CHAPTER II.

IS IT ATHEISM?

SINCE then the term evolution is restricted in meaning to the production of new forms of matter, or new living organisms, the question arises, Is evolution necessarily atheistic? The theist is not called upon to prove that it may not assume an atheistic form; nor to deny that in the hands of some of its advocates it is decidedly hostile to the teachings of Scripture. He is merely called upon to decide whether evolution proper, aside from its unnecessary concomitants, is essentially atheistic; whether there is such an array of well-established facts, as to preclude the possibility of belief in some theistic form of the theory. May he not accept evolution while still retaining confidence in God's Word? May he not announce himself an evolutionist without conceding that man has been evolved from a moneron? If he so elects, is he not at liberty to maintain that evolution is a possible explanation of a large class of phenomena, while he still maintains that it cannot account for man's origin, for the origination of plant-life, for the genesis of animal organisms, for the origin of matter?

While conceding that evolution may be an adequate cause for the production of new organisms from preexisting forms, may he not discover a solution of many questions to which teleology has as yet rendered no satisfactory solution? Indeed, is it not possible that

he will find evolution an efficient instrumentality in strengthening the foundations of Revealed Religion? We confidently believe he may. This, Henry Drummond, in his Natural Law in the Spiritual World, has made apparent.

Most of our readers, probably, are prepared to believe that the objections to the theory in question are scientific rather than theological. They are disposed, no doubt, to concur in judgment with the Duke of Argyll, and to reiterate his affirmation, "It [the development hypothesis] is not in itself inconsistent with the theistic argument, or with belief in the ultimate agency and directing power of a creative mind. This is clear, since we never think of any difficulty in reconciling that belief with our knowledge of the ordinary laws of animal and vegetable reproduction." If it could be proved that new species, as well as individuals, are produced by being born, it does not diminish, but rather increase the necessity of admitting the existence of an Infinite Intelligence as the cause of all we witness in nature.

The word "create" is susceptible of three significations. I. It may mean to bring into being by the simple exercise of power, without pre-existing material and without process-absolute creation. In this sense none but God can create. Did He originate the earth as it now is from nothingness, or did He simply create the materials and the forces which produced it? Did He, from nonentity, call into being the different species of plants and animals, or did He make preparation for their production by creating one or more primordial forms capable of evolving all living organisms? Did He simply create an atom of matter capable of evolving a universe? If scientists should succeed in proving that the universe, with its millions of living beings, has been developed from a

single atom, they will not have laid an immovable foundation for atheism until they have proved that that atom needed no Creator. 2. It may mean to bring into being, through the agency of secondary causes and under established laws, that which did not previously exist-derivative creation. Were the different species of plants and animals evolved, independent of a direct and immediate divine agency, or is evolution simply the mode of Divine operation? 3. It may mean to fashion. Did successive species arise in the absolute creation of new germs of life, or did Divine energy simply invest pre-existing forces of life with new forms?

These commands-"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself," "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind"are apparently an emphatic assertion that God created all the living beings that have peopled the earth. To say the least the interpretation which assumes that God imparted to organisms the potentiality to evolve new forms is as natural as the assumption that the passages were meant to teach that no species has arisen, or can arise, except by the absolute exercise of Divine sovereignty.

If then it shall hereafter be proved that instead of creating species God merely created, as Darwin thinks, at most not more than three or four cells susceptible to the influence of light, heat, and electricity, and capable of producing all the species of plants and animals that exist or have existed, it certainly does not follow that the foundations of belief in the being of God are destroyed. Professor Huxley says: "It is necessary to remark that there is a wider teleology, which is not touched by the

doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution."

Apparently, one chief reason why the theory in question has been considered atheistical is because most of its advocates, like Darwin, have persisted in attributing the power of originating new species to some supernatural and self-existent energy resident in pre-existing species. They have seemed resolutely determined to account for every modification without assuming the existence of any power out of or above nature, either during the transformation or at the origin of the parent forms.

Whilst some are endeavoring to destroy belief in the Mosaic account, and to subvert, if possible, the foundations of a theistic conception of the universe, others are laboring, with commendable assiduity, in accumulating arguments fitted to prove that there is nothing in evolution which conflicts with Scripture and no statement in the revealed account of creation which militates against the theory of development. Mivart says, "Naturalists generally assume that God acts in and by the various laws of nature." And this is equivalent to acknowledging the doctrine of "derivative creation." With very few exceptions, none deny such Divine concurrence. The Duke of Argyll says in his Reign of Law, "There is nothing in religion incompatible with the belief that all exercises of God's power, whether ordinary or extraordinary, are effected through the instrumentality of meansthat is, by the instrumentality of natural laws brought out, as it were, and used for a Divine purpose." Professor Huxley affirms, "The more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely thereby is he at the mercy of the teleologist

who can always defy him to prove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe." Owen says, "Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable impress of Divine volition."

Evidently, progressive development is not necessarily hostile to theism, nor to any statement contained in Scripture. The volume of nature, we may be sure, contains no record inconsistent with a revelation direct from the Author of nature. There may be some slight degree of inappropriateness in applying the term "creation" to those organisms which were only potentially called into being, but is there less inappropriateness in employing the term "evolution" unless we concede that what was evolved must have been originally resident in primordial forms? If, on the other hand, it is affirmed that the power of originating new species was not imparted to parent germs, then, evidently, the term "creation," as applied to this gradual, ill-defined and causeless process, is as accurate as the term "evolution": nay, more so, for it does not leave the mind groping for a cause adequate to the production of such mysterious effects.

To prove the possible or actual descent of species from pre-existing forms by insensibly fine gradations during protracted periods of time is one thing; to disprove theism is another. "The discoveries of science," says Laplace, "throw final causes further back": who can legitimately affirm that they lead logically to atheism? Do they destroy the argument for the being of God founded upon the evidence of design in the works of nature? Do they even weaken the reasoning? Certainly this has not been proved.