Full Text for Has Our Church a Quarrel with Science? (Text)

reflects at all believes in one way or another in God. . .. It seems to me as obvious as breathing that every man who is sufficiently in his senses to recognize his own inability to comprehend the problem of existence, to understand whence he himself came and whither he is. going, must in the very admission of that ignorance and finiteness recognize the existence of a Something, a Power, a Being, in whom and because of whom he himself lives and moves and has his being. That Power, that Something, that Existence, we call God." (Science' and Life, 56 f.) Similarly we are pleased to note that Shepardson>" a university professor of electrical engineering of international fame," does not hesitate to state, in his The Religion of an Electrical Engi- neer: "The evidence obtainable from study of material phenomena gives us confidence in concluding that a Supreme Being exists, that He is profoundly intelligent, that He designed and constructed and governs the universe, and that He encourages those who seek to learu of His works and ways" (p.63). And on another page: "The scien- ticulist with a smattering of second·hand knowledge may presume to ridicule the simple statements of remarkable events; but the real scientist recognizes that what he does not know is far more than what he does know, and his mind is on the alert for additional knowledge" (p.91). And on still another page: "Jesus, Ohrist was either the Son 836 Has Our Church a Quarrel with Science? of God or else a deceiver, and the evidence all points to His being genuine" (p.131). We have the highest regard also for the science of chemistry, and that in all its departments and subdivisions, geochemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, sanitary chem- istry, agricultural chemistry, and particularly biochemistry as it cor- relates with medicine. The advance of the last thirty years in the conquest of dietary diseases, in the study of the internal secretions, in the progress in the field of anesthesia, in the combat against various germ diseases, is greater than that of the previous three hundred years. But here again we are glad to find that some of the foremost scholars in the field, like Doctor Kelly of Baltimore, have retained their simple faith in the one absolute truth, the revelation of the Bible. Our interest in the field of archeology is great and abiding. We follow not only the popular, but also the scientific accounts of the American School at Athens, of the American Academy in Rome, of the American Schools of Oriental Research (Jerusalem and Bagdad), of the School of American Research at Santa Fe, with its recent work in Ohaco Oanyon and Jemez Oanyon, N. Mex., and even of the Amer- ican School of Prehistoric Research; we read the accounts of the work done in the valley of the Euphrates, especially at TIl', of that carried on in and near Jerusalem and in various parts of the Holy Land, at Ephesus, at Oorinth, in various parts of Italy, in the ancient Mayan cities of Oentral America, and other centers of prehistoric civilization. Much outstanding work is being done and much of it has been made accessible in sets like TV onders of the Past, edited by J. A. Hammerton. And we are happy to find that the first article of this set, by Prof. A. H. Sayee, contains a passage which certainly is of great interest to all those who have consistently maintained the truth of the Bible. He writes: "If we turn from the world of prac- tical politics tCl that of science, there is another question relating to mankind upon which archeological discovery throws light. Ever since the establishment of the doctrine of evolution it has been assumed that man started like a child and slowly grew into what he is to-day. Our primitive ancestor has been seen again in the modern savage, whose nearest representative he has been held to be. The brain and mentality of civilized man, it has been assumed, have developed out of small beginnings; he started almost on the level with the brute beasts and has become a Newton or a Napoleon. But here again archeology stands in the way. The men who carved the hardest of stones into living portraitures in the Egypt of six thousand years ago or, at a later epoch, erected the Parthenon at Athens were in no way inferior to the most gifted of ourselves. We have accumulated more Has Our Church a Quarrel with Science? 