The Fundamentals
A Testimony to the Truth
"To the Law and to the Testimony" Isaiaf, 8:20
Volume VII
Compliments of Two Christian Laymen
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FOREWORD With glad thanksgiving to God we send the seventh volume of “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ” to English-speaking Protestant pastors, evangelists, missionaries, theological professors, theo- logical students, Y. M. C. A. secretaries, Y. W. C. A. secre- taries, Sunday School superintendents, religious lay workers, and editors of religious publications, throughout the earth. Like its precedessors, this volume goes out with the prayer that, by the blessing of the Lord, the carefully and prayerfully selected articles which it contains may strengthen earnest be- lievers, may warn and re-establish in the truth those who are wavering in their faith, and lead unrepentant sinners to con- viction of sin and to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has blessed abundantly the former volumes of " T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ” , and thousands of earnest letters from Christian men and women in almost every land bear witness to the fact that He is using the consecrated efforts of His serv- ants to the advancement of His cause and to His glory. The Circle of Prayer has again grown in numbers since we sent out the sixth volume; and the work of “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ,” and of the Committee to which the two Christian laymen have entrusted the editing and publishing of these books, and the two Christian laymen themselves, are remembered daily by the faithful members of this Circle of Prayer before the throne of grace. May many others also join this Circle of Prayer, and unite with its present members in earnest supplication that the truth may “run and be glorified” and the needed world-wide revival of true religion may come. We ask all the friends of “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ” for special prayer that He who answers prayer may continue to lead and guide in the undertaking, so that the good will even of its enemies and unfriendly critics be gained and that lasting results may be accomplished to the glory of God and the salva- tion of men. All editorial correspondence should be addressed to “The Fundamentals ” 123 Huntington Place, Mount Auburn, Cin- cinnati, Ohio, U. S. A. Manuscripts submitted without being requested will be returned only i f accompanied by return post- age. All business correspondence should be addressed to “Testi- mony Publishing Company”, 808 La Salle Avenue, Chicago, III., U. S. A. (See Publishers* Notice, Page 128 .)
CONTENTS
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.A. THE PASSING OF EVOLUTION.................
5 By Professor George Frederick W'right, D. D., LL. D., Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. t:>"fl. INSPIRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • . . • . • . . . 21 By Evangelist L. W. Munhall, M. A., D. D., Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Author of "The Higher Critics vs. The Highest Critics." ,..AIL THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURES TO THEM- SELVES .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 By Rev. George S. Bishop, D. D., East Orange, New Jersey. /4. THE TESTIMONY OF THE ORGANIC UNITY OF THE BIBLE TO ITS INSPIRATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
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By the late Arthur T. Pierson. c V. ONE ISAIAH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . .
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By Professor George L. Robinson, D. D., McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. .VI. THE BooK OF DANIEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 By Professor Joseph D. Wilson, D. D ., Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Author of "Did Daniel Write Daniel?" --VII. THREE PECULIARITIES OF THE PENTATEUCH. . . . 101 By Rev. Andrew Craig Robinson, M. A., Ballineen, County Cork, Ireland. Author of "What about the Old Testament?" ~II. MILLENNIAL DAWN: A COUNTERFEIT OF CHRIS- TIANITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 By Professor William G. Moorehead, D. D., United Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Xenia, Ohio.
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THE FUNDAMENTALS VOLUME VII CHAPTER I THE PASSING OF EVOLUTION HY PROFESSOR GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT, D. D., LL. D., OBERLIN COLLEGE, OBERLIN, OHIO The word evolution is in itself innocent enough, and has a large range of legitimate use. The Bible, indeed, teaches a system of evolution. The world was not made in an instant, or even in one day (whatever period day may signify) but in six days. Throughout the whole process there was an orderly progress from lower to higher forms of matter and life. In short there is an established order in all the Creator’s work. Even the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which being planted grew from the smallest beginnings to be a tree in which the fowls of heaven could take refuge. So everywhere there is “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” But recently the word has come into much deserved disre- pute by the injection into it of erroneous and harmful theo- logical and philosophical implications. The widely current doctrine of evolution which we are now compelled to combat is one which practically eliminates God from the whole cre- ative process and relegates mankind to the tender, mercies of a mechanical universe the wheels of whose machinery are left to move on without any immediate Divine direction. This doctrine of evolution received such an impulse from Darwinism and has been so often confounded with it that it is important at the outset to discriminate the two. Darwinism was not, in the mind of its author, a theory of universal evolu- 5
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The Fundamentals tion, and Darwin rarely used the word. The title of Darwin’s great work was, “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.” The problem which he set out to solve touched but a small part of the field of evolution. His proposition was simply that species may reasonably be supposed to be nothing more than enlarged of accentuated varieties, which all admit are descendants from a common ancestry. For example, there are a great many varieties of oak trees. But it is supposed by all botanists that these have originated from a common ancestor. Some chestnut trees, however, differ less from some oak trees than the extreme varieties of both do from each other. Nevertheless, the oak and the chestnut are reckoned not as varieties, but as different species. But the dividing line between them is so uncertain that it is im- possible to define it in language; hence, some botanists have set up an independent species between the two, which they call “chestnut oak.” WHAT IS A “SPECIES”? This, however, is but a single illustration of the great difficulty which scientific men have had in getting a satis- factory definition of species. That most generally accepted is “a collection of individual plants and animals which re- semble each other so closely that they can reasonably be sup- posed to have descended from a common ancestor.” I t is easy to see, however, that this definition begs the whole ques- tion at issue. For we have no certain means of knowing how widely the progeny may in some cases differ from the parent; and we do not know but that resemblances may result from the action of other causes than that of parental connection. The definition is far from being one that would be accepted in the exact sciences. I t may be “reasonably supposed” that such small differ- ences as separate species have resulted through variations of individuals descended from a common ancestry, yet it is a long
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leap to assert that, therefore, it may be reasonably supposed that all the differences between animals or between plants may have arisen in a similar manner. A characteristic difference between the African elephant and the Indian elephant, for example, is that the African ele- phant has three toes on his hinder feet and the Indian has four. While, therefore, it may not be a great stretch of imagination to suppose that this difference has arisen by a natural process, without any outside intervention, it is an indefinitely larger stretch of the imagination to suppose that all the members of the general famP y to which they belong have originated in a like manner; for, this family, or order, includes not only the elephant, but the rhinoceros, hippopota- mus, tapir, wild boar and horse.
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But many of Darwin's followers and expounders have gone to extreme lengths in their assertions, and have an- nounced far more astonishing conclusions than these. Not only do they assert, with a positiveness of which Darwin was never guilty, that species have had a common origin through natural causes, but that all organic beings had been equally independent of supernatural forces. I t is a small thing that the two species of elephant should have descended from a common stock. Nothing will satisfy them but to assert that the elephant, the lion, the bear, the mouse, the kangaroo, the whale, the shark, the shad, birds of every description—indeed, all forms of animal life, including the oyster and the snail-— have arisen by strictly natural processes from some minute speck of life, which originated in far distant time. > ORIGIN OF LIFE I t need not be said that such conclusions must rest upon very attenuated evidence, such as is not permitted to have weight in the ordinary affairs of life. But even this is only the beginning with thoroughgoing evolutionists. To be con- sistent they must not only have all species of animals or plants, > *
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The Fundamentals but all animals and plants descending from a common origin, which they assert to be an almost formless protoplasm, which is supposed to have appeared in the earliest geological ages. Nor does this by any means bring them to their final goal, for to carry out their theory they must leap to the conclusion that life itself has originated, spontaneously, by a natural process, from inorganic matter. But of this they have confessedly no scientific proof. For, so far as is yet known, life springs only from antecedent life. The first chapter of Genesis, to which reference has already been made, furnishes as perfect a definition of plant life as has ever been given. Plant life, which is the earliest form of living matter, is described “as that which has seed in itself” and yields seed after his kind.” A half century ago the theory of spontaneous generation had many supporters. It was believed that minute forms of plant life had sprung up from certain conditions of inorganic matter without the inter- vention of seeds or spores. Bottles of water, which were supposed to have been shut off from all access of living germs, were found, after standing a sufficient length of time, to swarm with minute living organisms. But experiments showed that germs must have been in the water before it was set aside. For, on subjecting it to a higher degree of tfemperature, so as apparently to kill the germs, no life was ever developed in it. All positive basis for bridging the chasm between living matter and lifeless matter has thus been removed from the realm of science. THÉ MYSTERY OF FIRST BEGINNINGS This brings us to the important conclusion that the origin of life, and we may add of variations, is to finite minds an insoluble problem; and so Darwin regarded it. At the very outset of his speculation, he rested on the supposition that the Creator in the beginning breathed the forces of life into several forms of plants and animals, and at the same time
The Passing of Evolution 9 endowed them with the marvelous capacity for variation which we know they possess. This mysterious capacity for variation lies at the basis of his theory. If anything is to be evolved in an orderly manner from the resident forces of primordial matter it must first have been involved through the creative act of the Divine Being. But no one knows what causes variation in plants or animals. Like the wind it comes, but we know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Breeders and gardeners do not attempt to produce varieties directly. They simply observe the variations which occur, and select for propagation those which will best serve their purposes. They are well aware that variations which they perpetuate are not only mysterious in their origin, but superficial in their character. In Darwinism the changing conditions of life, to which every individual is subjected, are made to take the place of the breeder and secure what is called natural selection. In this case, however, the peculiarities selected and preserved must always be positively advantageous to the life of the indi- viduals preserved. But to be of advantage a variation must both be considerable in amount, and correlated to other varia- tions so that.they shall not be antagonistic to one another. For example, if a deer were born with the capability of growing antlers so large that they would be a decided advantage to him in his struggle for existence, he must at the same time have a neck strong enough to. support its weight, and other portions of his frame capable of bearing the increased strain. Other- wise his antlers would be the ruin of all his hopes instead of an advantage. It is impossible to conceive of this combina- tion of advantageous variations without bringing in the hand and the designing mind of the Original Creator. Of this, as of every other variety of evolution, it can be truly said in the words of one of the most distinguished physi- cists, Clerk Maxwell: “I have examined all that have come within my reach, and have found that every one must have a
