Richard M. Riss
Christian Evidences, Part II
THE DRIFT FROM CHRISTIAN CONSENSUS IN WESTERN CULTURE
George M. Marsden provided an interesting contrast when he
compared a few statements made about the status of Christianity
in American culture, two in 1873, and another only about fifty
years later. The first statement was made by Theodore Woolsey,
the retired president of Yale University: "In what sense can this
country be called a Christian country? In this sense certainly,
that the vast majority of the people believe in Christ and the
Gospel, that Christian influences are universal, that our
civilization and intellectual culture are built on that
foundation." On the same occasion in 1873, William F. Warren
agreed: "There was never a time when the leavening progress of
Christ's kingdom among men was so rapid and irreversible as the
present."1
Fifty-one years later, in 1924, H. L. Mencken remarked that
"Christendom may be defined briefly as that part of the world in
which, if any man stands up in public and solemnly swears that he
is a Christian, all his auditors will laugh."2
The Christian consensus to which Woolsey and Warren alluded
was a consensus that had been enjoyed by Western culture for
almost 1500 years, beginning with the Roman emperor Theodosius I,
who made Christianity the state religion in A.D. 380. To a
greater or lesser extent, there were always those who opposed the
consensus, either secretly or openly, but it was not until the
51-year period between 1873 and 1924 that the consensus itself
was broken down.
This recent shift in world view should give us pause for
consideration. Can we, as a culture, really be right that
Christianity is false, when we are, in the larger scheme of
things, the odd-men-out? Is it not arrogant of us to say that we
are right, but that all of the preceding generations for 1500
years were wrong?
The entire twentieth century has lived entirely apart from
its rich cultural heritage. John S. North has written:
Most of the great universities of the West were founded
with the conviction that theology is the queen of the
disciplines, and that the key to man's wholeness is the
pursuit of the truth of God through Jesus Christ. . . .
Now, in the latter part of the twentieth century, that
tradition has almost disappeared. . . . Religious
enthusiasm among students is an embarrassment; belief
in the authority of the Bible and the deity of Jesus
Christ is treated as naivety to be enlightened rather
than life to be nourished. Scholars in the arts,
letters, and sciences who show signs of Christian
devotion are likely to be shrugged off as simplistic
and eccentric. Coincidentally, truth itself has become
devalued, especially in the humanities and social
sciences and increasingly in the pure sciences, its
consequences and even existence a matter of doubt.3
True to the spirit of twentieth-century scholarship, many
revisionists have attempted to minimize the importance of
Christianity to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is
particularly true of those who oppose the practice of
Christianity in the public schools, who blindly assert that the
U.S. Constitution prohibits prayer in the public arena. While
twentieth-century interpretation of the constitution may prohibit
such things, eighteenth and nineteenth-century interpretations of
it did no such thing. There was a paid chaplain to the U.S.
Congress even before the end of the Revolutionary War, and prior
to the founding of the national congress, all of the early
congresses of each of the thirteen colonies always opened with
prayer. From the very beginning, prayer has always opened the
national congress.
Many of those who came to America from Europe did so for
religious freedom. Most of them established their own civil
governments based upon the Bible. It was therefore obviously
totally foreign to the basic nature of America at the time of the
writing of the U.S. Constitution to have any separation that
would imply a secular state. The idea of a secular state is a
twentieth-century invention, common to the U.S. and the Soviet
Union.
The purpose of the first amendment was to prevent a single
sect from gaining pre-eminence, not to discourage religious
practices. Many of the individual states of the union had state
churches, supported by the state government, but this was not
considered to be in conflict with the first amendment. In all
but one of the thirteen states, people were taxed to support the
preaching of the gospel and to build churches.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set aside federal property
in the Northwest territory for schools. Passed again by Congress
in 1789, it stated, "Religion, morality, and knowledge being
necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,
schools and the means of learning shall forever be encouraged."4
In 1811 the supreme court of the state of New York upheld an
indictment for blasphemous utterances against Christ. In his
ruling, Chief Justice Kent stated, "We are Christian people, and
the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon
Christianity."5 The same court gave a similar ruling in 1861:
"Christianity may be conceded to be the established religion."6
Joseph Story, in his 1829 inaugural address as Dane
Professor of Law at Harvard University, stated that "there never
has been a period in which Common Law did not recognize
Christianity as laying at its foundation."7 Thus, it is not
surprising that when the Pennsylvania state supreme court
affirmed the conviction of a man on charges of blasphemy against
the Holy Scriptures, it said:
Christianity, general Christianity is, and always has
been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania . . .
not Christianity founded on any particular religious
tenets; nor Christianity with an established church and
tithes and spiritual courts; but Christianity with
liberty of conscience to all men."8
Most of the great educational institutions in Europe and
America were founded upon the great truths of Christianity.
Among the first of them were the Universities of Paris and
Oxford, founded in the middle of the twelfth century.
Universities became quite widespread in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, and they were ecclesiastical foundations
chartered by the Pope. While some, like the university of
Bologna, were best known for law, and others for subjects like
medicine, normally theology was an honored subject in all of
them.
In America, Harvard College was founded in 1636 for the
training of ministers. In New England's First Fruits (1643), we
read:
After God had carried us safe to New England and
we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our
livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship,
and settled the civil government; one of the next
things we longed for and looked after was to advance
learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to
leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our
present ministers shall lie in the dust.9
In his History of Harvard University, Josiah Quincy printed
excerpts from the diary of Increase Mather, one of the early
presidents of Harvard. His statements are full of devotion to
God and to the students in his charge. On September 3, 1693, he
wrote, "As I was riding to preach at Cambridge, I prayed to God--
begged that my labors might be blessed to the souls of the
students; at the which I was much melted."10
In 1693, Virginia secured a similar institution for the
training of its clergy, William and Mary College. Then, in 1701,
a college was established in Saybrook, Connecticut, which was
moved to New Haven in 1716 and named Yale in 1718. The purpose
of the college was to establish a school in Connecticut "so the
Interest of Religion might be preserved, and the Truth propagated
to succeeding generations."11 The founding of Yale was aided by
the Mather family shortly after Increase Mather's ejection from
the presidency of Harvard in 1701 due to the increasing influence
of less conservative Christians.
One of the early presidents of Yale, Thomas Clap, was also a
devout Christian. One of his biographers, Louis Leonard Tucker,
wrote of him as follows:
The stress on religion, an indigenous feature of the
Yale system, if not intensified, at least remained
constant during Clap's tenure. . . .
For the president, religion was the serious
business of the human race. A close friend recalled in
later years that Clap frequently told him that learning
was important but religion "is the great object of my
fear and concern." In his Annals of Yale, Clap
underscored the place of religion: "Above all, Care is
taken to instil into their [the students'] Minds, the
principles of true Religion, in Doctrine and Practice,
by publick and private Discourses and personal
conversations." It was more from conviction than force
of habit that he described Yale in his official
writings as a "Seminary of Religion and Learning." Nor
was the sequential order of these terms merely
accidental. . . .
In 1743, Clap drew up a general curriculum for his
students to which he appended this exhortation: "Above
all have an Eye to the great End of all your Studies,
which is to obtain the Clearest Conceptions of Divine
Things and to lead you to a Saving Knowledge of God in
his Son Jesus Christ."12
The College of Rhode Island (Brown University) was founded
by Baptists in 1764 as their major center for the training of the
ministry. Ninety years later, Rev. Dr. Cutting, in the New York
Recorder, Sept. 20, 1854, stated, "Never were men more decided in
religious faith than the settlers of Rhode Island. . . . We
suppose this to be the true spirit of Brown University."13 Two
years after the founding of Brown University, the pro-revivalists
among the Dutch Reformed obtained a charter in New Jersey for
Queen's College (Rutgers University).
With respect to Smith College, the third article of the will
of its founder, Sophia Smith, stated:
Sensible of what the Christian religion has done for
myself, and believing that all education should be for
the glory of God and the good of man, I direct that the
Holy Scriptures be daily and systematically read and
studied in said college, and that all the discipline
shall be pervaded by the spirit of evangelical
Christian religion.14
The list of colleges and universities founded in America for
similar purposes is almost endless. Even as late as in 1891,
Russell H. Conwell introduced institutional features in his
Baptist Temple in Philadelphia, leading to the establishment of
Temple University.
Yet, by the middle of the twentieth century, every single
one of these institutions was dominated by a world view that was
stridently and actively anti-Christian. Wilbur M. Smith wrote:
Going into the very center of Yale's religious life,
that is, the famous Divinity School, we state, with
sadness, that Dr. Douglas Clyde Macintosh, a member of
the faculty of the Divinity School since 1909, and the
Dwight professor of Theology in the same institution
from 1916-1933, is one who has repudiated all the
miracles concerning Christ, and has gone so far as to
declare, as we noted before, that "The Jesus of
Christian tradition must die that He may live." . . .
Concerning Smith College, . . . for eight years,
1923-1930, Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes held the chair of
Historical Sociology, and was allowed to drill into the
thousands of students that sat under him, his own
hatred for the Christian religion. He has said that he
is "unutterably opposed to all vestiges of the old
supernaturalism," and he wrote a whole book, not one of
great influence, but one of vicious bitterness,
significantly called, The Twilight of Christianity.
Elsewhere this prolific writer, an outstanding
historian, has said: "It behooves all honest and
informed friends of religion to construct the framework
of the new religion on a tenable superstructure. To do
so it appears to the writer that they will have to
surrender these essential characteristics of the older
religion: (1) the reality and deity of the biblical
God; (2) the uniqueness and divinity of Jesus and His
special relevance for contemporary religion; (3) the
belief in immortality." It is a long way from the will
of the founder, to such a position of antagonism to the
things which she considered fundamental.
Another famous school for young women is Bryn Mawr
College. President Rhoads, in his inaugural address,
spoke of the founder of Bryn Mawr, Dr. Joseph Wright
Taylor, in the following words: "It was his prayer that
Bryn Mawr should become in the highest and most blessed
sense a school of Christ, in which the student should
learn of Him under the training and gracious discipline
of His Holy Spirit, the lessons of His truth and love."
It was at Bryn Mawr, we remember, that Professor
William Lyon Phelps was told that he would not be
allowed to express his faith in evangelical Christian
truths, if he were a member of the faculty. It was at
Bryn Mawr that one of the outstanding antagonists of
even theism itself was a member of the faculty for
forty-four years, Dr. James Henry Leuba, the
psychologist, who, in his book, God or Man, devotes an
entire chapter to what he calls "The Evils Done by
Christianity." . . .
Amherst College was once one of the most markedly
Christian collegiate institutions in America, but the
President of Amherst College from 1912-1924 was
Alexander Meiklejohn, who, in his latest book,
Education between Two Worlds, has come out emphatically
as a denier of the existence of God. . . .
Columbia University began as King's College, in
the city of New York. The advertisement in the New
York Gazette for June 3, 1752, affirmed, "The chief
thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and
engage the Children to know God in Jesus Christ, and to
love and serve him, in all Sobriety, Godliness, and
Righteousness of life, with a perfect heart, and a
willing mind." Columbia University today has the
greatest concentration of antisupernaturalists on its
faculty of any university in our country, including the
three famous men of the Department of Philosophy, John
Dewey, William P. Montague, and Will Durant, as well as
a great host of rationalists scattered in other
departments.
For over fifty years Mark Hopkins was a professor
of Psychology and Philosophy at Williams College (1830-
1887), and published in 1846 his famous Lectures on the
Evidences of Christianity, one of the most important
apologetic works to appear in the nineteenth century.
