The problem of origins : Whence came the universe? Whence came life and species? Whence came man? A frank discussion of the doctrines of creation and evolution

Front matter

Other Books By Dr. KEYSER

Man’s First DIsoBEDIENCE CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH

A SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE A SYSTEM OF GENERAL ETHICS THE RATIONAL TEST

Contents

I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS .

WHENCE CAME THE UNIVERSE? .

The Quest for an Adequate Explanation .

Chapter I Preliminary Observations

This book deals with the vital problems of creation and evolution. It is the outgrowth of earnest conviction. The subjects here discussed have a threefold interest and importance: 1. Scientific; 2. Philosophical; 3. Religious. The author believes that true science makes for human welfare; that a true world-view (philosophy) gives vision, depth and breadth to human life; and that religion

-affords a true basis for individual and social ethics and a solid and needed assurance of future destiny for man and the universe. All of these elements must be combined and correlated in order to produce the best, fullest and happiest life here on the earth.

The author cherishes a kindly feeling toward those who differ from him. He is conscious of no rancor in his soul. He does not believe in ridicule and epithets. He has tried to avoid the satirical temper in this volume. Here and there a vigorous expression may occur, but he hopes his readers will attribute it to earnestness of conviction, not to a scornful or angry spirit.

He calls no one ignorant. On the other hand, he frankly recognizes the intellectual acumen and academic achievements of many thinkers who hold views directly opposed to his own. According to his way of thinking, it is ungracious to accuse an opponent of ignorance. It also seems to betray or connote a boastful spirit on the part of the accuser. Besides, human knowledge is only. a relative achievement. No man knows everything, nor even a considerable fraction of everything. What men know is comparatively little; what they do not know is a vast deal. And this is especially true when they try to penetrate into the inner nature and constitution of things. When the author was only a lad, this adage was given to him by one of his teachers: ‘The truly educated man never brags about his attainments, because he knows enough to know that he doesn’t know much.”

Careful attention is called to the following observations. In this work the terms “creation” and “evolution” are used in their technical, scientific and restricted sense, which, we hold, is the only correct sense in which to employ them. The word “creation” here means the bringing into existence of an entity or a principle or a force that had no prior existence. It is technically known as creatio ex nthilo. We hold that the expression, “‘creative evolution,” is a contradiction of terms and of thought. An entity must exist before it can be developed. If it does not exist, it cannot be developed from nonexistence into existence. This thought is dealt with more fully further on. Thus the reader, as he proceeds, should constantly bear in mind the technical sense in which the term “creation” is here employed.

The same caution must be given regarding the term “evolution.” It is used here, not in the elastic sense, but in the strictly scientific sense—the sense in which it is employed by the truly scientific exponents of the theory. Some persons, however, even among the scientists, confuse the issue by using the phrase, “creation by evolu-

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS 15 tion.” Even Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn commits, as we think, this grave error. So does Professor J. Arthur Thompson in a very recent voulme.?

But evolution and creation cannot thus be merged and identified. They connote distinct conceptions and processes. Evolution does not mean and cannot mean the creation of an entity or principle ex nihilo. It means only the progressive unfolding of something that already exists and that has been endowed by its Creator with certain inherent potentialities that enable it to develop. Surely something cannot be evolved out of nothing. But, given a personal God, all-wise and all-powerful, it is comparatively easy to find intelligibility in the conception of the creation of something that had no previous existence.

The advocates of “creation by evolution” should be required to say just what they mean by “creation.” If they mean the development of a so-called new species of organism from a lower form by means of resident forces, they are using the terms “evolution” and “creation” synonymously, and thus would be guilty of the tautological_ phrase, “evolution by evolution.” No; the unfolding of an entity; Nanay ocoaod ait aovetocins power, as it must have been, is not the same as creation.

The term “evolution” is, however, sometimes used still more loosely, causing not a little confusion. Too many people use it to denote any kind of progress, no matter how it is brought about. But that, too, we hold to be inaccurate. For example, orderly progress may take place by creation as well as by development; for, if God first created the primordial material of the universe, and then later, at definite periods, created the various kinds of organisms, and lastly created man’s soul

*The Earth Speaks to Bryan. 2 Science and Religion, p. 177.

in the divine image, that would be progress by successive stages or acts of creation. And it would be orderly progress. But it certainly would not be evolution, according to the scientific use of the term.

Another common error is to refer to the growth of a tree from a seed or of a chick from an egg as a case of evolution. But that is not at all what is meant by the theory of evolution, which carries the idea of the transformism of species, the higher from the lower. To avoid logomachies, therefore, it is better in the cases just cited to use the terms “growth” or “development.”