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The Fundamentals God to make it work.” By no stretch of legitimate reasoning can Darwinism be made to exclude design. Indeed, if it should be proved that species have developed from others of a lower order, as varieties are supposed to have done, it would strengthen rather than weaken the standard argument from design. But the proof of Darwinism even is by no means alto- gether convincing, and its votaries are split up into as many warring sects as are the theologians. New schools of evolu- tionists arise as rapidly as do new schools of Biblical critics. Strangely enough the “Neo Darwinians” go back to the theory of Lamarck that variations are the result of effort and use on the part of the animal; whereas Darwin denied the inheritance of acquired characteristics; while Weissmann goes to the extreme of holding that natural selection must be carried back to the ultimate atoms of primordial matter, where he would set up his competitive struggle for existence. Romanes and Gulick, however, insist that specific variations often occur from “segregation,” entirely independent of natural Selection. Nor do the champions of evolution have a very exalted estimate of each other’s opinions. In a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker in 1866, referring to Spencer, Darwin wrote: “I feel rather mean when I read him: I could bear and rather enjoy feeling that he was twice as ingenious and clever as myself, but when I feel that he is about a dozen times my superior, even in the master art of wriggling, I feel aggrieved. If he had trained himself to observe more, even at the expense, by a law of balancement, of some loss of thinking power, he would have been a wonderful man.” ( “Life and Letters,” Vol. ii., p. 239.) To account for heredity, Darwin, in his theory of “pan- genesis,” suggested that infinitesimal “gemmules” were thrown off from every part of the body or plant, and that they had “a mutual affinity for each other leading to their aggregation either into buds or into the sexual elements.” But when he
The Passing of Evolution 11 ventured the opinion that these were the same as Spencer’s “vitalized molecules” in which dwelt an “intrinsic aptitude to aggregate into the forms” of the species, Spencer came out at once and said that it was no such thing. They were not at all alike. Darwin, in reply, said he was sorry for the mistake. But he had feared that as he did not know exactly what Spencer meant by his “vitalized molecules,” a charge of pla- giarism might be brought against him if he did not give Spen- cer due credit. But others seemed to find it as hard to under- stand what Darwin meant by his “gemmules” with their mar- velous mutual “affinity” for each other, as he did what Spencer meant by “vitalized molecules.” Bates wrote him that after reading the chapter twice he failed to understand i t ; and Sir H. Holland set it down as “very tough,” while Hooker and Huxley thought the language was mere tautology, and both failed “to gain a distinct idea” from it. ( “Letters of Darwin,” Vol. ii., p. 262.) Indeed, thoroughgoing evolution has no such universal ac- ceptance as is frequently represented to be the case. Few naturalists are willing to project the theory beyond the narrow limits of their own province. Such naturalists as Asa Gray and Alfred Russel Wallace, who in a general way accepted the main propositions of Darwinism, both insisted that natural selection could attain its ends only as giving effect to the designs of the Creator. Agassiz, Owen, Mivart, Sir William Dawson, and Weissmann either rejected the hypothesis alto- gether or so modified it that it bore little resemblance to the original. Professor Shaler declared, shortly before his death, “that the Darwinian hypothesis is still unverified.” Dr. Etheride of the British Museum says that “in all this great museum there is not a particle of evidence of transmutation of species.” Professor Virchow of Berlin declared that “the attempt to find the transition from the animal to man has ended in total failure.” . The list could be extended indefinitely. Haeckel, indeed, had from his imagination supplied the miss-
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The Fundamentals ing link between man and the apes, calling it Pithecanthropus. While, a few years after, Du Bois discovered in recent volcanic deposits in Java a small incomplete skull in one place, and near by a diseased femur (thigh bone), and not far away two molar teeth. These Were hailed as remains of the missing link, and it was forthwith dubbed Pithecanthropus Erectus. The skull was indeed small, being only two-thirds the size of that of the average man. But Professor Cope, one of our most competent comparative anatomists, concluded that as the “femur is that of a man, it is in no sense a connecting link.” The erect form carries with it all the anatomical character- istics of a perfect man. ( “Primary Factors,” 1896, pt. 1, chap, vi.) But the Darwinians themselves have made their full share of erroneous assumptions of facts, and of illogical conclusions. It will suffice for our present purpose to refer to a few of these. Darwin himself made two great mistakes which in the eyes of discerning students vitiate his whole theory. 1. A s to Geological Time. The establishment of Dar- win’s theory as he originally proposed it involved the existence of the earth in substantially its present condition for an indefi- nite, not to say infinite, period of time. In one of his calcula- tions in the first edition of “Origin of Species,” he arrived at the startling conclusion that 306,662,400 years is “a mere trifle” of geological time. I t was not long, however, before his son, Sir George H. Darwin, demonstrated to the general satisfaction of physicists and astronomers that life could not have begun on earth more than 100 million years ago, and probably not more than 50 million; while Lord Kelvin would reduce the period to less than 30 million years, which Alfred Russel Wallace affirms is sufficient time for the deposition of all the geological strata. Evolutionists are now fighting hard and against great odds to be allowed 100 million years for the development of the present drama of life upon the earth.
