Science and Christian Faith
347
the difficulties which beset the Darwinian theory fall away. 1. For one thing, man need no longer be thought of as a slow development from the animal stage-an ascent through brut ishness and savagery from an ape-like form. His origin may be as sudden as Genesis represents. 2. The need for assuming an enormous antiquity of man to allow for the slow develop ment is no longer felt. And (3), the need of assuming man's original condition to have been one of brutal passion and subjection to natural impulse disappears. Man may have come from his Creator's hand in as morally pure a state, and as capable of sinless development, as Genesis and Paul affirm. This also is the most worthy view to take of man's origin. It is a view borne out by the absence of all reliable evidence of those ape-like intermediate forms which, on the other hypothesis, must have intervened between the animal-progen itors and the finished human being. It is a view not contra dicted by the alleged evidences of man's very great antiquity- 100,000, 200,000, or 500,000 years-frequently relied on; for most of these and the extravagant measurements of time con nected with them, are precarious in the extreme. The writer's book, "God's Image in Man and Its Defacement," may be consulted on these points. The conclusion from the whole is, that, up to the present hour, science and the Biblical views of God, man, and the world, do not stand in any real relation of conflict. Each book of God's writing reflects light upon the pages of the other, but neither contradicts the other's essential testimony. Science itself seems now disposed to take a less materialistic view of the origin and nature of things than it did a decade or two ago, and to interpret the creation more in the light of the spiritual. The experience of the Christian believer, with the work of missions in heathen lands, furnishes a testimony that cannot be disregarded to the reality of this spiritual world, and of the regenerating, transforming forces proceed ing from it. To God be :ill the gloryI
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker