He would, in view of all that we know of the way that the universe operates. And that therefore no credence should be placed in the Bible story of translation or of any other miracle."

An Objection Examined

The idea is supposed to be unreasonable on two grounds: first, that God ought not to be viewed as relating Himself in such a personal, realistic fashion to man. Second, that the day-by-day events in nature round about us, which include no acts of translation or of other miracles, provide a far stronger reason for believing that such an event will never take place, than the words of a prophet provide for believing that it will.

The only answer necessary on the first point is this: How do men know just what is reasonable for God to do? How do they know God so certainly? On the second point, it is necessary only to restate what has been said in a little different connection, that the limited knowledge we have of the laws of nature does not warrant the conclusion that an event different from what we now experience might not or could not take place. On the contrary, there is good reason for believing that some very unusual event ought to take place soon if either we or the modernists and scientists are to retain our faith in the most basic premise in the reasoning of all of us. Namely, that there is order and system and law in the universe.

That brings us to another phase of the subject, the relation of the moral realm to the physical. This world of ours gives evidence that there are two kinds of laws operating. Laws in the physical realm and laws in the moral. And of course we who believe in God naturally believe that both kinds of laws are an expression of one will and one mind. Now, no matter what may be a man's religious belief, he will certainly admit that the laws that operate in the moral realm are being outrageously violated on every side. Violated more dangerously than ever before, and that such violation is a threat to the very life of this world and all upon it.

Nothing could better illustrate this fact and also the fact of the interaction of physical and moral law than the discoveries in the field of atomic energy. These discoveries are a crowning work of brilliant scientific minds. Great physical laws have been explored and exploited to produce the most terrifying thing ever to come from human hands, an atomic bomb. But the bomb was no sooner produced than we all discovered that its probable uses would gravely violate moral laws. Yes, moral laws can be violated, held in check, the same as physical laws, and by the same means, the operation of the mind and the will of man. The free will of man, which can operate counter to a natural law by lifting a hat from the ground, can also operate counter to a moral law by striking the owner of the hat to the ground.

Atomic Bomb Emphasizes Key Fact

The atomic bomb today has simply brought into sharp focus a fact that should have been evident to all before. Namely, that moral laws and physical laws are closely related; and that if the free will of man be allowed to operate indefinitely without any supernatural intervention, chaos certainly could ensue for our world. What is it we hear the scientists on every side saying today? Simply this:

That unless we have some accepted controls for atomic power, unless we are all willing to obey some moral principles in regard to the use of this power, we shall blow ourselves and our world to pieces someday erelong.

Yes, contrary to the whole tenor and temper of the scientific world, which has always thought of all physical processes as measured and slow and predictable in their operation. Scientists are the ones who today shout from the housetops about sudden, explosive events that will shatter the world, events that have no parallel in history. And they explain that these events, which normally would have been considered incredible, must now be viewed as possible because science has discovered how to use certain laws of nature that were not understood before.

Let us gather together the threads of these sorry facts, and see what pattern they produce. There are moral as well as physical laws. Man, exercising his free will, often goes contrary to the moral laws, producing every variety of tragedy. Today the possibility of tragedy is raised to the intensity of world explosion and oblivion for all of us. That explosion can be sudden and of a magnitude undreamed of in past generations. Beyond that point science is silent. Perhaps scientists consider it pointless to reason beyond the explosion!

But we must carry the matter a little further, for here lies a most important truth. If there is now the frightful probability that unless checked, man will exercise his free will, in relation to physical and moral laws, to produce chaos and annihilation. And if there be no other being in the universe who is free to exercise his will to stay man's hand, then what kind of universe do we have?

The Mood of the Cynic

A cynic may wish to minimize the question by remarking, blithely or cynically, that our speck of a world is hardly significant in a vast universe. But, if beings on this world have a free will to exercise their knowledge to blow themselves and the world apart, may not the beings on all other worlds have as much knowledge as we and also free will? There is no valid scientific reason for giving a negative answer to this question. We would therefore expand the question and ask, with increased emphasis, What kind of universe do we have? The answer is ready: We have a universe that could become chaos, so far as inhabited worlds are concerned. And that chaos would result from the orderly operating of certain natural laws, laws that apply to the atom, and the disorderly operating of free moral agents in relation to moral laws.

But is this the kind of universe that the modernists have pictured as they have sought to harmonize religion with science? No matter how much they have been willing to sacrifice their religious beliefs to scientific dogmas, modernists have tried to retain the idea that there is order and plan and purpose in the universe. To surrender that elemental idea is to cut loose from everything sure and certain in one's thinking. To cut loose from that is to take all moral meaning out of life and all meaning out of religion.

There are those who do cut loose in this way. There are certain scientists and philosophers who boldly declare that the universe is a blind machine operating with no plan or purpose. Hence it is simply our misfortune if man becomes so wise and so wicked as to hasten us into oblivion via the atomic bomb. But those who thus declare are not quite consistent. The idea of progress, so

firmly believed, until recently, by the whole educated world, including the cynics, is really a denial of the doctrine of a purposeless universe.

Now, proceeding on the premise that there is purpose and plan in the universe, must we not believe that there dwells somewhere in our universe an omnipotent being who is also possessed of free will to stay the hand of lawless beings who dwell in His universe? Unless we thus believe, how can we at one and the same time admit that finite beings can create chaos in the universe, and claim that there is plan and purpose to the universe?

Why Consider Divine Intervention Impossible?

And why should it be thought a thing incredible and contrary to science for God to intervene suddenly to prevent the sudden destruction of our world at the hands of men who have violated the moral laws which proceed from the throne of God? Is there anything more incredible or irrational in the idea of the heavens suddenly opening for God to appear to stay the hand of those "which destroy the earth" (Rev. 11: 18) than in the idea of the earth itself suddenly opening here, there, and elsewhere over its wretched extent, under the explosive forces released by the free will of sinful men? Does not the greatness of the impending tragedy of our world demand some great and unusual event?