The Passing of Evolution 13 The difference between 306,662,400 years, regarded as “a mere trifle,” and 24,000,000, or even 100,000,000 years, as constituting the whole sum, is tremendous. For, it neces- sitates a rapidity in the development of species which must be regarded as by leaps and bounds, and so would well accord with the theory of creation by special Divine intervention. If a critic of Darwinism had made so egregious an error as this which Darwin introduced into the very foundation of his theory, he would have been the subject of an immense amount of ridicule. The only excuse which Darwin could make was that at the time no one knew any better. But that excuse shows the folly of building such an enormous theory upon an unknown foundation. 2. As to the Minuteness of Beneficial Variations. The unlimited geological time required by Darwin’s original theory is closely bound up with his view of the minuteness of the steps through which progress has been made. The words which he constantly uses when speaking of variations are “slight,” “small,” “extremely gradual,” “insensible grada- tions.” But early in the discussion it was shown by Mivart that “minute incipient variations in any special direction” would be valueless; since, to be of advantage in any case, they must be considerable in amount. And furthermore, in order to be of permanent advantage, a variation of one organ must be aecompahied with numerous other variations in other parts of the organism. The absurdity in supposing the acquisition of advantageous qualities by chance variations is shown in the pertinent illus- tration adduced by Herbert Spencer from the anatomy of the cat. To give the cat power of leaping to any advantageous height, there must be a simultaneous variation in all the bones, sinews, and muscles of the hinder extremities; and, at the same time, to save the cat from disaster when it descends from an elevation, there must be variation of a totally different character in all the bones and tendons and muscles of the fore
14 The Fundamentals limbs. To learn the character of these changes, one has but to “contrast the markedly bent hind limbs of a cat with its al- most straight fore limbs, or contrast the silence of the upward spring on to the table with the thud which the fore paws make as it jumps off the table.” So numerous are the simultaneous changes necessary to secure any advantage here, that the prob- abilities against their arising fortuitously run up into billions, if not into infinity; so that they are outside of any rational recognition. THE ORIGIN OF MAN The failure of evolution to account for man is conspicuous. Early in the Darwinian discussion, Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s most distinguished co-worker, instanced various physical peculiarities in man which could not have originated through natural selection alone, but which necessitated the interference of a superior directing power. Among these are (a) the absence in man of any natural protective covering. The nakedness of man which exposes him to the inclemency of the weather could never in itself have been an advantage which natural selection could .take hold of. I t could have been of use only when his intelligence was so developed that he could construct tools for skinning animals and for weaving and sewing garments. And that practically involves all essential human attributes. (b) The size of the human brain. Man’s brain is out of all proportion to the mental needs of the highest of the animal creation below him. Without man’s intelligence such a brain would be an incumbrance rather than an advantage. The weight of the largest brain of a gorilla is considerably less than half that of the average man, and only one third that of the best developed of the human race. (c) This increase in the size of the brain is connected also with a number of other special adaptations of the bodily frame to the wants o f the human mind. For example, the thumb of
The Passing of Evolution 15 the hind limb of the ape becomes a big toe in man, which is a most important member for a being which would walk in an upright position, but a disadvantage to one who walks on all fours. The fore limbs of the ape are shortened into the arms of a man, thus adapting them to his upright position and to the various uses which are advantageous in that position, Furthermore, to make it possible to maintain the erect posi- tion of man there has to be a special construction of the ball and socket joints in the hip bones and in the adjustment of all the vertebra of the back and neck. All these would be dis- advantageous to an ape-like- creature devoid of man’s in- telligence. (d) Man’s intellectual capacity belongs to a different order from that of the lower animals; Naturalists do indeed classify men and apes together in the same genus anatom- ically. But to denote the human species they add the word “sapiens.” That is, they must regard his intelligence as a specific characteristic. The lower animals do indeed have many common instincts with man, and in many cases their instincts are far superior to those of man. But in his reason- ing powers man is apparently separated from the lower ani- mals, one and all, by an impassable gulf. , Romanes,, after collecting the manifestations of intelligent reasoning from every known species of the lower animals, found that they only equalled, altogether, the intelligence of a child 15 months old. He could find no such boundless out- look of intelligence in the lower animals as there is in man. As any one can see, it would be absurd to try to teach an ele- phant geology, an eagle astronomy, or a dog theology. Yet there is no race of human beings but has capacity to com- prehend these sciences. Again, man is sometimes, and not improperly, defined as a “tool using animal.” No animal ever uses, much less makes, a tool. But the lowest races of men show great ingenuity in making tools, while even the rudest flint implement bears
16 The Fundamentals indubitable evidence of a power to adapt means to ends which places its maker in a category by himself. Again, man is sometimes, and properly, defined as a “fire using animal.” No animal ever makes a fire. Monkeys do indeed gather round a fire when it is made. But the mak- ing of one is utterly beyond their capacity. Man, however, even in his lowest stages knows how to make fire at his will. So great is this accomplishment, that it is no wonder the Greeks looked upon it as a direct gift from heaven. Again, man may properly be described as a “speaking animal.” No other animal uses articulate language. But man not only uses it in speech but in writing. How absurd it would be to try to teach a learned pig to translate and under- stand the cuneiform inscriptions unearthed from the de- serted mounds of Babylonia. Finally, man may properly be described as a “religious ani- mal,” but who would ever think of improving the nature of the lower animals by delivering sermons in their presence or distributing Bibles among them? Yet, the Bible-—-a Book composed of every species of literature, containing the high- est flights of poetry and eloquence ever written, and pre- senting the sublimest conceptions of God and of the future life ever entertained—has been translated into every lan- guage under heaven, and has found in those languages the appropriate figures of speech for effectually presenting its lu€&S> THE CUMULATIVE ARGUMENT Now, all these peculiarities both in the body and the mind of man, to have been advantageous, must have taken place simultaneously and at the same time have been considerable in amount. To suppose all this to occur without the inter- vention of the Supreme Designing Mind is to commit logical “hara-kiri.” Such chance combinations are beyond all pos- sibility of rational belief. I t is fair to add, however, that Darwin never supposed