A successor, not his immediate successor, but the one
holding the same chair, for over a quarter of a
century, since 1905, was Professor James Bissett Pratt.
And it is this Professor Pratt who has said, "Men can
get on without the Bible."
And what of Princeton University? Its president
for twenty years, from 1868 to 1888, was Dr. James
McCosh, scholar, theologian, Calvinist, defender of the
faith; and for the next four years, to 1892, its
president was the distinguished philosopher, Dr.
Francis L. Patton, one of the outstanding apologists of
the last half century; both of them mighty servants of
God, glorying in the pre-eminence and the redemption
and the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that has
gone in Princeton University. For example, as we have
noticed before, the one who for many years was the
distinguished head of the important department of
Biology, Dr. Edward Grant Conklin, in his last book,
just recently published, denies the supernatural,
denies the personality of God, and says that "The
religion of sciences leaves us to faith in the work and
dignity and almost boundless possibilities of
man." . . .
Dartmouth College was founded by Eleazar Wheelock,
an ordained clergyman, who wanted to establish a school
where Indians of New England could be trained in the
truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who
was the first president of Dartmouth (1769-1779). He
was followed by his son, John Wheelock, president for a
third of a century (1779-1815). As a later president
said, at Dartmouth's centenary celebration, "Dartmouth
College was conceived in the fervor of piety; born in
the throes of a great missionary zeal, dedicated at
birth to Christ; cradled the first year in a revival,
and stands wedded to religion--until death." One of
its greatest presidents, under whom Dartmouth
experience unusual growth, Nathan Lord (1828-1863), was
one who, says the latest historian of Dartmouth, "based
the entire philosophy of life upon a belief in the
literal accuracy and inerrancy of Holy Writ . . . He
was insistent that God should be the main spring of all
the activities of man." It was Nathan Lord himself
who, in a famous letter to the alumni of Dartmouth
College on its anniversary in 1869, said: "For Christ
the college was founded and has been administered. To
Christ all its influence in all time belongs." . . .
And what is the condition of Dartmouth today? In
the first place, chapel is not compulsory, nor any
religious meeting. Furthermore, no course in Bible is
compulsory. All of its religious courses are called
electives. Eight courses in the latest catalogue of
Dartmouth are designated in the Department of Biblical
History and Literature, one in Archeology and History,
one in Philosophy of Religion, one in the Great World
Religions, and one in Ethics. The catalogue would not
really indicate that any course is to be found in
Dartmouth College strictly devoted to the
interpretation of the Word of God. There are more
courses offered in Dartmouth College today in the one
subject of Biography than in the whole realm of
biblical history, religion, and religious literature.
These are what we might call only technical matters of
curriculum. There is more to be said than that.
In the student periodical published by Dartmouth,
and about Dartmouth, The Dartmouth, in 1927, the
following terrible statement appears: "Dartmouth has
always been considered a liberal college. Graduate and
undergraduate alike take pride in the freedom of
thought that is permitted here. . . . On the religious
question it is only to be expected that Dartmouth shows
a large percentage of atheists and agnostics.
Dartmouth is proud of her disbelievers." . . .
The famous Mexican artist, at that time, we
believe, a member of the faculty at Dartmouth, Jos
Clemente Orozco, was asked to paint a series of
fourteen panels setting forth an epic of civilization,
in the great Baker Library, for which he was given
three thousand square feet of wall space. The last of
these fourteen panels, photographs of which are
reproduced in an elaborate brochure on this particular
work published by Dartmouth College, is called, "Modern
Negation of the Spirit." Under it, at least in the
official description of it, is the following statement:
"Here a militant Christ figure is shown, axe in hand,
and his cross at his feet, symbolic of an aroused and
aggressive spirituality. He stands against a great
junk heap in which appear the destroyed symbols of
antiquated creeds and of the confessional forms of all
religions." The words hardly communicate what the
picture so dreadfully sets forth. It is actually a
picture of Christ with a hideous, ascetic, glaring,
almost satanic gaze, with an axe in His hand, having
chopped down His own cross, which rests on the ground
before Him. In other words, in our modern day we have
come to such a place of wisdom and freedom and
emancipation that these can only be represented by a
picture in which the cross itself is shown as a
despised symbol. To the voice that was heard from
heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased," Dartmouth answers, "This is one who in
His holy death we despise and reject." This is what
sixty years have done to one college in America.
A perfect illustration of the skeptical and anti-
religious influence which Dartmouth officially is
determined to exercise is given in a book published by
Dartmouth in 1924, Essays Toward Truth: Studies in
Orientation. These chapters, so the title page tells
us, were selected by Kenneth Allen Robinson, William B.
Pressey, James Dow McCallum, of the Department of
English, Dartmouth College. These essays, we are told
in the Preface, "Represent no one point of view,
advance no propaganda, and dispose of nothing
completely. Their purpose is rather to present many
points of view, some of them definitely conflicting.
Their purpose is to stimulate the student to develop
his own capacity for rational thinking and thereby
achieve for himself the beginnings of a social
perspective and a social philosophy." When, however,
one looks at the material in this book and the authors
whose essays are here brought together, one realizes
that what these professors mean by "rational thinking"
is thinking strictly apart from any divine revelation,
thinking that leaves out God, and thinking that centers
exclusively in man. Among the authors of these essays
are James Harvey Robinson, Alexander Meiklejohn, John
Dewey, Bertrand Russell, John Haynes Holmes, and James
Bissett Pratt. All these men are antisupernaturalists,
and some of them are pronounced atheists.15
__________________________________
1History, Essays, Orations, and other Documents of the Sixth
General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, Held in New York,
October 2-12, 1873, ed. by Philip Schaff and S. Irenaeus Prime
(New York, 1874), pp. 527, 249-54, as quoted by George M.