We cannot agree with our friend, Dr. Louis Matthews Sweet, who in his recent book devotes a chapter to a discussion of the variant, elastic and confusing ideas that prevail concerning the definition of evolution.2 If nobody knows what it is, it surely cannot be a good scientific term. A term that has no stabilized meaning, one with a significance that flits about uncertainly like an ignis fatuus, cannot be of real use in science. We believe that the term “evolution” has come to have a definite meaning in these days—at all events, by those who employ it intelligently. In his next chapter Dr. Sweet gives some true definitions, two of which we shall take the liberty to quote.*

Here is a definition of evolution by Professor Albert G. Keller of Yale University: ‘The essence of evolution is the development of form out of form, in a connected series, with a survival of the fitter forms in adjustment to environment.” Of course, the restrictive phrase, “in adjustment to environment,” may be questioned, but the rest of the sentence tells us just what the theory of evolution is.

Next we quote Professor Vines’ definition in the

*To Christ through Evolution, Chap. II. “Tbid., pp. 82, 84.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS Ly

Encyclopedia Britannica: “Evolution means the gradual development of ‘highly organized’ from ‘lowly organized’ forms, that is, of forms in which the ‘physiological division of labor’ is more complete from those in which it is less complete; of forms possessing a variety of organs from forms possessing but few.”

Le Conte’s definition is well known, but may be repeated here: “A continuous progressive change, according to certain fixed laws and by means of resident forces.” In short and in fine, the theory of evolution means what is known as transformism—that is, the transformation of the simpler into the more complex, of lower forms of life into higher by gradual processes and natural forces. _ And thus it will be used throughout this volume.

In addition, it should be said that evolutionists do not all hold the same general view of the hypothesis. They may be divided into three classes: 1. Those who do not try to explain the origin of life, but hold that, life being given, all the diverse organic forms on the earth, including man, have been evolved from the primordial germ-plasm or cell; 2. Those who go further back, and accept the doctrine of spontaneous generation (often called abiogenesis), or that living matter evolved from non-living matter by means of some mysterious physico-chemical process; 3. Those who go back still further, and contend that the potency, or principle, of unfolding life was inherent in the primordial material, whether created or eternal. The last is known as “cosmical evolution.”

However widely the transformists may differ on the foregoing points, all of them agree on one outstanding tenet: namely, that man has been evolved from an animal ancestry; that he came up from the same primate stock as the simians; and, further, that all organisms must trace their lineage back to the primordial bioplasm or cell or amoeba.

This, then, is the hypothesis with which we shall deal in this work, comparing it constantly with the doctrine of divine creation.

Should the usual challenge that the author is not a technical scientist be made, he would offer the simple and honest explanation that, while he boasts of no superior wisdom, he has been a student of scientific works ever since his youth, and has never lost his interest in scientific investigation and discovery. Indeed, at one time it was his desire to make the study and teaching of physical science his life work. Even before his college days he was reading with avidity the works of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Proctor, Agassiz, Dawson, Hugh Miller, Dana and others. A young friend and he, through the reading of certain infidel productions, had grown very skeptical of the Christian religion; yet he remembers vividly that, while they were reading Darwin’s The Origin of Species, they were wont to exclaim, laughingly, “What a god Darwin makes of natural selection! What consummate wisdom his god has!” Since those days he has studied many works on the side of evolution. He has also read many books that oppose evolution. For this reason he can say—with becoming modesty, he hopes— that he has given both sides prolonged and earnest study.

The author deals in this volume directly with the works of some of the most eminent living champions of evolution, makes his inductions from a first-hand examination of their productions, and brings their findings and inferences before the bar of science and reason. In other words, he pushes the warfare into the very camp and citadel of the evolutionists.

Nor does he in a single case, as far as he is aware,

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS 19 call in question any of their facts; indeed, he gladly acknowledges them all. Neither does he question their intelligence, honesty or motives. He tries, as far as possible, to deal with their principles, claims and arguments. What he does interrogate is only their speculations, deductions and over-broad generalizations. _ Therefore, while he makes no claims of great scientific erudition—that would not be modest—he ventures to hope that the scientific exponents of evolution, as well as others, will give his arguments fair and judicial consideration, and will do so purely in the interest of truth and human welfare.