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that man was descended from any species of existing apes; but he always spoke of our supposed ancestor as “ape-like,” a form, from which the apes were supposed to have varied in one direction as far as man had in another. All efforts, however, to find traces of such connecting links as this theory supposes have failed. The Neanderthal skull was, accord- ing to Huxley, capacious enough to hold the brain of a phi- losopher. The Pithecanthropus Erectus of Du Bois had, as already remarked, the erect form of a man; in fact, was a man. The skeletons of prehistoric man so far as yet un- earthed, differ no more from present races of men than ex- isting races and individuals differ from each other. In short, everything points to the unity of the human race, and to the fact that, while built on the general pattern of the higher animals associated with him in the later geological ages, he differs from them in so many all-important particu- lars, that it is necessary to suppose that he came into ex- istence as the Bible represents, by the special creation of a single pair, from whom all the varieties of the race have sprung. I t is important to observe, furthermore, in this connection, that the progress of the human race has not been uniformly upward. In fact the degeneration of races has been more con- spicuous than their advancement; while the advancement has chiefly been through the influence of outside forces. The early art of Babylonia and Egypt was better than the later. The religious conceptions of the first dynasties of Egypt were higher than those of the last. All the later forms of civ- ilization shine principally by borrowed light. Our own age excels, indeed, in material advancement. But for art and literature we fall far below the past, and for our best re- ligion we still go back to the Psalm Singers and Prophets of Judaea, and to the words of Him who spake “as never man spake.” Democracy has no guides whom it dares trust im- plicitly. We have much reason to fear that those we are fol-
18 The Fundamentals lowing are blind guides leading on to an end which it is not pleasant to contemplate, and from which we can be delivered only by the coming of the Son of Man. CONCLUSION The title of this paper is perhaps a misnomer. For, doubt- less, the passing of the present phase of evolution is not final. Theories of evolution have chased each other off the field in rapid succession for thousands of years. Evolution is not a new thing in philosophy, and such is the frailty of human na- ture that it is not likely to disappear suddenly from among men. The craze of the last half century is little more than the recrudesence of a philosophy which has divided the opin- ion of men from the earliest ages. In both the Egyptian and the East Indian mythology, the world and all things in it were evolved from an egg; and so in the Polynesian myths. But the Polynesians had to have a bird to lay the egg, and the Egyptians and the Brahmans had to have some sort of a deity to create theirs. The Greek philosophers struggled with the problem without coming to any more satisfactory con- clusion. Aniximander, like Professor Huxley, traced every- thing back to an “infinity” which gradually worked itself into a sort of pristine “mud” (something like Huxley’s exploded “bathybius” ), out of which everything else evolved; while Thales of Miletus tried to think of water as the mother of everything, and Aneximenes practically deified the air. Dio- genes imagined a “mind stuff” (something like Weissmann’s “biophores,” Darwin’s “gemmules possessed with affinity for each other,” and Spencer’s “vitalized molecules”) which acted as i f it had intelligence; while Heraclitus thought that fire was the only element pure enough to produce the soul of man. These speculations culminated in the great poem of Lucretius entitled, De Rerum Natura, written shortly before the beginning of the Christian era. His atomic theory was something like that which prevails at the present time among
The Passing of Evolution 19 physicists. Amid the unceasing motion of these atoms there somehow appeared, according to him, the orderly forms and the living processes of nature. Modern evolutionary speculations have not made much real progress over those of the ancients. As already remarked, they are, in their bolder forms atheistic; while in their mild- er forms they are “deistic”—admitting, indeed, the agency of God at the beginning, but nowhere else. The attempt, how- ever, to give the doctrine standing through Darwin’s theory of the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection has not been successful; for at best, that theory can enlarge but lit- tle our comprehension of the adequacy of resident forces to produce and conserve variations of species, and cannot in the least degree banish the idea of design from the process. It is, therefore, impossible to get any such proof of evo- lution as shall seriously modify our conception of Chris- tianity. The mechanism of the universe is so complicated that no man can say that it is closed to Divine interference. Especially is this seen to be the case since we know that the free will of man does pierce the joints of nature’s harness and interfere with its order to a limited extent. Man, by cultivation, makes fruits and flowers grow where otherwise weeds would cover the ground. Man makes ten thousand combinations of natural forces which would not occur with- out his agency. The regular course of nature is interfered with every time a savage chips a flint implement or builds a canoe, or by friction makes a fire. We cannot banish God from the universe without first stultifying ourselves and re- ducing man’s free will to the level of a mere mechanical force. But man is more than that; and this everyone knows. Furthermore, a great mistake is made when the dicta of specialists in scientific investigation are accepted in religious matters as of any particular value. Indeed, the concentration of specialists on narrow lines of investigation really unfits them for duly weighing religious evidence.
