One of the greatest forces working against true religion today, is the growing strength of humanism. In simple language, this is the doctrine which seeks to explain everything on the basis of natural law and human effort. It denies the supernatural acts of God as far as both material and spiritual worlds are concerned. Perhaps this doctrine could be expected from materialistic scientists who insist on laboratory proof for all it's propositions. But, friends, we are facing a world of religion which is largely turning away from the Biblical concept of God as Creator, Sustainer and Saviour. High placed theologians have generally rejected the authority of God's Word, that is, the claims of it's own inspiration and infallibility. The Bible itself declares, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 2 Timothy 3:16. But, what about the book of Genesis, and it's clear cut account of Creation and the flood? If all Scripture is inspired, then this story of man's origin must be inspired by God also. Why is there such reluctance to agree with the simple recital of God's power in calling all things into existence? A few years ago there was scarcely any disagreement among religious leaders concerning the origin of life. No one was skeptical enough to challenge the authenticity of the Book. It was the only source of absolute truth, and was so recognized by all, save the most defiant atheist or agnostic.
True, many scientists of the day were looking for some other explanation of things than that offered by the Creationists, but most Christians were secure in their Bible-based faith in Genesis 1. Suddenly, the speculative theories of Darwin sprang into view, and the unbelievers grabbed desperately for an explanation of things that did not involve God. The idea that long ages of time could produce all the complexities of plant and animal life, was used as an argument against the special creation spelled out in the Bible.
When Darwin took his famous trip on the Beagle along the coast of South America, he noted that species of animal life on certain of the Galapagos Islands were a little different from the species on other islands. That started the thought in his mind that given enough time and enough geographical separation, plus other factors, entirely different species would be developed, then different genera, different families, and so on. Without our becoming involved in the endless intricacies of his theory, we may say that Darwin needed only to add the factors of favorable variation and the survival of the fittest in order to account not only for different kinds of life, but for rising levels of life, even up to man.
Now, conservative Christians can agree that Darwin dealt with a fact of nature when he declared that species often varied. What we question is the enormous super-structure of conclusions from those facts. There was a day when men could prove to their complete satisfaction, and to the confusion and rout of their few opponents, that if the world is round, the sailor foolhardy enough to sail endlessly westward would ultimately slip over the side and fall off. Probably no argument could be more easily proved than that. We can visualize their "proof" even today by holding up a ball and watching what finally happens to an object on its surface as it moves in any direction from what we call the top side. It falls off. Q.E.D. How simple! At least, so the medievalists thought.
There was only one thing lacking in their simple demonstration and in their logic, and that was a knowledge of the law of gravitation. They thought they understood nature. They did, in part. They thought their conclusion unassailable. But we only smile as we look back on the matter and muse on the fact that an apparently unanswerable argument can suddenly become pointless by the addition of a lone new fact, in this case the fact of gravitation.
For many decades after sceintists began to endorse evolution, liberal-minded theologians endeavored to harmonize the Genesis creation record with the theory of evolution. At last they were able to rationalize that if only enough time could be allowed, there would be room enough for Evolution and the Bible. They reasoned that God could have done the work in the slow four billion year span designated by evolutionary science. It is amazing that this tragic compromise has leavened the whole structure of modern Christianity to this day. It is even more astonishing when we consider the implications of it. What does the so-called Christian evolutionist believe about creation? Listen, this is the heart of his position: He believes that the great God, presumably infinite in power and wisdom, saw fit to employ the stumbling method of trial and error in creating our world. In other words, God tried one procedure that worked, and carried the world a certain distance upward. Then after more ages, He discovered further procedures that carried the world a little higher still. And so on, finally, up to man.
All during this long period of trial and error, there were, as Darwin described it, endless exhibits of "the survival of the fittest." For example, an animal with a little longer neck could eat a little higher of the green leaves on the trees and so would have a better chance of survival when food was short. Hence, the world would be favored with taller species. Or, a certain strain of animal might be fleeter of foot and thus escape the clutches of predatory animals. The net result would be a species of animal with perhaps longer legs or stronger muscles, or possibly both.