Marsden, "From Fundamentalism to Evangelicalism: A Historical
Analysis," in David F. Wells and John D. Woodbridge, eds., The
Evangelicals (New York: Abingdon Press, 1975), p. 122.
2H. L. Mencken, Prejudices, Fourth Series (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1924), pp. 78-79, as quoted by Marsden, p. 123.
3John S. North, Introduction to Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of
Christendom (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1980), pp. viii-ix.
4Quoted by Terry Eastland, "In Defense of Religious America,"
Commentary (June 1981), p. 39.
5Quoted in Ibid.
6Quoted in Ibid.
7Perry Miller, ed., The Legal Mind in America (New York:
Doubleday, 1962), p. 178.
8Quoted by Eastland, p. 39.
9Quoted by Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935), p. 432.
10Quoted by Josiah Quincy, The History of Harvard University
(Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co., 1860), vol. I, p. 475.
11Thomas Clap, Yale Annals, p. 2, as quoted by Richard Warch,
School of the Prophets, Yale College, 1701-1740 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1973), p. 20.
12Louis Leonard Tucker, Puritan Protagonist: President Thomas
Clap of Yale College (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina
Press, 1962), pp. 78-79.
13Quoted by Reuben Aldridge Guild, Life, Times, and
Correspondence of James Manning and the Early History of Brown
University (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1864), p. 46, footnote 1.
14Quoted by Ernest Gordon, The Leaven of the Sadducees
(Philadelphia, 1926), p. 116.
15Wilbur M. Smith, Therefore Stand (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co.,
1945), pp. 113-120.
THE PROCESS OF SECULARIZATION
The developments of the early twentieth century were
actually the result of a long process of secularization that has
been taking place in Western civilization since the seventeenth
century. Of course, there have been infidels in all ages of
history, but the focus here is upon the state of the culture as a
whole at any given point in time. One excellent barometer of the
state of a culture is the readiness with which most of the people
will seize upon the expression of any given idea and run with it.
Books become best-sellers because the ideas within them strike a
resonating chord within the hearts and minds of the public at a
particular time. This was the case, for example, for the
writings of Voltaire in the eighteenth century and of Darwin's
works in the nineteenth. The ideas of these men had found
expression at earlier times, but the world was not yet ready to
accept them.
This readiness to accept ideas is not the result of
intellectual sophistication, as many secular historians assert.
Rather, it is the result of the spiritual climate of the age,
which, unfortunately, has been steadily deteriorating for the
past three hundred years. In the midst of this, there have
always been those who have maintained a clear conscience before
God and a sincere faith in the Bible as it presents itself. The
testimony of these people has been precious, but the wider
culture in which they have lived has been declining slowly.
The path of Western intellectual history is fairly self-
evident to any competent historian: simple Christian faith gave
way in the seventeenth century to a subtle epistemological shift.
Descartes, with his dictum, "I think, therefore I am," had
shifted the basis of authority from revelation to man's reason.
Although Descartes was a dedicated Christian who was attempting
to defend the faith against skepticism, he helped to set into
motion a rationalistic approach that eventually ended in atheism
three centuries later.
This rejection of revelation as the absolute authority for
the determination of truth led to the rejection of the complete
infallibility of the Bible, which in turn led to the rejection of
the Bible's authority on some points. In the mid-eighteenth
century, there was a secularization of science, such that
teleological explanations for natural phenomena, such as those
used by Sir Isaac Newton, were no longer considered acceptable.
A rejection of absolutes soon followed, along with a rejection of
divine purpose of any kind. During the first half of the
nineteenth century, there was a rejection of a universal flood
during the time of Noah, and a much more widespread rejection of
the possibility of miracles. With the publication of Darwin's
works in the late nineteenth century, the historicity of Adam and
Eve was rejected, and an explanation apart from that given in the
Bible was found for the origin of life. With these developments,
the rejection of Christianity, and of God's existence, soon
followed.
Descartes is not to blame for this downward spiral. Each
step of the way could have been checked if the culture as a whole
were not in rebellion against God. In fact, Descartes was
attempting to defend the faith against skepticism. The "new
pyrrhonism," beginning with the Jesuit theologian, Juan Maldonat
in the 1560s, was a movement among Roman Catholics who were
seeking to undermine Protestantism. They hoped to demonstrate
that Protestants were hopelessly at a loss for any understanding
of the Bible apart from the interpretive powers of the Popes and
the rest of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. They
sought to show that reliance upon the witness of the Holy Spirit
or upon regenerated reason was insufficient for a correct
interpretation of the Scriptures.
The efforts of these apologists for Roman Catholicism had
the effect of raising a cloud of skepticism among Catholics and
Protestants alike. People began to have doubts about being able
to know anything at all, let alone the doctrines of the Bible.
Then, in 1628 and 1629, Descartes believed that he had bit upon
the answer. He knew that he was thinking beyond all reasonable
doubt. And he therefore knew something, namely, that he existed.
And if he existed, then his creator must also exist. From this
chain of reasoning, he was able to demonstrate the existence of
all things. He wrote about his discovery of a method of
rebutting the arguments of the skeptics in his Discourse on
Method (1637) and Meditations (1641).
Descartes was thinking and writing in an era of crisis of
authority. The Roman Catholics were saying that the Roman Church
and the Pope were the authority, while the Protestants were
saying that the Bible was the authority. The "new pyrrhonism"
was saying that the Protestants, without the Roman Church, were
left with no way of determining what was authoritative, because
each person`s view of the Bible was different. In fact, nothing
could be determined with certainty. Descartes turned around and
said, "but I know that I think; therefore I know with certainty
that at least I exist. And from this I can derive everything
else."
Descartes did not intend to make man the measure of all
things, but his argument, unfortunately, made the individual the
source for epistemological authority rather than God himself.
His starting place was man rather than God, and Western culture
took this methodology and ran with it.