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The Fundamentals Spiritual things are not to be discovered by material in- struments nor detected by the material senses. Physical science cannot penetrate to the origin of anything, but must content itself to deal with processes already begun. Profound mystery hangs over the birth of every human soul. Who can tell when it becomes a free personality, reflecting the image of its Creator ? Is the soul, as well as the body, begotten by the parent ? This question has divided theologians from the time of Augustine to the present day. The worst foes of Christianity are not physicists but meta- physicians. Hume is more dangerous than Darwin; the ag- nosticism of Hamilton and Mansel is harder to meet than that of Tyndall and Huxley; the fatalism of the philosophers is more to be dreaded than the materialism of any scientific men. The sophistries of the Socratic philosophy touching the freedom of the will are more subtile than those of the Spen- cerian school. Christianity, being a religion of fact and his- tory, is a free-born son in the family of the inductive sciences, and is not specially hampered by the paradoxes inevitably con- nected with all attempts to give expression to ultimate con- ceptions of truth. The field is now as free as it has ever been to those who are content to act upon such positive evidence of the truth of Christianity as the Creator has been pleased to afford them. The evidence for evolution, even in its milder form, does not begin to be as strong as that for the revelation of God in the Bible.
CHAPTER I I INSPIRATION
BY EVANGELIST L. W. MUNHALL, M. A., D. D., GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA,
AUTHOR OF "THE HIGHEST CRITICS VS. THE HIGHER CRITICS” The Bible is inspired. It is therefore God’s Word. This is fundamental to the Christian faith. “Faith cometh by hear- ing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10: 17). But, it is asked, What do you mean by inspiration? Because there are numerous theories of inspiration, this is a proper question. Also, it is well, before answering the question, to state some of these theories. First, “The thoughts of the penman were inspired.” Second, “The thoughts were par- tially inspired.” But they who hold to this view are very in- definite in their statements of the extent of this inspiration. Third, “There were different degrees of inspiration.” The advocates of this view use the difference between “illumina- tion” and inspiration to prove their theory. Fourth, “At one time the writers were inspired in the supervision of the work they did;” at another, “In the view they took of the work they were called upon to do;” and at another, “In directing the work.” But in all these views the theorists are at sea, and leave all who trust to their pilotage at sea, as to the exact character and limitations of inspiration. Fifth, “Dynamic in- spiration”. But the efforts of those who hold to this view, to explain what they mean by the term are exceedingly vague and misty. But the popular and current theory now is that the “Concept” is inspired. But no one attempts to tell what the “Concept” is ; indeed, I doubt if any one knows. Also let this be said in this connection: Those who hold to any or all of the above named theories, in part or in whole, are 21
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The Fundamentals emphatic in declaring that the Bible is not verbally inspired. The noisy ones will say, “No scholar believes in verbal in- spiration.” In this they bear false witness. Another ex- pression in common use among them is this: “Such belief drives men into infidelity.” And yet no one of them ever knew of a case. This class, with as much care and evident satisfaction as an infidel, hunt out the apparent contradic- tions and errors in the authorized and revised versions, and exultingly declare: “Here is conclusive evidence that the Bible is not verbally inspired.” Some of these gentlemen are dishonest because, First, they know that most of these apparent errors and contradictions were long ago satisfactorily answered, even to the silencing of infidel scoffers; and Sec- ond, they know that no one believes that the translations and revisions are inspired, l'he doctrine of verbal inspira- tion is simply this : The original writings, ipsissima verba, came through the penmen direct from God; and the critics are only throwing dust into the air when they rail against verbal inspiration and attempt to disprove it by pointing out the apparent errors and discrepancies of the authorized and revised texts. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1893, by a unanimous vote made the following deliverance: “The Bible as we now have it in its various translations and revisions when freed from all errors and mistakes of translators, copy- ists and printers, is the very Word of God, and consequently, wholly without error.” We mean by Inspiration that the words composing the Bible are God-breathed. If they are not, then the Bible is not inspired at all, since it is composed only and solely of words. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16). The word rendered Scripture in this passage is Graphe. It means writing, anything written. The writing is composed of words. What else is this but verbal inspira-