There is no more breaking of the orderly operations of nature, as we have measured them through the years, by the sudden bathing of the world in the flaming light of the Second Advent, than by the sudden bathing of the world in the flaming light of atomic rays. Both are out of the common order. Only a few short years ago men would have been as ready to dismiss as fantastic and contrary to known laws the idea of an explosive, atomic cloud over our world, as the idea of the coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven.

Contrast Between Advent and Atomic Explosion

Both ideas deal with a sudden and incredible event. But here their similarity ends. The atomic explosion takes meaning and purpose out of the drama of our world, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and fears. But the coming of Jesus Christ gives meaning and purpose to the drama. The Advent reveals that the God who is long-suffering and patient, who is waiting in the shadows to allow man a probationary period in which to exercise his free will, is suddenly doing His "strange work," invoking laws that He does not commonly invoke. In order to prevent man from finally tearing apart a world that God designed for a purpose. The literal Second Advent of Christ is our assurance that God will not allow sinful men to operate their free will beyond a certain point, that He will not allow the righteous forever to suffer with the wicked in this world.

Belief in the Bible and in its record of miracles does not demand, as modernists and most scientists charge, that the Christian believe that some magical event may be expected to happen at almost any moment, any day. The Bible picture of the miraculous relationship of God to man is one of specially selected moments in history, moments that are often far apart. The Scriptures are filled with records of long periods when history moved on in sadly routine fashion. One who reads the Bible with the thought of a great plan of God is impressed that the occasional miracles recorded serve a very special purpose. In other words, they reveal not disorder and violation of

laws, but special order and a vindication of the inviolability of God's greatest laws, His moral laws.

The Bible does not present, through its record of thousands of years, a long series of virgin births, resurrections, and ascensions. There is only one virgin birth described in the whole history of the Bible. Why did the Bible prophets, who, according to modernists, thought only in terms of their day and thus believed in every variety of magical event, speak of only one virgin birth? Why did they narrow down all their amazing predictions to one Person? Why did they describe Him and Him alone, as being God manifest in the flesh? They lived in a world dominated by the pagan idea that the gods were like men that they cohabited with earthly beings, and thus were often manifest in the flesh. The pagans believed in a number of virgin births. How did the Bible prophets escape so completely from all these ideas that surrounded them on every side, and present to us only one glorious instance of a virgin birth?

The Christian who reads his Bible with a view to the sweep of the ages sees the recorded miracle of the virgin birth, of God manifest in the flesh, as one of those few special instances where God has broken through into history, as it were. And invoked laws not commonly set in operation in order to carry out some part of a great plan for the world.

The Christian who accepts the Bible picture of man views this world not as some orderly sphere where man is ever progressing upward, but as a world disorganized, torn apart by forces contrary to the will of God. He therefore sees in those rare moments of divine intervention in earthly history the occasions when God is seeking in a special way to give impetus to His plan to salvage something out of this disordered world and to bring ultimate order out of moral chaos.

We see in the miracles that cluster around the first advent of Christ simply so many special proofs given by God to validate the amazing claims made by His Son, claims which must be accepted by men if they are to be saved through Jesus Christ. Let wise men offer any more effective way for validating Christ's claims than those set forth in Scripture. Here was a Being who declared that He could save men from sin. How could He prove that He could accomplish this inner work for man?

When the rabbis questioned in their minds regarding His assurance to the impotent man that his sins were forgiven, Christ raised the question as to whether it is more difficult to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, than to say, Rise up and walk. And then to prove to them that He could do that inner work that their eyes could not see, He did an outer work that they could see, a work which could be done by no mere human being. He caused the impotent man to rise to his feet and to go away rejoicing.

Likewise, we see in the occasional miracles performed by prophets of God the same purpose of validation of their claims to be speaking for God. There is reason and purpose in the miracles of the Bible, even though they transcend our understanding of physical laws. Their reason is to be found in their consistency with moral laws and in the purposes of God to bring moral order into this world.

As touching the initial miracle of the Bible, the creation of the world, why are modernists and others who reject the Genesis story so dogmatic about what could, or could not, have happened?

Scientists cannot even define what life is, and yet there can be no beginning of creatures upon this earth, bird or beast or man, without life. And if life departs, all creatures turn to dust again.

True, scientists do know some definite things about life. They know that life cannot be considered in the abstract, as something floating mysteriously in the air. Life can be conceived of only in terms of a living creature. Whenever we see a living creature there is one scientific conclusion of which we can be sure; that is, that there was a living creature that preceded it. The presence of a living being at any time in past ages demands that we believe that there was a living being before it that gave to it life.

The rigid logic of all this demands, finally, that there be at least one eternal source of life, one Eternal Being. Conservative Christians follow that logic without any difficulty; in fact, they insist on it. Now, if in the beginning we picture one eternally living Being, how are we to explain the later existence of a variety of living beings on a world like ours, for example? There is only one truly logical explanation, and that is that the ever-living Being willed to share a portion of His life with them.

Paul declared to the Athenians that God gives to all men life and breath and all things, and that in Him we live and move and have our being. We describe this act on the part of God, in imparting a portion of His life to what would otherwise be dead clay, as an act of creation. We confess we know not how God does it; we simply say that there is no other explanation of how there could be on this world, or any other world, that mysterious phenomenon, a living creature, dust of the earth molded and made animate.

Skeptics have tried to avoid the force of this logic, and in two ways. Some have tried to push the question of the origin of life out into the vast reaches of interstellar space by theorizing that some spark of life might have been brought to our world by a meteorite. But obviously they have not escaped the force of the logic of an Eternal Being. How did life begin on that other world from which the meteor came? Would the skeptic have an endless supply of meteors? And where would the first meteor and the first world get their life?