At the beginning of his work, the author desires to register his firm and sincere conviction, after years of study and experience, that the Bible and true science are in amicable accord. In saying this, he means two things: 1. The Bible honestly, simply and clearly interpreted at its face value, not manipulated to mean anything that subjective conceptions may want it to mean. 2. The real results of scientific investigation, not the unverified guesses and speculations of science. These points will be carefully elucidated in the chapters that are to follow.

Chapter II Whence Came The Universe? The Quest For An Adequate Explanation

There is a certain ancient book in the world which offers a definite solution of the profound problem of origins. The book to which we refer is the Bible. We shall note, at the beginning of our study, by means of a constructive interpretation, the kind of appeal which the biblical doctrine makes to our reason and judgment.

The problem of the origin of the universe is properly the first to challenge inquiry. The cosmos is here. That fact cannot be denied, for we cognize the universe as real, and know ourselves as a part of it. Whence came it? Much human speculation has been expended on that problem, but most of it, candor compels one to say, has been pathetically unfruitful of satisfying results. Turning to the Holy Scriptures, we cannot help noting how clearly and simply, and with what apparent ease and equanimity, the problem is explained. Here is no labored effort, no struggle with uncertainties.

The Bible opens with the stately and comprehensive statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” When we seriously consider that declaration, does it not seem to be a most intelligible and uplifting account of the origin of the universe? It is lucidity itself. It assigns an adequate cause for all finite and palpable things. We may well ask, “What other cause would be adequate?” In real earnestness, too, we might well raise the question, Would any one actually prefer some other than a divine origin for the universe? Further on we shall have to consider this question. For the present we leave it to simmer in the reader’s mind.

There is also the problem of the genesis of life on the earth. Many learned tomes have been written for the purpose of solving that problem. As yet no adequate solution has been propounded and established by human research. If we accept the sacred Scriptures, however, the problem has a simple and rational solution; for, since God is the living, all-wise and omnipotent God, He could very easily have created the vital power or principle (the élan vital) as soon as the earth was ready to sustain and propagate organisms. Here again an entirely adequate cause for the after grand result has been assigned. Thus it may be said that the Bible proposes the best scientific hypothesis for the beginning of life on the earth.

There is also the problem of man’s origin. Much time and labor have been expended by human reason in an effort to decipher that puzzle; yet no satisfactory scientific solution has been forthcoming. Once again we turn to the Bible where we read the pregnant statement: “And God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”’ Whatever else may be thought of this teaching, it certainly may be said to be reasonable and inspiring.

If it is true, it may well be called good news. One would think that everybody would rejoice on receiving the information that man had so high and holy an origin, and, therefore—to carry out the reasonable inference—must have been created for a noble purpose and a worth while destiny.

Another problem that has perturbed human thought from time immemorial is that of the origin of sin. Sin and sorrow are in the world. Whence did they come? No proposed human solution of the rise and spread of sin has gone to the root of the question; it has been left in obscurity. However, when we examine the biblical solution, we find it to be clear, simple and fundamental. Sin came into the world through the wrong choice of a free moral agent—one who was endued with the ability to choose between good and evil. How else could sin have originated and still be sin in the sense of guilt? If it came by necessity, it would not be sin, whatever else it might be called. Thus the Bible gives the deepest possible ethical solution of our problem,

At the same time it teaches that the world is a moral, not a merely mechanistic, economy—and a moral economy is the highest order of which we can form any conception.

However, even though sin has been permitted to enter the world, the Bible does not leave the human family in the lurch. What shall be said as to the origin and method of our deliverance from sin? That is perhaps the most vital of all our problems. Here again the Bible is ready with an adequate and satisfying solution. It teaches us that, “in the fullness of time,” God sent His eternally begotten Son into the world to rescue and redeem man, restore to him the divine image which had been lost through sin, and bring him back into pure and happy fellowship with his Creator and Benefactor—a fellowship that is to last forever.

Surely these doctrines seem to be both rational and uplifting. One would think that everybody would want them to be true, because they solve all our most vital problems in so satisfying a way. Moreover, one would think that all persons would make every possible effort to discover by the empirical (experimental) method whether or not this Book, which proposes so adequate a solution of life’s problems, is a true and divinely inspired Book. You see, if it is the product of a divine revelation, it is not only true, but it is gloriously true.

The question immediately before us in this present study pertains to the origin of the cosmos. “Whence came the universe?” is a question that has been asked from time immemorial. It is important for human welfare that it be rightly answered. No earnest mind can be at rest and at the same time remain non-committal on this paramount issue. Let us first consider in detail the biblical solution and the kind of appeal it makes to reason.