According to the evolution theory, man is the end product of the whole evolution chain that began with microscopic creatures in the swamps. He inherits all the past. That means that there run in his blood and dictate to his nervous system, endless urges of the animal kingdom. In other words, it has been hard for man suddenly to break away from all the evil past. The very first man must have started out under a tremendous handicap. And with all this animal nature, man perhaps shouldn't be blamed so much for his brutality and violence. Maybe this explains the unprecedented juvenile crime rate, too. Can we blame them for rioting and killing, if they have inherited the urges of an animal past? What a perfect set-up for the modern rationalist and theologians who fear to call sin by its right name. If our glands are at fault, plus a poor environment, then there can be no personal responsibility for wrong-doing. Believe it or not, this is the basis for a major school of psychology today. And the Christian evolutionist provides the doctrine that makes it sound so scientific and reasonable. But it's all hog-wash, friends. But he still believes it rather than to believe the simple logical account of the Bible. What has been the result of such unscriptural ramblings?
The result has been the most overwhelming revolution in Christian thinking in the two thousand years since Christ. The evolution theory, of course, allows for no perfect man named Adam at the beginning of the way, and no perfect earth. Hence there is no place for Moses' account of the fall of man, or for the promise of One who would come to lift man from his fallen state. Nor is there any place for the prophecy of John the Revelator, that God will finally destroy this evil world and create a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. In fact, there is no place for the word sin as the Bible defines it from Genesis to Revelation, nor for the earlier Biblical ages of earth's history. Amoeba do not sin, nor do frogs, fishes, monkeys, or any other segment of what evolution describes as man's ancestors. Nor does evolution even suggest as to when man began to sin as he slowly struggled upward. Though theologians of our day still use Biblical terms, those terms do not have the same meaning they had in all past time.
Little did theologians realize that by interpreting the days of Creation as long periods of time, they were playing right into the hands of the evolutionists, who think of time as a substitute for the miraculous. Given enough time, plus a dash of imagination and speculation, almost anything can happen.
One of the very reasons why scientists have tended through the years to give a longer and still longer span to the history of our world is that a longer period is needed in order to explain the origin and development of the world and all its inhabitants on a natural basis; that is without the aid of the supernatural. Scientists can never be quite sure, even in their own minds.
Now, the theistic evolutionists, having committed themselves to harmonizing their theology with scientific beliefs, have trustingly gone along with the scientists, back, back, back through the rolling years, and accepted the present four-billion-year estimate for the age of the world. But what such churchmen evidently forget, is that the scientists have rolled time back into the oblivion of the past in order to find what they feel is a rational, non-supernatural explanation for the world; that is, an explanation that calls for no action by God in the process of the making of the earth and its inhabitants. The churchman's dilemma is this: How can he insist that he is keeping God squarely in the picture through the four billion years when scientists have set up those years in order to keep everything exclusively within the framework of natural phenomena, which means that God is not in the picture?
Nor has the churchman any way of escape from the dilemma. For him to attempt to inject any evidence of God's taking any part in the making of the earth, on the assumption that natural processes cannot account for all, is to part company with the scientists, who insist that all we need to do is to add a billion or so more years in order to compass everything within the natural framework.
But what shall we say of the theologian, who calls himself a theistic evolutionist? Only this: Every stride he takes back through the ages in an endeavor to walk in step with the scientists is a stride away from a truly theistic explanation of our earth. If the scientists, with whom he wishes to agree, have finally carried him back with them to the point where they say it is possible to explain all the phenomena without bringing God into the picture, why not agree with them there also? There seems something a little tragic in the idea of a religious man's traveling back trustingly for billions of years because he thinks the scientists have the truth, and that he is watching his great God at work, only to discover in the infinity of the past that the scientists took him back that far in order to explain everything without God!
Let modernist theologians protest, and they most certainly will, that they still believe in God. I ask again, "What kind of God?" Surely not a God who is very important to all the processes of the world. And if God is so unnecessary and everything can be explained on a naturalistic basis, if enough time is allowed, "Why be concerned about promoting belief in God or giving obedience to His will, or indeed doing anything about God?" The answer to that question is painfully evident. And in that answer, I believe, is found the chief explanation for our present secular age. By the very logic of the evolution-believing theologians, God has become so secondary, even so incidental, as to seem a wholly unimportant force in the universe. Why not let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die? Surely a God so unimportant to our lives will not bring us into judgment, nor can He be expected to provide for us a life in a world beyond. Obviously, the classic idea of God, a Being all wise and powerful, personally concerned about our lives, simply cannot be harmonized with the whole evolution philosophy.