If epistemology has man as its point of departure, then man
is at liberty to choose whether to believe that the Bible is
really infallible. The door was opened for apostasy, and Western
culture began to take advantage of it.
Until about 1680 or 1685, it was commonly accepted in the
West that the Bible was infallible. But during the period 1680-
1715, a dramatic change took place in Western thought. Paul
Hazard has referred to this period as that of "The Crisis of the
European Mind." Suddenly, it was possible to entertain some
doubts about Biblical infallibility. Although Thomas Hobbes and
Baruch Spinoza had already gone much further than this, Western
culture as a whole was not yet ready for as blatant a form of
apostasy as these two men had advocated.
But debates at this time between Jean LeClerc and Richard
Simon shook the confidence of the intellectual leaders of
civilization in the complete infallibility of the Bible. Among
these leaders was John Locke. In 1661, Locke had written a
defense of Biblical infallibility. But by the 1690s, his
confidence had been shaken. His Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (1690) and The Reasonableness of Christianity
(1695) demonstrate this subtle shift in his thinking. John
Woodbridge wrote:
In one sense a Rubicon was traversed during the prelude
to the European Enlightenment (1680-1715). Savants
such as John Lock, Isaac Newton, and Pierre Bayle
participated in that last generation in which notable
European shapers of culture, who were not churchmen,
seriously entertained the premise of complete biblical
infallibility, at least for a time. The Voltaires, the
Humes, the Rousseaus, the Diderots, the Lessings, and
the Kants who followed them and who tended the
Enlightenment of the eighteenth century no longer found
that doctrine credible.1
With the rejection of the Bible's complete infallibility,
the door was opened for the rejection of the Bible's authority.
One by one, various Biblical doctrines came into question and
were ultimately rejected. For example, the idea that Christ is
the only way to salvation and that all of mankind is subject to
original sin came into question when, in 1703, Lahontan launched
the conception of the bon savage (noble savage) leading a moral
life by the light of "natural religion," i.e., apart from the
Bible ("revealed religion").
The eighteenth century was known as the period of the
"Enlightenment," a serious misnomer by Biblical standards. It
was a period of darkness in which Biblical authority was
progressively whittled away in favor of the authority of man's
autonomous reason. The works of infidels became increasingly
popular, and, to a greater and greater extent, belief in the
Bible came to be ridiculed as intellectually unsophisticated.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, there was a
rejection of teleology in science. That is, it became
meaningless to ask why natural phenomena are as they are.
Suddenly, any references to divine agency or divine purpose in
the explanation of natural phenomena was considered unscientific.
This was a serious departure from the methodology of Isaac Newton
(1642-1727), who believed that it was by the continual
intervention of God that celestial bodies were able to keep in
orbit without falling, and that it was by God's design that the
orbits of all the planets are on the same plane.
D'Alembert asserted that the conservation of motion could be
explained without resorting to the invocation of divine
intervention. Buffon pointed out that the formation of the solar
system by the collision of a comet with the sun was the kind of
natural occurrence that could account for the orbits of the
planets being in the same plane. A self-regulating universal
order had no need in it for any divine intervention.
The mid-eighteenth century was also a time of the rejection
of absolutes. In 1754, Condillac's Trait des Sensations stated
that "the good and the beautiful are by no means absolutes; they
are relative to the character of the man who judges and to the
way in which he is organized."2 Along with this was a rejection
of divine purpose. In his Systme de la nature (1770), d'Holbach
wrote:
The whole cannot have an object, for outside itself
there is nothing towards which it can tend.3
It is important to note that these sentiments were not yet
universal; they were on the "cutting edge" of intellectual
"progress." Large numbers of people still believed in divine
intervention and divine purpose, but these things were no longer
part of the intellectual consensus. It should also be noted that
the existence of God had not yet been rejected. These people
still considered atheism to be unthinkable. Most of those who
rejected teleology in Science, absolutes, and divine purpose,
were Deists who still believed that God exists, that it is our
duty to worship Him; that the proper way to do so is to practice
virtue, that people ought to repent of their sins, and that
rewards and punishments will follow death.
Increasingly during the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, there was a rejection of miracles. Then, with the
publication in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of Species, there was a
fast waning of belief in the historicity of Adam and Eve and of
the creation story, and the process of secularization was almost
complete. Within a few generations, the existence of God Himself
had become an unnecessary "hypothesis."
__________________________________
1John Woodbridge, Biblical Authority (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1982), p. 99.
2Quoted by Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment (New York: Penguin
Books, 1968), p. 113.
3Quoted by Ibid., p. 94.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND CHRISTIANITY
It is evident from the foregoing that the period of the
Enlightenment was the crucial step in the waning of civilization.
This was as true in the area of morals as it was in the
intellectual arena. Francis Asbury related that the spiritual
climate at that time in England was "a very dark, dark, dark day
and place."1
Historian Keith J. Hardman has described conditions at that
time as follows:
In the first half of the eighteenth century every area
of British life had large problems. Morality was at a
low ebb, and no class of society was untouched by
incredible grossness and bestiality. It was the "gin
age," when 506 of the 2,000 houses in the London area
of Holborn were gin shops. Gin was sold also from
wheelbarrows in the streets and secretly from attics
and cellars. The results of national drunkenness,
Bishop Benson said, had made the English people "what
they never were before, cruel and inhuman."
The case of Judith Dufour, recorded in the Old
Bailey Session Papers for February 1735, is similar to
many that could be recited to show the stranglehold the
liquor traffic had on multitudes. This woman took her
small child to the workhouse, where it was given
clothing. She then left the workhouse, strangled the
child, threw the body in a ditch, sold the clothes for
one shilling and fourpence, and immediately spent the
money on gin, which she shared with another woman who
had helped in the murder.
Vast fortunes were amassed from the manufacture of
cheap alcohol, and alcohol's effects were everywhere.