THe DEFINITE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE

“In the beginning.” + Does not that seem to be the right way to begin a narrative which is meant to present a complete world-view and set forth the rationale of all finite things? It would not have been finally fundamental to begin the story at any later period in the history of the cosmos. The inspired historian was led to go back as far as it was possible for human thought to go. That seems to be a reasonable mode of procedure, does it not? Then, too, if the Bible is God’s revelation, it should be able to go back to the source and beginning of all finite realities.

Again, “In the beginning God.” It would be difficult to conceive of a better way to start the universe and bring it into existence than to begin with God, the trans-

+ Gen, it. me. 2See Alexander T. Ormond, The Philosophy of Religion.

cendent Being who has existed from eternity and who, therefore, antedates all finite things, which must have had their beginning in time. Whatever else human thought may conceive in addition, the eternal, self-existent, all-powerful, all-wise personal God constitutes the most satisfying and rational basis and cause for all finite realities. And, moreover, it is most judiciously reasonable to go back far enough to secure an adequate basis and cause of the universe. It would be superficial to stop before going back as far as it is possible for thought to go. Observe the next crucial word in this initial verse of the Bible: “In the beginning God created.” Here again the biblical teaching probes into the very structure of things. The Hebrew word for “create” is bara, which in this place certainly means to bring into existence an entity, force, or quality, that had no prior existence. Therefore, we have here in the first verse of the Bible the great doctrine of creation ex nihilo. What a sublime conception for a writer living far back in the childhood of the human race to achieve and to express! How came he by it? How did it occur that he was able to phrase such a conception in such simple, lucid and dignified language? The ethnic religions teach that the gods were evolved out of the All, but their founders were never able to conceive of an all-wise and all-powerful personal God, existing from eternity, and bringing the universe into being by a direct act of creation. Even the wisest ancient philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, were unable to rise to that exalted idea, but believed that matter was eternal and God only the framer or artificer of the universe. Surely this supreme biblical conception of God and the creation could not have come up from beneath; it must have come down from above—from the revealing God Himself. Never could it have arisen by naturalistic evolution. If it was divinely revealed to the writer of Genesis, then we have a strategic point where evolution fails to explain the facts. How did it happen, too, that only this writer of ancient times—this writer of Genesis— was able to grasp so clearly the monotheistic idea, at a time when all the other peoples of his day were steeped in polytheism and idolatry?

This initial statement of the Bible also affords a secure resting place for the earnest and inquiring soul. It satisfies man’s emotional nature and aspirations, as well as his intellectual demands. For if God created the universe, it follows logically that he is able to sustain it, govern it, bring it to its divinely intended destiny, and cause “all things to work together for good to them that love Him.” Here are comfort for the troubled heart and satisfaction for the intellect and reason. The Creator of the universe must also be its Sovereign. This conception, therefore, makes supreme Intelligence and Personality the force behind, and in, the universe, and that is great gain for science, philosophy and religion.

It is greatly to be regretted that Dr. James Moffatt, in his recent professed translation of the Old Testament, has woven so many of his unsupported subjective notions into his work, and thus has done despite to the Word of God. Why not give a simple, clear and literal translation? This is the way he begins the Genesiacal narrative: ‘This is the story of how the universe was formed. When God began to form the universe, the world was void and vacant.” But that is not according to the Hebrew text. The literal translation of the first verse is this: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The first sentence of the Hebrew Bible is a complete declarative sentence, not a subordinate one. It does not begin with “When.” There is no “When” in the Hebrew text.

Moreover, the Hebrew writer used the verb bara, which in this context means to create, and so also in Gen. i. 27. He did not use the verb yatsar,* which means to form. This new translation therefore seems to nullify the doctrine of divine creation, and imply that the material of the universe is eternal and that at a certain point of time God “began to form” it—that is, to mold it into shape. What kind of a philosophy is that? It is going back to the outmoded doctrine of Plato, Aristotle, the Gnostics and the Manicheans. How much more rational and satisfactory is the biblical doctrine of creation!

Let us now finish this great sentence: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” ‘The writer mentions the “heavens” first. At that early period of the world’s history the conception must somehow have been given to him that the rest of the universe is greater than this little planet on which we dwell. Yet he lived and wrote centuries before the time of Copernicus and Galileo. This initial statement seems to show that the Bible does not teach the old Ptolemaic or geocentric theory of the universe, but rather the Copernician view.

Still, the biblical scribe did not go to the opposite extreme. Subsequently he gave most of his attention to the earth, just as he should have done, because it must have been revealed to him that the earth was to be the arena of the greatest conceivable transactions, both divine and human—the creation and history of mankind and the redemption of the human family through the incarnation of the Son of God. Thus the biblical writer seems to have been endued with knowledge that transcended earthly wisdom.