Inspiration 23 tion; and they wrest the “Scriptures unto their own de- struction”, who teach otherwise. Prof. A. A. Hodge says: “The line can never rationally be drawn between the thoughts and words of Scripture. . . . That we have an inspired Bible, and a verbally inspired one, we have the witness of God Himself.” Prof. Gaussen says: “The theory of a Divine Revelation, in which you would have the inspiration of thoughts, without the inspiration of the language, is so inevitably irrational that it cannot be sincere, and proves false even to those who propose it.” Canon Westcott says: “The slightest consideration will show that words are as essential to intellectual processes as they are to mutual intercourse. . . . Thoughts are wedded to words as necessarily as soul to body. Without it the myste- ries unveiled before the eyes of the seer would be confused shadows; with it, they are made clear lessons for human life.” Dean Burgon, a man of vast learning, says: “You cannot dissect inspiration into substance and form. As for thoughts being inspired, apart from the words which give them ex- pression, you might as well talk of a tune without notes, or a sum without figures. No such theory of inspiration is even intelligible. I t is as illogical as it is worthless, and cannot be too sternly put down.” This doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, in all its elements and parts, has always been the doctrine of the Church. Dr. Westcott has proved this by a copious catena of quotations from Ante-Nicene Fathers in Appendix B to his “Introduction to the Study of the Gospels”. He quotes Clemens Romanus as saying that the Scriptures are “the true utterances of the Holy Ghost”. Take a few quotations from the Fathers: 1. Justin, speak- ing of the words of Scripture, says: “We must not suppose that the language proceeds from the men that are inspired,
24 The Fundamentals but from the Divine Word Himself, who moves them. Their work is to announce that which the Holy Spirit proposes to teach, through them, to those who wish to learn the true religion. The Divine power acts on men just as a plectrum on a harp or lyre.” “The history Moses wrote was by the Divine Inspiration.” And so, of all the Bible. 2. Irenaeus. “The writers spoke as acted on by the Spirit. All who foretold the Coming of Christ (Moses, David, Isaiah, etc.), received their inspiration from the Son, for how else could Scripture ‘testify’ of Him alone?” “Mat- thew might have written, ‘The generation of Jesus was on this wise,’ but the Holy Spirit, foreseeing the corruption of the truth, and fortifying us against deception, says, through Matthew, ‘The generation of Jesus the Messiah was on this wise.’ ” “The writers are beyond all falsehood” i. e., they are inerrant. 3. Clement of Alexandria. The foundations of our faith rest on no insecure basis. We have received them through God Himself through the Scripture, not one jot or tittle of which shall pass away till all is accomplished, for the mouth of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, spoke it. He ceases to be a man who spurns the tradition of the Church, and turns aside to hu- man opinions; for the Scriptures are truly holy, since they make us holy, God-like. Of these Holy Writings or Words, the Bible is composed. Paul calls them God-breathed. (2 Tim. 3:15, 16.) The Sacred Writings consist of these holy letters or syllables, since they are “God-breathed”. Again, “The Jews and Christians agree as to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, but differ in interpretation. By our faith, we believe that every Scripture, since it is God-breathed, is profitable. If the words of the Lord are pure words, re- fined silver, tried seven times, and the Holy Spirit has, with all care, dictated them accurately, it was on this account the Saviour said that not one jot or tittle of them should pass away.”
Inspiration 25 4. Origen. “It is the doctrine acknowledged by all Chris- tians, and evidently preached in the churches, that the Holy Spirit, inspired the Saints, Prophets and Apostles, and was present in those of old time, as in those He inspired at the Coming of Christ; for Christ, the Word of God, was in Moses when he wrote, and in the Prophets, and by His Spirit He did speak to them all things. The records of the Gospels are the Oracles of the Lord, pure Oracles, purified as silver seven times tried. They are without error, since they were accurately written, by the eo-operation of the Holy Spirit,” “It is good to adhere to the words of Paul and the Apostles, as to God and our Lord Jesus Christ. There are many writings, but only one Book; four Evangelists, but only one Gospel. All the Sacred Writings breathe the same full- ness. There is nothing, in the Law, the Prophets, the Gos- pel, the Apostles, that did not come from the fullness of God. Whoever has received these Scriptures as inspired by the Creator of the world, must expect to find in them all the dif- ficulties which meet those who investigate the system of the universe. But God’s hand is not destroyed by our ignorance on particular points. The divinity of the Scriptures remains undisturbed by our weakness. It is a point in the teach- ing of the Church, that the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God, and on this the opinion of the whole Church is one. All things that are written are true. He who is a student of God’s Oracles must place himself under the teach- ing of God.” So much for this Father of “Biblical Criticism,” mighty in the Church. 5. Augustine. The view of the Holy Scriptures held by Augustine was that held by Tertullian, Cyprian and all Fa- thers of the North African Church. No view of verbal inspiration could be more rigid. “The Scriptures are the letters of God, the voice of God, the writings of God.” “The writers record the words of God. Christ spoke by Moses, for He was the Spirit of the Creator, and all the