"Gentlemen" squires and judges boasted of being "five-
bottle men." Parliament, on numerous occasions, had to
adjourn early because "the honourable Members were too
drunk to continue the business of State." . . .
In any age the treatment of children is an
accurate index of morality or savagery. In the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth century in England,
the death rate of children and the indescribable
treatment toward them tells its own pathetic tale.
During that time the London Bills of Mortality reveal
that 74.5 percent of children of all classes died
before their fifth birthday, and the poor classes had
their children snatched from them even more than the
rich. A petition to Parliament in 1739 to create a
foundlings hospital tells of the constant "murder of
poor miserable infants," of the custom of exposing new-
born babies "to perish in the street," of the placing
of foundlings with "wicked and barbarous nurses" who
for a small sum allow them to "starve for want of due
sustenance or care," and of the few who survived being
turned "into the streets to beg or steal," some being
"blinded, or maimed and distorted in their limbs, in
order to move pity," thus being "fitter instruments of
gain" to "vile, merciless wretches."2
Fortunately, the Evangelical Awakening (known in America as
the Great Awakening) helped to bring about changes to these
serious conditions. Nevertheless, unbelief continued in its
progress, particularly in France.
One of the most effective popularizers of the ideas of the
Enlightenment was Voltaire, who wrote prolifically on almost
every subject. In his Philosphe ignorant (1766) he wrote:
Who are you? Where do you come from? What are you
dong? What will become of you? This is a question one
must put to every creature in the universe, but none of
them gives us any answer.3
Elsewhere, Voltaire had written (in Micromgas, published in
1752), a story about a voyager from Sirius, whose intellectual
faculties far exceeded those of man. He offered as a parting
gift to his European hosts a book of philosophy in which they
could read the ultimate meaning of life. This book was taken to
the Academy of Sciences in Paris, but when the secretary,
Fontenelle, opened it, he found the pages completely blank.
"Ah," he said, "that's just what I expected."
It is clear from these examples that, once the Bible was no
longer taken seriously, there were no longer any answers to the
meaning of life. As has been ably demonstrated by the great
Christian apologist of the twentieth century, Francis Schaeffer,
this state of affairs inevitably leads to despair and
hopelessness. If there is going to be any optimism at all, it
must come from a recognition of the truth of the Bible and its
claims. Apart from it, there is really no basis for optimism,
hope, or absolutes of any kind. Ultimately, the "Enlightenment"
led to this kind of despair.
__________________________________
1Francis Asbury, The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury
(Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1958), vol. I, pp. 720-721.
2Keith J. Hardman, The Spiritual Awakeners (Chicago: Moody Press,
1983), pp. 75-76.
3Quoted by Hampson, p. 122.
THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF SECULAR HUMANISM
While rationalism took hold as a result of the philosophical
work of Ren Descartes, the tendency to make man the measure of
all things certainly did not originate with his philosophy. This
tendency characterized some of the leaders of the Renaissance,
who were also often anthropocentric, or humanistic, in outlook.
Even in the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas made a distinction
between nature and grace. This idea took hold and became the
basis for (1) the tendency in science to differentiate between
natural causes and secondary causes, (2) the distinction that
developed in theology between natural religion and revealed
religion, and (3) the distinction made by Immanuel Kant between
the noumenal and the phenomenal.
The idea that the natural world is in some sense divorced
from the supernatural world often quickly resolves itself into a
materialistic world view according to which there is no
supernatural at all. In other words, as Francis Schaeffer has
observed, "nature eats up grace."1
The distinction between nature and grace, unfortunately,
became one of the underlying assumptions of many of the leaders
of Renaissance humanism. And, as the word "humanism" implies,
very often man and his thinking were considered authoritative
rather than God and his revelation as given in the Scriptures, or
man's thinking guided by revelation. To a large degree, this was
done on an unconscious level by those who affirmed the complete
infallibility of the Bible and upheld its complete authority.
Yet, with the development of humanism during the Renaissance,
there was an increased emphasis upon man.2
Thus, Alexander Solzhenitsyn state in the commencement
address for Harvard University on June 8, 1978:
There are meaningful warnings that history gives a
threatened or perishing society. They are, for
instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great
statesmen. . . .
The American intelligentsia lost its nerve, and as
a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to
the United States. But there is no awareness of this.
. . .
This means that the mistake must be at the root,
at the very basis of human thinking in the past
centuries. I refer to the prevailing Western view of
the world, which was first born during the Renaissance
and found its political expression in the period of the
Enlightenment. It became the basis for government and
social science and could be defined as rationalistic
humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and
enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above
him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with
man seen as the center of everything that exists. . . .
This new way of thinking, which had imposed on us
its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic
evil in man nor did it see any higher task than the
attainment of happiness on earth. . . .
Two hundred, or even fifty, years ago, it would
have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an
individual could be granted boundless freedom simply
for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims.
Subsequently, however, all such limitations were
discarded everywhere in the West: a total liberation
occurred from the moral heritage of Christian
centuries. . . .
All the glorified technological achievements of
Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not
redeem the twentieth century's moral poverty, which no
one could imagine even as late as in the nineteenth
century.3
__________________________________
1Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape from Reason (Downers Grove, Ill.:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), p. 9.
2Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Old Tappan, NJ:
Fleming H. Revell Co., 1976), p. 62.
3Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "The Exhausted West," in Dtente:
Prospects for Democracy and Dictatorship (New Brunswick:
Transaction Books, 1980), pp. 10-15.