A Second Attempt to Escape Great Truth

A second way of attempting to meet the force of this logic of an Eternal Being is by arguing that in some way not yet understood chemical action may have taken place. Indeed, must have taken place long ago, changing specks of dead earth into living forms, which forms, of course, later evolved into most complex creatures. This theory flies in the face of all that we know about the laws of nature as they apply to the origin of living creatures; namely, that life comes only from a preceding living being. In other words, the skeptic would really produce a miracle, a chemical miracle. It is correct to use the word miracle concerning his theory, for his very definition of a miracle is that it is something out of the ordinary course of nature, something that indeed goes contrary to all that we know about the laws of nature.

The difference between the skeptic's chemical miracle and a Christian miracle is that the skeptic, who fortunately does not represent all scientists, believes in such a miracle to escape believing in a creator God; the Christian's miracles take place to confirm men's faith in such a God. There is also a second great difference: Most of the Christian miracles are attested by many witnesses and

are recorded in a Book that breathes the very spirit of truth and veracity. The alleged chemical miracle of the origin of life has no witnesses. It has reality only in the speculative mind of the skeptic, or in the interpretation he gives to elusive and equivocal reactions that he secures in certain experimentation.

3. The Evolution Theory Examined

Regarding the origin of life, Thomas Huxley, who coined the word agnostic, and who called himself Darwin's bulldog, so ardent was his advocacy of Darwin's evolutionist theories, made this statement:

"Looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find no record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which the existing forms of life have originated, would be using words in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where belief is not. And if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy. I should expect to be a witness to the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter. I should expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of determining the formation of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the aid of light. That is the expectation to which analogical reasoning leads me but I beg you once more to recollect that I have no right to call my opinion anything but an act of philosophical faith." - Discourses Biological and Geological, pp. 256, 257.

"An Act of Philosophical Faith"

Note that his "act of philosophical faith" is defended on the ground that his "analogical reasoning leads" him to it. The very logic of the theory that he has accepted concerning all life on this world demands the conclusion which he confessedly reaches by faith! He realizes that the world, as we know it today, does not offer any exhibits of life beginning from lifeless matter, and that there is no scientific evidence for it. So Huxley, moving into the realm of philosophical speculation, speaks of a long past time "when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy." In other words, something might have happened back there that could not happen now, though he reasons in a preceding paragraph that the future developments of science may disclose how to work this miracle in our day.

If such reasoning be rational, then is the Christian's reasoning also. The logic of our view of the nature and origin of all things calls for a different kind of beginning from that which Huxley pictures, a creation as described by Moses. And we who believe the Bible meet the objection that nothing like it occurs today by declaring that a different set of factors operated at the beginning, which cannot be duplicated today. We can even go a step further with Huxley, the mentor of all evolutionist logicians, and declare that the marvelous advances of science may someday help us

to understand a little more clearly how a world could be made out of nothing. On this point we shall speak later.

The Bible skeptic will doubtless declare that even if it be granted-and some of them would grant- that an ever-living God is the explanation of all life, the observable facts concerning man and other living beings prove that the world did not start full fledged as Moses declared in Genesis, but on the contrary very minute living beings finally evolved into all the varied forms we now know, including man. Though it would carry us too far a field to discuss here all the so-called evidences for evolution, a few brief observations may be made.

The great majority of people are under the impression that in the nineteenth century a man named Charles Darwin made certain discoveries of the secrets of nature, and that his publication of his findings in 1859 in his book Origin of Species suddenly forced all reasonable-minded men to discard the idea of creation and to accept the idea of a gradual evolution upward.

But is it true that all the intellectual world up to the time of Darwin were confirmed believers in creation and were forced by the weight of Darwin's evidence to change their minds? No. The facts on this point are clear and undebatable. We will let an eminent intellectual, an evolutionist, speak:

Word of Eminent Intellectual

"It is still true that the idea of Evolution, of change, growth, and development, has been the most revolutionary notion in man's thought about himself and his world in the last hundred years. This transformation of the setting of human life did not come about suddenly, overnight, it does not date from the justly epoch-making publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Rather that event symbolized the new attitude that had in many ways been making its progress in men's thinking since the middle of the preceding century. Darwin's book, in fact, stands to our present- day scientific synthesis much as Newton's Principia stood to the earlier mechanical synthesis, as the confident marshaling of evidence and the systematic formulation in strictly scientific terms of a view that had already been for some time gaining acceptance by the best intellects. Both the rationalistic thinkers of the Enlightenment, in their growing emphasis on progress, and the romantic reaction, in its singling out of a process of development in time as the fundamental fact in human experience, had paved the way for a successful biological formulation of Evolution. Only such a state of affairs can explain the almost instantaneous acceptance of Darwin's doctrine when it was put forth in 1859." - John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, p. 461.

In other words, the great majority of intellectuals had for long years preceding Darwin come increasingly under the spell of the idea that there is some kind of law operating in the world, and perhaps in all the universe, that urges everything onward and upward, so that there must be, in the very nature of the case, inevitable progress. This idea of progress was not built on scientific findings, laboratory data, or anything akin to them. It was a philosophical idea, a speculation, a very cheerful speculation at that, an idea not hard to believe. Men had the will to believe it. In fact, by the middle of the nineteenth century a great majority of intellectuals considered this idea rather well established.

What Darwin did was simply to offer a theory as to how the progress took place in the world of plants and animals. He talked of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. His theory was that minute differences between creatures of the same species finally pyramided over the ages until there were distinctly different species. He theorized too that weak and inferior creatures were generally killed off while the fittest survived. Thus there would be explained not only ever- increasing species and kinds and classes but a constantly improving world of animals and plants.

Darwin's Theory Plausible

Obviously there was no way for Darwin to prove his theory correct, for the demonstration of it demanded long ages. But it was plausible, because it seemed to explain the facts of nature. Darwin did not present his theory to a hostile world, as we have noted, but to a very receptive world, a world that was waiting and longing for just such a theory. It is certainly no mystery that the theory was rapidly accepted. True, there were ardent theologians who stood out against it, but they were an exception.