26 The Fundamentals prophecies are the voice of the Lord. From the Spirit came the gift of tongues. All Scripture is profitable since it is inspired of God. The Scriptures, whether in History, Proph- ecy, Psalms or Law, are of God. They cannot stand in part and fall in part. They are from God, who spake them all.” “As it was not the Apostles who spoke, but the Spirit of the Father in them, so it is the Spirit that speaks in all Scriptures”. “I t avails nothing what I say, what he says, but what saith the Lord”. Prof. B. B. Warfield, of Princeton Theological Seminary, said in an article, on The Westminster Doctrine of Inspira- tion : “Doubtless enough has been said to show that the con- fession teaches precisely the doctrine which is taught in the private writings of the framers, which was also the General Protestant Doctrine of the time, and not of that time only or of the Protestants only; for despite the contrary asser- tion that has recently become tolerably current, essentially this doctrine of inspiration (verbal) has been the doctrine of the Church of all ages and of all names.” There is nothing truer in the world than that both the Jewish Church and the Christian Church believed the doc- trine, because of their conception of the Holy Scriptures as the result of the “Creative Breath of ¡God,” even as matter itself, the soul of man, and the worl4,. were created by the same “Breath of the Almighty" —t he "very conception Paul had when he said, “Every Scripture is God-breathed!” The pervasive evidence of verbal inspiration stares one in the face at the opening of every page of the Bible. I t is not a “few texts”, here and there, on which it depends, but it " stands” rooted in the whole body of the Word of God. He who knows what the Jews understood by the expression, “the Oracles of God”, a divinely oracular Book, different from every other—a Book of God’s own “Testimony”—w ill know that no other conception of its contents could prevail than this, that it was “divinely inspired", having “God" as
Inspiration 27 its Author, and truth without error as its matter. The man- ner in which the Old Testament is quoted in the New is crowning demonstration of its verbal inspiration. That sub- jectless verb, “saith” (rendered, “I t saith”), that nominative, the “Scripture saith”, that personal subject, “He” ( “He saith ), that identification of God with the “Scripture,” ( “the Scripture foreseeing,” giving to it eyes, mouth and fore- knowledge, as a living organism equal with God), that recog- nition of the human writer, as “Moses saith,” “David saith,” Isaiah saith,” is a divinely governed authorship; therefore it ns aH one to say, “Moses saith,” “I t saith,” “the Scripture saith , He saith , since in all it is “God saith” —all this proves the “high place,” the estimate and conception which Christ. His Apostles, and the whole Jewish and Christian Church, had of thz“Scriptures”, and that they are a God-breathed’ oracular Book, created by the Breath of God—a verbally in- spired Book, whose “words”- were the “Words of God”, in- fallible, authoritative, final, the court of last appeal, the vety “Utterance” and “Voice” “of God,” who spoke in time past in the Prophets, and jyv^Jias spoken to us in these last days m His Son—“words” commanded to be written in the days of Moses and commanded to be written in the Apostles’ days the Spirit promised “to guide,” to permit no lapse of “re- membrance,” and to “reveal” the future. Such form of citation, quotation, reference, and allusion to the Old Testament came from the conception of the Scrip- tures as the verbally inspired Book of God. I t was by means of this specific and customary formula of quotation, Christ and His Apostles made known to the Church their exalted estimate of the “Volume o f the Book.” On this ground alone arose all the high attributes ascribed to it—its Divine origin, sanctity, sublimity, infallibility, authority and sufficiency for mankind. This uniform emphasis of the Scriptures as the product of the“Breath of God,” not mere “human literature ” as the critics would have it, nor a “human element”*uncon-
28 The Fundamentals trolled by the Divine, nor the miserable excuse of “wordless thoughts”, the thoughts “inspired”, but the “words not”—is characteristic of the treatment the Old Testament Scriptures everywhere receive in the New Testament. On no other view than that of verbal inspiration could such a manner of quotation, whether strict or free, have arisen. It is as the “Creation" and the “ Oracles” of God they are referred to. On this their authority, holiness, perfection and perpe- tuity rest. And as to the “authorship” of the “Books” of Scripture, the citation of different texts existing in different “Books”, render the names of different human authors, as “Moses saith”, “David saith”, “Isaiah saith”, is proof that the authors of the texts are the authors of the “Books” in which they are found, and which bear their name. Only “Higher Critics” could dispute this. SOME PROOFS OF VERBAL INSPIRATION The Bible plainly teaches that its words are inspired, and that it is the Word of God. Let us examine into this mat- ter a little, by considering briefly three kinds of evidence, viz.: First. Direct testimony. Second. Inferential testimony. Third. Resultant testimony. FIRST. Let us note the Direct Testimony of the Bible to the fact of verbal inspiration. “And Moses said unto the Lord, I am not eloquent [a man of words], neither heretofore nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant: for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? . . . . Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak” (Ex. 4: 10-12). “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee, and with Israel” (Ex. 34:27). “And He said, Hear now My words : if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will
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