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The Fundamentals we have looked at the relation in which these two things, science and the Bible, stand to each other. When science is said to contradict the Bible, I should like to ask first, What is meant by contradiction here? The Bible was never given us in order to anticipate or forestall the discoveries of modern twentieth century science. The Bible, as every sensible inter- preter of Scripture has always held, takes the world as it is, not as it is seen through the eyes of twentieth century special- ists, but as it lies spread out before the eyes of original men, and uses the popular every-day language appropriate to this standpoint. As Calvin in his commentary on Genesis 1 says: “Moses wrote in the popular style, which, without instruc- tion, all ordinary persons endowed with common sense are able to understand. * * * He does not call us up to heaven; he only proposes things that lie open before our eyes.” It does not follow that because the Bible does not teach modern science, we are justified in saying that it contradicts it. What I see in these narratives of Genesis is that, so true is the standpoint of the author, so divine the illumination with which he is endowed, so unerring his insight into the order .of nature, there is little in his description that even yet, with our advanced knowledge, we need to change. You say there is the “six days” and the question whether those days are meant to be measured by the twenty-four hours of the sun’s revolution around the earth—I speak of these things popu- larly. I t is difficult to see how they should be so measured when the sun that is to measure them is not introduced until the fourth day. Do not think that this larger reading of the days is a new speculation. You find Augustine in early times declaring that it is hard or altogether impossible to say of what fashion these days are, and Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, leaves the matter an open question. To my mind these narratives in Genesis stand out as a marvel, not for its discordance with science, but for its agreement with it.
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