When men want to believe something there is only one result that can happen: They will believe it, even though the evidence in behalf of it is shadowy and shaky and shot through with guesses. But once men have accepted an idea, particularly an idea that determines their viewpoint on the world at large, they begin to see everything through the glasses of that idea. In some small way we all have this experience from time to time. We remark, "I see this matter in an entirely different light from what I did before."

When men accepted Darwin's theory of evolution, facts in the physical world that formerly had not seemed to provide any proof for evolution suddenly began to take shape as unanswerable arguments in support of it. Take for illustration a major argument for evolution that is built on the bodily structure of animals. It had been evident to men before the days of Darwin that certain animals are small and very simply constructed; some, a little more complex; others, still more; and so on, until we come to man, the most complex creature of all.

Now, it took no brilliant scientist to discover the fact, of these different degrees of complexity in the structure of animals, but it seemed to take Darwinian spectacles to enable men suddenly to discover in this fact an awesome, unanswerable argument for evolution. Could not men see creatures evolving before their eyes as it were? Here was a panorama of the ages. Long ago there were only simple, one-celled creatures; then creatures with back bones and finally man with a mind, and with all his complex organs and functions. Of course, it was unfortunate that all the poor one-celled creatures did not evolve upward, but additional theories soon began to be spun on every side to explain why only a few select ones came upward, and why all the unselected ones were not killed off. This graduation of complexity in animal structures is typical of the alleged evidence for evolution.

Here is a choice illustration of the difference between facts and the interpretation of the facts. It is a fact that there are creatures of increasingly complex structure all the way up to man, but it is an interpretation of the facts to say that this difference in structure is due to evolution. Bible believers do not take issue with the facts; they accept them heartily. But they think that those facts reveal something entirely different; namely, the plan and purpose of a great mind to

populate the world, not with creatures all of one kind or class or complexity, but with different kinds, all the way from minute creatures up to man.

God Planned for Variety

Indeed, we believe it would be strange if the great God confined Himself to any particular type or class or structure in the animal kingdom. We believe He wished for variety and that one form of that variety was the difference in complexity of structure. We see no reason to believe, therefore, that the more complexly constructed creatures evolved from the simpler ones; we think that the plan for all of them came forth, during creation week, from the mind of God.

To repeat, the basic difference between facts and the interpretation of the facts explains why Bible believers can look upon the various so-called evidences for evolution and be unimpressed by them. We interpret the evidence differently. We do not see the world through Darwin's glasses. We have never believed that there is some law of progress driving the world and the universe forward and upward. That is why we have never been driven to accept evolution.

So much in comment on the commonly held idea that Charles Darwin, in the middle of the nineteenth century, made certain great scientific discoveries which were so clear and convincing that they suddenly caused all reasonable-minded men to accept the idea of progress and evolution.

Let us now turn to a brief comment on the second commonly held idea on this subject; namely, that all the scientific investigation and discovery since Darwin's day have provided only added proof in behalf of evolution and nothing that goes counter to it.

No Clear Proof Discovered

The facts are that nothing has been discovered in the scientific world from Darwin's day onward that has provided any clear and sure proof in behalf of evolution. All the evidence is what is termed circumstantial. Innocent men have been hanged on this kind of evidence, because such evidence can most easily be distorted or falsely interpreted through prejudice and passion.

There are two areas to which evolutionists have turned increasingly for evidence in support of their theory. Let us look first in the area of genetics. Genetics is the science that treats of heredity and inheritance. This science has made marvelous advances in the few decades since it became a well-defined branch of modern learning. We now know something definite concerning the laws that operate in the field of heredity and inheritance. We can determine, in advance, certain remarkable variations that will take place in the numerous generations of a certain species of fruit fly for example, a creature much used in such experimental work.

But these variations that present themselves are simply manifestations of different potential variations that existed in the parents. In other words, the extent and range of variations that can display themselves are predetermined by varying qualities and characteristics resident in the germ cell of the parent. This much seems to be well established in the scientific world. But this provides no proof for evolution. If anything, it seems to argue against evolution, for the children

and grandchildren and all later generations must be viewed as exhibits only of characteristics that always existed in the germ cell of their ancestors.

Evolutionists believe they find support for evolution in genetics on the assumption that though there is a predetermined number of variations that can display themselves down through the generations of a particular species, in time different groups of the descendants will, if isolated, stabilize certain markedly different kinds of variations. As a result, there will be no crossbreeding with the parent stock, and thus clearly distinct species will develop. From there on, of course, it takes only more time and more of the same reasoning to produce biological groups even more divergent than the species.

But this reasoning, though plausible, is plainly incapable of proof-that is, unless a person could watch these variants over a million or two years. The evolutionists are sure that their evolution theory is true, and therefore little variations must have become greater variations, with the end result just described. That the cold, well-established, scientific facts prove something very short of this does not too greatly disturb them.

Bible believers can accept enthusiastically all the laboratory findings in the field of genetics. We are not troubled at the thought that God placed within the first created dog, for example, more potential canine characteristics than could all be manifested in one dog. Certainly one dog could not have both short and long cars, both a shaggy coat and a short, clipped one, both long and short legs. There would have to be many dogs born in the generations to come to reveal all the variations. How marvelous of our God to place in the original germ cell of the first dog all these potential variations. We see nothing in this to conflict with the doctrine of creation, with its distinct types of life from the beginning.

The Alleged Proofs From Fossils

Let us look now at the other area that is said to provide evidence for evolution-the rocks, the layers of earth called strata, with their fossils. It is no mere play on words to say that the rocks are viewed by evolutionists as the real foundation of their theory. The fossils found in the various strata of the earth are remains of creatures that lived in the dim past. Naturally they might be expected to shed some important light on the long-past history of living things. We cannot here turn aside to explore the broad expanses of the earth to survey all the geological and fossil evidence that allegedly supports evolution. Your attention is called simply to one main point in regard to this fossil evidence in an attempt to discover how valid is the claim that all the discoveries and investigations since Darwin have provided only increasing proof for evolution.