SECULAR HUMANISM: AN EVALUATION
How are we to evaluate the secular humanism which is quickly
bringing about the death of our culture? One of the tenets of
secular humanism is that Christian believers are credulous and
sentimental, and that one must be a materialist, a scientist, and
a humanist to have a skeptical mind. Yet the very opposite is
true. Those who retain simple faith in the Scriptures in an
environment of secular humanism are not credulous. Rather, they
are the careful thinkers. They are the ones who have considered
secular humanism and rejected it. They are the ones who have
better developed critical faculties. It is the secular humanists
who are credulous. Malcolm Muggeridge has written, quite
rightly, that the age in which we are now living "will go down in
history as one of the most credulous ever."1
Those who have had the courage to think for themselves, not
blindly following the leadership of the intelligentsia of the
twentieth century, can hardly be considered naive or simplistic.
It is precisely because people have not been thinking for
themselves that so many of them have fallen into the erroneous
world view of twentieth-century scholarship. Let us wake up! Is
it not evident by the end results that we in our culture are in
serious error?
Who is the naive one: the academician who blindly accepts
the Documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch simply because he or
she is told that its results are assured, or the one who cares to
investigate the theory and subject it to careful scrutiny? The
believer in Christ's view of the authorship of the Pentateuch is
not credulous. Rather, he or she has the courage to disagree
with the consensus because it is found wanting, and because truth
is more important than academic respectability.
The same could be said with respect to the theory of
evolution, and Malcolm Muggeridge has expressed it elegantly:
I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution,
especially the extent to which it's been applied, will
be one of the great jokes in the history books in the
future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and
dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the
incredible credulity that it has. It think I spoke to
you before about this age as one of the most credulous
in history, and I would include evolution as an
example.2
__________________________________
1Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, But Not of Christ
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980), pp.
4-5.
2Ibid., p. 59.
GOD'S JUDGEMENT UPON SIN IN HISTORY
Throughout all of history, God has destroyed the wicked and
granted mercy to a remnant of people who have sought to please
Him in their thoughts and actions.
Nowhere is this principle more evident than in the Biblical
account of Noah's flood. When the Lord saw that the wickedness
of mankind was great upon the earth, and that every intent of
their hearts was only upon evil continually, He decided to blot
them from the face of the earth, with the exception of Noah and
his immediate family (Genesis 6:5-8). God brought a flood of
water upon the earth and destroyed all of the living creatures
except those that were upon the ark that he had instructed Noah
to build.
The Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah is another
indication of the principle of God's judgement. The Lord said to
Abraham that the outcry of these two cities was indeed great, and
that their sin was exceedingly grave (Genesis 18:20). He sent
angels to rescue Lot and his family from Sodom and then rained
fire and brimstone upon the two cities (Genesis 19:16,24).
God allowed the people of Israel to conquer the Amorites in
Canaan because of their wickedness. He did not allow this
judgement to be executed until the iniquity of the Amorites was
complete (Genesis 15:16). God stays His hand until there is no
way He can allow it to continue.
The principle of God's judgement upon sin is reiterated in
the book of Deuteronomy, where God promises blessings for
obedience and curses for disobedience: "The Lord will send upon
you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do,
until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account
of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me"
(Deut. 28:20).
The Bible is full of examples of God's judgement upon
wickedness and His mercy upon repentant people and nations.
According to the Bible, this principle is applicable not only to
Israel, but to all nations and individuals. When Nineveh
repented because of Jonah's warning, it was spared from God's
judgement (Jonah 3:10). When Belshazzar did not repent, his
kingdom was taken over by the Medes and the Persians
(Daniel 5:22-31).
The fact of God's judgement is not restricted to the Bible.
It is evident throughout all of history. One of the greatest
testimonies to this principle is in the fall of Rome. The
decadence of ancient Rome is well known and well documented.
Infanticide and abortion were commonplace; the pursuit of
pleasure for its own sake was taken for granted; peoples' hearts
had been hardened. God used the Germanic "barbarian" tribes to
execute His judgement upon ancient Rome, but something very
significant happened. The Christian Church escaped unscathed.
It is impossible to overemphasize the significance of this fact.
In A.D. 410, Rome was sacked by the Goths under Alaric. The
Vandals took Rome in A.D. 455, and finally Attila the Hun invaded
the western part of the Roman Empire and conquered Rome in
A.D. 476. The entire Roman Empire fell, but the Church survived.
How is this possible? Many of the barbarian tribes had accepted
Christianity and respected the bishop of Rome. The Roman bishop
was able to protect the people, to a certain extent, from the
worst excesses of the barbarians, while the emperor had been
powerless to protect them. For example, at one point prior to
A.D. 461, the intercession of Leo I saved the city from complete
destruction. When the dust cleared, the only thing left standing
among the blackened ruins of the Western Empire was the Church,
which was ready to bless and educate the barbarians who had
brought about this ruin.
The institutional church itself, however, is not immune from
the judgement of God. When it apostatized, accepting as fact the
principles of the Enlightenment, it slit its own throat. The
downfall of the institutional Church is described in Malcolm
Muggeridge's book, The End of Christendom, But Not Of Christ. He
wrote that Blaise Pascal foresaw the danger that the
Enlightenment posed to the institutional church:
Because he understood how important humility is and
because he could recognize the arrogance that was
growing up among scholars and learned people, he
foresaw the dangers that the Enlightenment would bring.
. . .
He was the first and perhaps is still the most
effective voice to be raised in warning of the
consequences of the enthronement of the human ego in
contradistinction to the cross, symbolizing the ego's
immolation. How beautiful it all seemed at the time of
the Enlightenment, that man triumphant would bring to
pass that earthly paradise whose groves of academe
would ensure the realization forever of peace, plenty,
and beatitude in practice. But what a nightmare of
wars, famines, and folly was to result therefrom.1
Muggeridge's thesis is that, while Christendom is
floundering, Christ's Christianity is flourishing. This is just
what we should expect if the principle of God's blessings and
curses is true. Christendom is an administrative power structure
based upon Christianity and constructed by men. Christ's Church,
on the other hand, is invisible, and is a kingdom which is not of
this world. It includes all of those who are truly loyal to
Christ. Christ's Church consists of the obedient. The
institutional Church is a collection of ecclesiastical bodies
that collectively affirms the principles of the Enlightenment.