* Gen. ii.7.

THe ETERNAL EXISTENCE oF Gop

At this point a counter question is likely to arise—a question of much depth and grave significance. Although difficult, it must not be evaded. We must be as thoroughgoing as possible. The question to which we refer is this: “Who made God?” There are perhaps few people who have not at some time asked that crucial question, and asked it, too, with more or less anxious concern. This problem troubled Professor Tyndall in his day. He says that sometimes he could not sleep at night for worrying over the question, ‘““Who made God?”

How shall we deal with it? First, the question implies a contradiction; for if some other being made God, then God would not be God, but would be only a creature. When we use the word God, we mean to designate the Ultimate Being. If the question, “Who made God?” were repeated again and again, it would involve the idea of an unending series running back and back and resting on nothing; and that would be absurd. The mind would never reach a resting place.

A better way to work out the problem is this: There is

Since there is something now, there _must_have always been something; for if there ever was a time when there nena was nothi thing could have ever been. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Therefore there must be some ultimate reality which has always existed. Since that is so, in what kind of an ultimate reality shall we believe? Is it not far and away better to believe the ultimate reality to be an all-wise and all-powerful personal God than to believe it to be only crude, insensate material substance? To put it gently, and yet bluntly, it is not more reasonable to accept a divine philosophy than a groundling philosophy?

To place back of and in the universe an omnipotent personal God is to assign an adequate cause for the cosmos and all its varied phenomena from the lowest to the highest—from the primordial material to the highest flights of human genius and the most exalted attainments of human sainthood. God as the ultimate cause explains everything. Therefore the theistic world-view is the best scientific hypothesis with which to begin our investigations.

Another mode of reasoning leads to the same conclu-

sion. The universe seems to be a developing universe. There is good reason to believe that it was not always in its present highly developed condition, but that in the course of time it has passed through various progressive stages from an undiversified, homogeneous state to its present diversified state of heterogeneity. Perhaps its original state was the universal ether in a condition of perfect equilibrium. It is surely evident that there was a time when no life existed on the earth; there was also a time when no animals nor human beings were here. So it seems to be clear that the universe is a developing universe. ” Now let us reason the matter through. If the cosmos were an eternally unfolding one, it should have reached its present status long ago; because it had eternity in which to develop. But since it has reached only its present imperfect stage of development, that fact is prima facte evidence that it had a beginning in time. Then it must have been created; but it could not have created itself; therefore it must have been created by some Being who never had a beginning. This reasoning leads us back to the Ultimate, Absolute, Self-existent Being—God.*

Thus reason itself points to the Christian world-view

“M. Bross Thomas, The Biblical Idea of God.

as the only consistent and adequate philosophy. It is encouraging and inspiring to dwell upon this ae agreement between the Bible and reason.

In the next place, we shall examine some world-views that differ from that which is presented in the Holy Scriptures.

THe MATERIALISTIC WoRLD-VIEW

As has so often been said, this is a materialistic age. Many of the so-called scientists of the day have gone over to a materialistic philosophy, and seem almost to exult in the idea that they have crowded God out of the world. The questionnaire of Dr. James H. Leuba® is all too obvious and saddening a proof of the foregoing assertion, that many American scientists have gone over to the materialistic camp.

And yet materialism is a superficial view; it holds that the only entity is matter; while those higher realities— mind, soul, spirit—are non-existent or are only epiphenomena. Thought is only the result of secretions in the brain, just as bile is the result of secretions in the liver. Is it not true, then, that the materialist thinks only in the lowest possible terms? He seems to be incapable of thinking on the higher levels; that is, in purely psychical, ethical and spiritual terms. Is it not strange and pathetic that there are people, some of them occupying high places in academic circles, who actually seem to glory in the denial of the existence of the soul and all spiritual realities? ®

°The Belief in God and Immortality.

°Vet the author believes that, since 1916, and especially since the World War, there has been a decided reaction on the part of scientists toward a re-appraisal of spiritual realities and values, which is leading them to estimate them more highly, and to recognize the inadequacy of the mechanistic view of the universe.

But wherein lies the weakness of the materialistic theory? Is it a rational and scientific world-view? Let us propose a few questions to the materialist: If matter is the only reality, how could personalities like us men ever have evolved out of impersonal substance? Can something higher and nobler evolve from something lower, and that merely by means of resident forces? Ex nihilo nihil fit.