To see the force of this point, the reader should remember that the classic picture of evolutionary development is that of a tree. Believing that all forms of life on the world came from some single, simple form, evolutionists have pictured this simple form as the base, or lower part of the trunk of the tree. Out from this trunk soon began to spread branches of more diversified forms of life. In turn the branches subdivided into smaller branches, and these again into twigs, as the forms of life became ever more diversified. The topmost bough, of course, was man, with the monkeys swinging just below and a little to one side.

Thus the theory of evolution calls for connecting links all the way along. No twig or branch stands alone; it is connected in some well-defined way with other twigs and branches, and all, in turn, to the main trunk. But what does the fossil record reveal?

Here is perhaps the most perplexing problem that confronts the specialists in the field of ancient fossil forms-- paleontologists, they are called. They have discovered that there are great gaps between the major forms, called phyla, and often great gaps between the more closely related forms. There is little or nothing in the fossil record to indicate that any forms of life ever existed to bridge these major gaps. Of course, paleontologists have always hoped that sometime, somewhere, fossils would be found out of which to make the much-needed bridges. But that hope has gradually faded as the strata of the world have come increasingly under study.

Occasionally an apologist for evolution is frank enough to admit that he is puzzled by these gaps, as he ought certainly to be. But most times the gaps, while admitted, are immediately bridged, to the satisfaction of the evolutionary writer, by a span of speculation as to why there should be bridges. The speculative span is strictly a suspension bridge, in that it rests upon no supports along the way! So long as the general theory of evolution holds, this kind of bridge holds. It is anchored at each end to a theory and not to objective facts.

One Authority Confesses, in Part

One recent brilliant authority, writing on this problem, declares:

"The facts are that many species and genera, indeed the majority, do appear suddenly in the [fossil] record. differing sharply and in many ways from any earlier group, and that this appearance of discontinuity becomes more common the higher the level, until it is virtually universal as regards orders and all higher steps in the taxonomic hierarchy [that is, in the evolutionary tree].

"The face of the record thus does really suggest normal discontinuity at all levels, most particularly at high levels, and some paleontologists (e.g., Spath and Schindewolf) insist on taking the record at this face value. Others (e.g., Matthew and Osborn) discount this evidence completely and maintain that the breaks neither prove nor suggest that there is any normal mode of evolution other than that seen in continuously evolving and abundantly recorded groups. This essentially paleontological problem is also of crucial interest for all other biologists, and, since there is such a conflict of opinion, nonpaleontologists may choose either to believe the authority who agrees with their prejudices or to discard the evidence as worthless." - George Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, p. 99.

This learned author seeks to ease the problem by arguing the incompleteness of the study of the fossil record. In other words, we may not yet have found the bridges. But in this view of the problem he can hardly find much consolation, for he admits that when "the [fossil] record does happen to be good" it "rarely" shows "complete continuity" for any group higher than "species and genera." On the "higher levels," he goes on to admit, "essentially continuous transitional sequences [that is, bridges] are not merely rare, but are virtually absent" - Ibid., p. 105.

He adds, almost immediately, that the "absence [of these bridges] is so nearly universal that it cannot, offhand, be imputed entirely to chance and does require some attempt at special explanation, as has been felt by most paleontologists." - Ibid., p. 106.

Some of the difficulties in dealing with the problem are suggested by his remark that 1isting of data as to the occurrence of possible ancestry involves subjective judgment as to what constitutes a 'possible ancestry,' and in some cases opinions differ radically." - Ibid.

In the next paragraph he makes the sweeping statement:

"This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of almost all orders of all classes of animals.... It is apparently also true of analogous categories of plants.' - Ibid., p. 107.

Speculation Substitutes for Facts

A few pages further on he observes:

"In the early days of evolutionary paleontology [fossil study] it was assumed that the major gaps would be filled in by further discoveries, and even, falsely, that some discoveries had already filled them. As it became more and more evident that the great gaps remained, despite wonderful progress in finding the members of lesser transitional groups and progressive lines, it was no longer satisfactory to impute this absence of objective data entirely to chance. The failure of paleontology to produce such evidence was so keenly felt that a few disillusioned naturalists even decided that the theory of organic evolution, or of general organic continuity of descent, was wrong, after all....

"Disregarding such easily discouraged serious students and ignoring less worthy critics with emotional axes to grind [obviously, those who believe in creation], paleontologists have interpreted the systematic gaps in two ways. One school of thought maintains that the gaps have no meaning for evolution and are entirely a phenomenon of record [that is, the fossil record has either been destroyed or has simply not been found yet]. Another school maintains that transitional forms never existed." - Ibid., p. 115.

The author here quoted thinks the answer lies somewhere between these two views, and spends pages in building what is described as a suspension bridge of speculations to span the gaps. In one short paragraph a certain speculation requires the use of "if" seven times. If a certain condition existed, and if another situation developed, and so on and on. Strictly speaking, there is nothing illogical in this. If knowledge does not exist, and if one is committed to a theory, and if grave objections to the theory arise, then speculation is the only way to explain its deficiencies. But how different all this sounds from the dogmatic declarations made by popular exponents of evolution that all the evidence is clearly in favor of evolution and that every year only adds strength to the argument. In the case of the rocks and the fossils, the stronghold of the evolution theory, the passing years have brought a major problem.

4. The Creation Doctrine Examined

A Few scientists, fully persuaded that the gaps between major forms of life will never be closed by any possible further evidence to be discovered in the fossil world, have actually proposed a distinct variation from the historic idea of an evolutionary tree. They suggest that instead of one tree there have been many-in, other words, that each of the major types of life, known as phyla, runs back through all the ages. Now, it is true that not many scientists accept this idea, because it runs counter to the basic idea of the unity of nature as historically understood by evolutionists. But the very fact that even a few reputable scientists feel that they must advocate this revised idea, reveals how distressing are the gaps in the fossil record.

