Science and the Bible by Bolton Davidheher Chairman, Science Division Biola College W A TER BABIES
A h u n d r e d years ago, in 1863, Charles Kingsley wrote The Wa ter Babies for one of his children, who was four years old at the time, and it has become a classic. Like Alice in Wonderland and Through the Look ing Glass, much of it is beyond the comprehension of children, and it is really a child’s story for adults. It is a fairy tale which deals with ethics and with religion and evolution. Fol lowing Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species by only four years, it is, no doubt, the first juvenile book to deal with evolution. In California there are 45 cities which have a population of more than 50,000, and although the book is a hundred years old, they all have it in the juvenile departments of their public libraries. It follows that it is also to be found in the libraries of many lesser cities. It is a delightfully- written book, and its popularity is understandable. But discerning Chris tians will find it disappointing, for although there are a number of ref erences to the Bible, it does not ex press Christian beliefs. A critic who was an enthusiast for the works of Kingsley appraised it as glorious though rank heresy. Children who die of abuse or neg lect are carried off by the fairies and become water babies. In order to merit what appears to be heaven, though some go there only on week ends, it is necessary for the water babies to do something which they do not like to do. The hero of the story is Tom, a little chimney sweep who drowned. The unpleasant task he had to accomplish was to free his cruel former master, who had drowned while poaching fish and who was serving his time stuck in a chimney. While on this mission Tom met some former seamen, including Henry Hudson, who had perished at sea and were working out their time as birds. After his rescue from the chimney through the efforts of Tom, his form er master was assigned the job of keeping a volcano cleaned out to pre vent earthquakes. Reference is made to the evolution ary belief that life began in the sea, and that all life came from that be ginning, for he mentions the “salt
water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all living things.” It is told in this story for young chil dren that the elephant is first cousin to the coney of Scripture and second cousin to the pig. To this day evolu tionists consider elephants to be most closely related to the coneys and to the aquatic manatees and dugongs. Darwin’s natural selection theory is described when a fairy shows some pictures which reveal how some liv ing creatures became adapted to liv ing in the trees and their feet became modified to grasp the branches. Charles Kingsley was an English clergyman who accepted evolution at once when Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species. He referred to Darwin as his “dear and honored master,” and he reconciled Darwin’s views with his liberal theology by saying that “God’s orthodoxy is truth; if Darwin speaks the truth he is ortho dox.” He made evolution theistic by the unconvincing remark that “where there is evolution there is an evolver,” implying that the evolver is God. He said, iand it has been said many times since then, that the concept of a long evolutionary process is far grander than fiat creation. One of Kingsley’s biographers says that the example he set in his frank and fearless openmindedness with re gard to evolution may have been his most valuable contribution to the cause of truth. Another biographer says, “It was to men like him that the Church of England owed its con tinued existence when Darwin’s book plunged orthodoxy into warfare with scientists.” Kingsley was much criticized for his unorthodox theological views. But when he became a chaplain to Queen Victoria, this criticism became less. As one biographer puts it, “The reli gious and political views of the chap lain to the head of the Church and State could hardly be attacked as dangerously unorthodox.” But Christ is the Head of the Church, and any one who teaches salvation through any other means than the atoning death of Christ upon the cross is not orthodox, whether he be the famous chaplain of a Queen or an obscure person who peddles a false gospel from door to door.
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