837 knowledge, it is true, but we can claim no superiority in the powers of mind. And if we go back to a still earlier age, the record is the same. The marvelous drawings of paleolithic man of the Aurignacian age prove that on the artistic side there has been little, if any, develop- ment. Indeed, when we consider the conditions under which his work was done, in a climate like that of Greenland and amid the darkness of subterranean caverns, we are inclined to regard him as the greatest artist humanity has produced. But long before the Aurignacian ar- tist had drawn his bisons or carved his reindeer, language had been invented, and the use of fire had been discovered. And the invention of language was the highest mental feat ever accomplished by man- kind. The brains that evolved it were fully comparable with our own. The savage of to-day, so far from being a representative of those who possessed them, is either a degenerate or the descendant of races which invented nothing." In the same way we could look at the other sciences: at biology, with its subdivisions of zoology, botany, and human anatomy and physiology; at anthropology, with its fascinating field of religions and customs; at geology, with its study of rocks and minerals; at paleontology, with its research work in fossils and remains of previous faunas and floras of various parts of the world. Everywhere we find interesting and valuable material; everywhere we mark the footsteps of the Oreator, of the all-wise and beneficent heavenly Father. There is no quarrel with science on this ground. No; it is only when science ceases to function in its proper sphere that our Ohurch finds occasion to protest, when science be- comes pseudoscience, when it leaves the domain of exact knowledge and descends to the field of speculation, when hypotheses and theories are promulgated on the basis of inadequate data, when the so-called "doctrine of evolution" is regarded as an immutable law to explain the origin of life, and when even the existence of God, the Oreator of the universe, is denied. We resent statements like the following: "Natural selection and the change of species by descent, the broad principle of evolution, are now facts not controverted by those who desire to appear intelligent." (Barton, Medicine, the Science of Health,135.) Statements like these could be quoted by the hundreds, and we contend that they are not scientific. We know that the prin- ciple of organic evolution as laid down by Darwin has been modified so that very little of his contention remains. We know that leading men in every department of science have deeply deplored the develop- ment of a science falsely so called, on the basis of a theory which lacks the fundamental points of proof. George McOready Price has well put it for the science of geology when he writes (The Geological Ages Hoax, 21): "It is the supreme folly of all pseudoscience to begin 838 Has Our Church a Quarrel with Science? somewhere away back at the vanishing point of the vistas of a past eternity and to attempt by sheer cosmic dead-reckoning to work up to the present by slow stages, and to arrive here with a sufficiently small cargo of 'living' species unaccounted for, so as to splice on smoothly and easily with the present on the basis of uniformity among the rocks and transformisms among the plants and animals. This is the supreme type of all hypothetical science, a magnificent hang-over from the scholasticism of the Middle Ages; it has no resemblance to the secure sciences of objective facts, after the order of Galileo and Newton, of Bacon, Linnaeus, and Pasteur." If people calling themselves scientists persist in bringing the theory of evolution into their work, then we have a number of ques- tions to ask which might help them to organize their data. As, for instance: - Where did the first electron come from? Where do the laws of nature come from? How did life originate? What about religion and the divine image in man? (Cp. Herget, Questions Evolution Does Not Answer.) Or, to take just a few questions from the Lutheran Witness (1927, 364):- How did protoplasm acquire its power of growth and reproduction? Where is a single genealogical link to show that the existences of one race of animals derive their lineage from the existences of another? How could instincts be transmitted when still in a rudimentary stage, hence useless? What we expect of all human knowledge and endeavor we also expect of science, namely, to take every thought captive under the obedience of the Word of God. This does not cramp research, but rather it consecrates every endeavor of the human mind; it lifts the intellect to the highest levels of its possibilities; it will tend to bring back, also in this respect, the perfect knowledge which belonged to Adam in the state of innocence, when he gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field, Gen. 2, 20. We close with a word from Hitchcock, The ReZig1:on of Geology (33): "Finally, I would throw out a caution to those friends of relig- ion who are very fearful that the discoveries of science will prove in- jurious to Ohristianity. Why should the enlightened Ohristian, who has a correct idea of the firm foundation on which the Bible rests, fear that any disclosures of the arcana of nature should shake its authority or weaken its influence ~ Is not the God of revelation the God of nature also? And must not His varied works tend to sustain and elucidate, instead of weakening and darkening, one another? . . . (Quoting from Dr. J. Pye Smith) Ohristianity is secure, and true science will always pay homage to the divine Oreator and Sovereign, 'of whom and through whom and to whom are all things and unto whom be glory forever.''' P. E. KRETZMANN.