Listen to an exponent of this revised idea, an eminent scientist of the United States National Museum:

"No matter how far back we go in the fossil record of previous animal life upon the earth we find no trace of any animal forms which are intermediate between the various major groups or phyla.

"This can only mean one thing. ...

"If we are willing to accept the facts we must believe that there never were such intermediates, or in other words that these major groups have from the very first borne the same relation to each other that they bear today." - Austin H. Clark, The New Evolution, p. 189.

He immediately asks, and answers, an obvious question:

"Is this creationism? Not at all. All living things are derived from other living things. Furthermore, all types of animal life must be explained in terms of a primitive single cell. The seemingly simultaneous appearance of all the phyla or major groups of animals simply means that life at its very first beginnings developed at once and simultaneously from the primitive single cell in every possible direction, giving rise to some original form or forms in every phylum."

We all agree that this is not creationism, but it has very much in common with the idea of creation. We Christians believe, in the words of this scientist, that the "major groups have from the very first borne the same relation to each other that they bear today." In other words, there has been a grove of trees, instead of one evolutionary tree the scientists from Darwin's day have pictured.

Why is not this idea really creationism? The author answers by declaring that these different principal forms "developed at once and simultaneously from the primitive single cell in every possible direction." He begins with a primitive single cell, which suddenly and simultaneously provides all the forms of life. Creationists begin with an eternally living Being, who suddenly and simultaneously brought into existence these various forms.

The Key Question

Why does this scientist, who finds that the evidence demands belief that all the main forms of life have continued back to the "very first beginnings" of time, suddenly make all these forms converge "at once and simultaneously into a "primitive single cell"? Here is the crux of the

difference between us. His answer is simple and direct: "All types of animal life must be explained in terms of a primitive single cell." And why "must" they? Because of clear evidence that demands this? Not then why? Simply because of the presuppositions that underlie the thinking of almost all the learned world today. Not to have the different forms of life converge into a "primitive single cell" would leave no other alternative than creationism. But creationism involves the Supernatural, and that is ruled out by the very canons that govern all scientific study!

No, it is not true that all the scientific discoveries and research since the days of Darwin provide only added proof for evolution. We think that the contrary is the case.

Earlier it was stated that there is no clear proof for evolution, that the evidence presented is what is known as circumstantial evidence. And no scientist would admit that circumstantial evidence ought to decide the case if his own life were at stake in court. One historian of science, who seems more frank than most, says this concerning evidence for evolution:

'Evolution is perhaps unique among major scientific theories in that the appeal for its acceptance is not that there is evidence for it, but that any other proposed interpretation of the data is wholly incredible." - Charles Singer, A Short History of Science, p. 387.

In other words, even after it is shown that the observable facts do not require a belief that the world has had an evolutionary history, a spokesman for that view frankly seeks to conclude the whole discussion simply by ruling out any counter view as "incredible."

And why is any other interpretation of the data incredible? Because the only one other interpretation that is set forth-the Genesis story of creation-is considered incredible. For illustration, there are before us the data represented by creatures of different complexity, from simple one-celled amoeba up to man. One interpretation of the data, already noted, is that there has been an evolutionary development upward. The other interpretation, and the only other one, is that God made all these different creatures originally with different degrees of complexity, and that the similarities found in them simply indicate that there is one master mind that planned the whole creation.

Back to the Subject of Miracles

To the average scientific mind this latter interpretation of the data "is wholly incredible." Creation is a miracle; and, as earlier explained, the scientific mind has no place for miracles. Everything in nature must be explained in terms of the measured actions of the laws of nature as we see them operating today. That tenet of science is so basic, so firmly established, that the Mosaic account of creation is automatically ruled out as "wholly incredible."

This brings us again to the subject of miracles. It will be well to return to this area of discussion specifically in terms of the creation miracle. The Bible pictures our world as being made out of nothing; or, to use the Bible phrase, "the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Heb. 11:3. This idea is unacceptable to many who have held that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, but can only be changed in form. This is the first and chief indictment of the creation account. The second major objection made by scientists, who would be

philosophers, is that Moses allows only a week for creation, and that this is a fantastically short period. Such speed violates the idea of the slow, measured actions of nature.

Strictly speaking, there is a real inconsistency in this whole scientific attitude of hostility toward the Bible account of creation. All genuine scientists will declare that they know nothing about the ultimate beginning of-anything, that they are concerned only with measuring, analyzing, and predicting the functioning of natural laws, which they see in operation about them. In the very nature of the case scientists are incapable of speaking with any certainty regarding ultimate beginnings, as this is in the realm of philosophy and religion.

Nor can they validly claim that though they do not know anything of absolute beginnings, they can be sure that the creation story is false, because their theory of evolution rules out creation. We have found that the so-called evidence for evolution is circumstantial at best and contradictory at worst. And we have just noted the frank admission of one historian of science, who confesses that "the appeal for its [evolution's] acceptance is not that there is evidence for it, but that any other proposed interpretation of the data is wholly incredible."

In other words, as we have discovered, the only ground on which creation is ruled out is that it seems "incredible" to the scientifically trained mind, which seeks to make a method in knowledge the whole of knowledge. But when scientists have no clear evidence in support of their evolutionary belief, how can they objectively prove that a counter belief is "incredible"? If they cannot test the creation belief in a scientific laboratory or measure it with a literal yardstick, how can they determine its lack of credibility? The answer is obvious: They must test it in the laboratory of their presuppositions, and by the subjective yardstick of their personal sense of values. But when they thus proceed they are no longer scientists but philosophers. And that makes a world of difference. Which is more credible, the words of a Bible writer or the words of a philosopher? That question is not difficult to answer, providing one will allow a personal God in his thinking. It is only when the scientist becomes a philosopher, and begins to interpret nature's laws and phenomena by his own presuppositions, and perhaps even prejudices, that we find ourselves in conflict with him.

Fashions in Thought

It should never be forgotten that scientists, like the rest of mankind, are creatures of their environment and their times. When they move outside the narrow limits of investigating and measuring the activities of nature, and begin to interpret or philosophize, their conclusions as to the credibility of any idea are certain to reflect, at least in part, the general viewpoint of the era in which they live. There are fashions in thought as in dress. And do we not all believe that the current fashion we see on the street is quite in order while the fashion reflected in the family album is "incredible"? Right here the words of a stimulating and respected English author apply:

"In order to understand a period it is necessary not so much to be acquainted with its more defined opinions as with the doctrines which are thought of not as doctrines, but as facts. (The moderns, for example, do not look for [on] their belief in Progress as an opinion, but merely as a recognition of fact.) There are certain doctrines which for a particular period seem not doctrines, but inevitable categories of the human mind. Men do not look on them merely as correct opinion, for they have become so much a part of the mind, and lie so far back, that they are never really

conscious of them at all. They do not see them, but other things through them. It is these abstract ideas at the center, the things which they take for granted, that characterize a period. There are in each period certain doctrines, a denial of which is looked on by the men of that period just as we might look on the assertion that two and two make five. It is these abstract things at the center, these doctrines felt as facts, which are the source of all the other more material characteristics of a period." - T. E. Hulme, Speculations, pp. 50, 51.

Evolution Corresponds With Secular Mood

In this present age, or period, distinguished for its secular viewpoint and its complete lack of any consciousness of the supernatural, those doctrines that support this viewpoint-for example, the evolutionary explanation of the world, are naturally considered reasonable. All such doctrines are "felt as facts." No wonder, then, that the doctrine of creation is considered "incredible." But why should the scientist declare that Moses was mistaken simply because he described great happenings that are outside the ken and the experience of science? Appropriate here are the words of Prof. P. W. Bridgman, of Harvard, who wrote thus critically of the attitude of certain scientific men:

"It is difficult to conceive anything more scientifically bigoted than to postulate that all possible experience conforms to the same type as that with which we are already familiar, and therefore to demand that explanations use only elements familiar in everyday experience. Such an attitude bespeaks an unimaginativeness, a mental obtuseness and obstinacy which might be expected to have exhausted their pragmatic justification at a lower plane of mental activity." - The Logic of Modern Physics, pp. 46,47.

Atomic Research Illustrates Point

This learned professor is here indicting some of his fellow intellectuals for objecting to the idea of "action at a distance," in explanation of gravitation. But his words take on more force in these last few years since research in atomic energy has developed. Let us illustrate the statement by a quotation from the opening chapter of the official report on atomic energy that was published under the auspices of the War Department in 1945. In giving the background of the study in atomic energy, the writer opens his report thus:

"There are two principles that have been cornerstones of the structure of modern science. The first-that matter can be neither created nor destroyed but only altered in form-was enunciated in the eighteenth century and is familiar to every student of chemistry; it has led to the principle known as the law of conservation of mass. The second-that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but only altered in form-emerged in the nineteenth century and has ever since been the plague of inventors of perpetual-motion machines; it is known as the law of conservation of energy.

"These two principles have constantly guided and disciplined the development and application of science. For all practical purposes they were unaltered and separate until some five years ago [that is, till about 1940]. For most practical purposes they still are so, but it is now known that they are, in fact, two phases of a single principle for we have discovered that energy may

sometimes be converted into matter and matter into energy." - Henry D. Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, p. 1.

If even a short generation ago someone had declared that it is good science to believe that "energy may sometimes be converted into matter and matter into energy," scientists would have ridiculed him as heartily as they have ever ridiculed the believer in the Mosaic record of creation. Such a declaration would have challenged two laws of the scientific world, laws as sacred to some scientists a$ the Ten Commandments is to the Christian. But it was not until those two laws were breath-takingly revised that scientists were able to proceed with their amazing discoveries in the atomic field!

Might it not be possible that some of the theories concerning scientific laws that are supposed to make incredible the Mosaic story of creation need revision? In fact, the two purported laws that have been most often invoked to rule out the Mosaic account are the very laws mentioned in this quotation on atomic energy, the laws of the conservation of matter and energy. If "energy may sometimes be converted into matter and matter into energy," then why is it illogical to believe that the God of all energy, the Omnipotent One, might convert some of His limitless energy into matter? The Christian conception of God has always been that He is infinite in power, in energy.

Christians grant that the idea that God can speak and suddenly divine energy congeals itself, as it were, into a whirling sphere of solid earth, is difficult to comprehend, but certainly no more difficult than some of the amazing ideas set, forth by atomic scientists regarding matter and energy. Note the following statement by a scientist, who is endeavoring to describe what investigation in the microscopic field has revealed as to the interchange of matter and energy:

"The simple concepts of space and matter have suffered in the microscopic field in much the same way that they have suffered in the astronomical field. As the result of investigations in the field of the small particles it has become necessary to broaden our ideas as to the nature of matter. Cloud-chamber pictures have allowed us practically to see two particles of matter created in space from the energy contained in radiation." - Claude William Heaps, "The Structure of the Universe," Smithsonian Annual Report, 1944, p. 178.

This scientific writer goes on immediately to state that this phenomenon of matter being created from energy, which he declared we can dimly see in its microscopic operations, might be illustrated on a larger, visible scale by this analogy. "An equivalent phenomenon would be for a quantity of sunshine, passing by an iron ball, to change suddenly into a couple of buckshot."

For a scientist soberly to set forth that kind of illustration to indicate what seems to be taking place in the microscopic realm is quite sufficient to take one's breath away. Even the story of creation seems no more breath taking. Both are views resulting from faith and not from the scientific process.

Of course, he hastens to add immediately regarding his analogy of sunshine and an iron ball:

"Needless to say, no one has ever seen anything like this happen. It is only when sizes become so small as to prevent direct observation that the event occurs. We may well say that something

peculiar is going on in the microscopic field. Something is happening which is foreign to our ordinary experience." - Ibid., pp. 178, 179.

His last sentence is really an understatement. Something is happening that not only is "foreign to our ordinary experience" but that contradicts some of the most primary tenets on which so-called scientific thinking proceeded from the earliest days of the scientific era right up to the time of atomic investigation. Note this scientist's further statement:

"Matter and energy can now be thought of as practically synonymous. It thus becomes possible to make certain grand inferences with the object of saving the universe from running down. Millions of suns are slowly but surely converting their matter and their energy into radiation and this radiation is constantly escaping into infinity. Perhaps somewhere in space radiation may be changed back into matter. Perhaps the universe is engaged in a reversible cycle, instead of an irreversible one, as is commonly supposed." - Ibid., p. 179.

"Perhaps"! Why not? At least some scientists have come to the point where they no longer dogmatically declare that this could not be so. On the contrary, we hear a scientist saying, "Perhaps somewhere in space radiation may be changed back into matter." Perhaps in time men may come to realize that it was only their limited knowledge that kept them from seeing how reasonable it is to believe that He from whose throne "proceed lightnings," can create matter at His will. The Bible Christian believes that the "somewhere in space" where matter is thus created, is the throne of God.

A Gloomy Forecast

"Perhaps the universe is engaged in a reversible cycle, instead of an irreversible one, as is commonly supposed." The learned writer is here referring to the long-held belief in the scientific world that the universe is "running down," that the sun and the stars are burning out, and that matter is dissolving into radiation, and energy is being dissipated into empty space. In other words, the best that philosophically inclined scientists have been able to offer us for the future is that ultimately all the universe will be cold and dead. This is the fatal, futile end that science has been able to see for the universe as the result of reasoning along certain lines and in terms of their knowledge of the laws of nature.

Now comes this broad and dazzling field of atomic investigation that rests on the premise that matter can become energy, and energy matter. From that premise flow conclusions in the scientific, philosophical, and religious realms that are absolutely revolutionary. And among these revolutionary conclusions is that "perhaps somewhere in space radiation may be changed back into matter. Perhaps the universe is engaged in a reversible cycle, instead of an irreversible one, as is commonly supposed."

Thus we see that the Bible idea of creation, of energy being transmuted in some mysterious way into matter, is an idea that must be held if we are to escape from the fatal, futile idea of a cold, black ending for the universe. In other words, the only way that we can give satisfying meaning to the universe is in terms of the idea behind the Mosaic story of creation, that there is a Source "somewhere in space" where matter can be brought into existence.

Now, if scientists speak of the possibility that matter, lost in radiation, may be restored somewhere in the universe, we can reasonably go one step further and speak of God's restoring this matter to the suns whence it was dissipated. Thus, we need not envision a universe dying out.

Two Objections Re-examined

In the setting of the discoveries and admissions of science today let us look again at the two major objections that scientific men have raised against the creation story: (1) The Bible describes the world as being created out of nothing, so to speak. (2) Too short a time is allowed for so great a creation.

The first objection, we have noted, seems very weak and pointless today in view of the marvelous revelations of science regarding matter and energy.

The second objection begins to look pointless also. If there is one fact that stands out above all others in the atomic experimentation, it is that changes of matter to energy, or the reverse, can take place in a moment of time. In fact, time hardly seems to be a factor in the whole operation. Whoever dreamed a short generation ago that so much of change could take place in a moment of time! It is not quite so hard now to take literally the Bible description of God's act of instant creation: "He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast."

No one can see energy; yet energy can become matter. Hence, we find new force in Paul's words: "Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." The apostle seems to be more scientific than we realized. At least it is an interesting fact that a recent scientific writer concluded a series of articles on the subject of the latest developments in science with these very words from Paul. (See Harper's Magazine, June, 1948, article by Lincoln Barnett, "The Universe and Dr. Einstein.")

Thus we come to the end of this brief study of the question of whether a person can be a Seventh day Adventist, and thus a believer in creation and other Bible miracles, and at the same time be truly scientific, and thus a believer in all the certainly established facts of science. The answer to that question is yes. We do not say that we face no perplexities whatever in interpreting the facts of nature, evolutionistic scientists face very real perplexities. We simply affirm that there is such overwhelming and increasing evidence of the harmony between the facts of science and the declarations of revelation, that we may confidently await further researches into the mysteries of nature to secure the added confirmations and harmony that may be needed.

No Conflict Between Bible and Science

The Bible and science are not in conflict. The God of the Bible is the God of nature. Some scientists and certain religionists, called modernists, have made the grave mistake of trying to square the Bible with their limited knowledge of science and to make science deal with philosophical problems which are completely out of the realm of the scientific method. We who are Bible believers have ever taken the opposite course, of understanding the mysteries of nature by the light that shines from the Book of God. Certainly mistakes have been made by conservative Christians, for we are not infallible. However, our mistakes have not included the

fantastic blunder of trying to harmonize the facts of nature with the revelation of the Bible by explaining away, or spiritualizing away, the reality of these facts.

But modernists and most scientists have sought to harmonize revelation with science by explaining away the very reality of portions of the Bible record as merely myth or legend. The net result of that was not a harmonization of the Bible and science but a prostitution of science by seeking to make it a philosophy that would destroy the Bible. Conservative Christians hold that the revelation of God in the Bible is the starting point of our understanding of God and nature, and that any tampering with that record, or indicting it as myth, makes a burlesque of the idea of harmonizing the Bible and science.

Seventh day Adventists, who believe in the Bible, believe also in science. We seek to take the Bible declarations as simple statements of facts and history and moral instruction, to be understood literally, unless internal evidence reveals that some portion should be taken figuratively. We also look the facts of science in the face, grateful to God for every new discovery. We are believers in the great God who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water. We believe in His Holy Book and in the universe that He created. We see harmony and unity between the two, for we see them as proceeding from the one divine source, the Omnipotent God.