If the institutional church is able to humble itself and throw
off the yolk of the Enlightenment, then it, too, can flourish.
Nowhere is the principle of God' judgement upon sin more
evident than in the early history of America. In the history of
the early American colonists, one finds a continual cycle of
repentance and apostasy:
One finds long droughts broken by a settlement's
deliberately fasting and humbling itself, turning back
to the God whom they once trusted and had imperceptibly
begun to take for granted. One also finds instances of
one settlement being spared from Indian attack, while
another is decimated, when the only apparent difference
seemed to be in their heart attitude towards God and
one another.2
Prior to the colonization of the New World, the explorers
experienced another form of God's judgement. The crew that had
been with Christopher Columbus during the discovery of the New
World took native women for pleasure. Unknown to them, many of
these women were carriers of a strange and deadly disease which
would later become known as syphilis. The men infected became
subject to a lingering, excruciatingly painful insanity and
death. These sailors returned from their voyage, introduced the
new plague to Spain, and from there, to the rest of the civilized
world.
More than a hundred years later, the early Pilgrims in New
England found that obedience was necessary in order to avert the
judgement of God. In April of 1623, there were twelve weeks of
drought, the likes of which had never been seen by the oldest
native Indians. Edward Winslow wrote:
There scarce fell any rain, so that the stalk of that
was first set, began to send forth the ear before it
came to half growth, and that which was later, not like
to yield any at all, both blade and stalk hanging the
head and changing the color in such manner as we judged
it utterly dead. Our beans also ran not up according
to their wonted manner, but stood at a stay, many being
parched away, as though they had been scorched before
the fire. Now were our hopes overthrown, and we
discouraged, our joy turned into mourning . . . because
God, which hitherto had been our only shield and
supporter, now seemed in His anger to arm Himself
against us. And who can withstand the fierceness of
His wrath?
These and the like considerations moved not only
every good man privately to enter into examination with
his own estate between God and his conscience, and so
to humiliation before Him, but also to humble ourselves
together before the Lord by fasting and prayer. To
that end, a day was appointed by public authority, and
set apart from all other employments.
But, O the mercy of our God, who was as ready to
hear, as we were to ask! For though in the morning,
when we assembled together, the heavens were as clear
and the drought as like to continue as it ever was, yet
(our exercise continuing some eight or nine hours)
before our departure, the weather was overcast, the
clouds gathered on all sides. On the next morning
distilled such soft, sweet and moderate showers of
rain, continuing some fourteen days and mixed with such
seasonable weather, as it was hard to say whether our
withered corn or drooping affections were most
quickened or revived, such was the bounty and goodness
of our God!3
The other early settlers in New England also frequently
found that repentance was necessary to avoid God's judgement. In
the summer of 1646, after prosperity had begotten greed and
idolatry, there was a plague of caterpillars which was ruining
the wheat and barley crops. John Winthrop wrote:
Great harm was done in corn (especially wheat and
barley) in this month by a caterpillar, like a black
worm about an inch and a half long. They eat up first
the blades of the stalk, then they eat up the tassels,
whereupon the ear withered. It was believed by divers
good observers that they fell in a great thunder
shower, for divers yards and other bare places where
not one of them was to be seen an hour before, were
presently after the shower almost covered with them,
besides grass places where they were not so easily
discerned. They did the most harm in the southern
parts, as in Rhode Island, etc., and in the eastern
parts in their Indian corn. In divers places the
churches kept a day of humiliation, and presently
after, the caterpillars vanished away.4
According to the Roxbury church records:
Much prayer there was made to God about it, with
fasting in divers places, and the Lord heard and on a
sudden, took them away again in all parts of the
country, to the wonderment of all men. It was the
Lord, for it was done suddenly.5
At the end of the twentieth century, civilization faces a
choice: either genuine repentance or God's judgement. There are
no other alternatives. Either the world is quickly coming to an
end, or it will soon make an about-face unparalleled for
centuries. Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it this way:
If the world has not come to its end, it has approached
a major turn in history, equal in importance to the
turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will
exact from us a spiritual upsurge: we shall have to
rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life,
where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the
Middle Ages, but, even more important, our spiritual
being will not be trampled upon as in the modern era.6
__________________________________
1Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, But Not of Christ
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980),
pp. 7-8.
2Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Old
Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1977), pp. 24-25.
3Quoted by Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers
(Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), pp. 347-350.
4John Winthrop, The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, ed.
James Savage (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1853), vol. II, p.
277.
5W. DeLoss Love, Jr., The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New
England (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1895), p. 181, as
quoted by Marshall and Manuel, p. 217.
6Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "The Exhausted West," in Dtente:
Prospects for Democracy and Dictatorship (New Brunswick:
Transaction Books, 1980), pp. 17-18.
GOD'S PROVIDENCE IN HISTORY
It should be evident from the foregoing study of God's
judgement upon sin in history that Biblical principles have been
in effect, not just during the time that the Bible was written,
but at all times. Further evidence of this is available in any
study of the providence of God in history.
Some of the most astonishing examples that can be provided
of the operation of God's providence have to do with the early
exploration and settlement of America. One of many such
incidents took place in 1493, when Christopher Columbus and his
crew were first exploring the New World. When they departed from
C diz and sailed down to the Canaries, they had an incredible
landfall at Dominica, which became the navigating target which
mariners would recommend for the next four centuries. To aim
north meant the possibility of missing the strong trade winds,
while to aim south was to risk hitting dangerous reefs.1
The location of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia can be
cited as another example, either of incredible coincidence, or of
divine providence. In spring of 1607, Captain Newport and the
colonists with him sailed through the West Indies up the coast of
America, and into the Chesapeake Bay. On May 14, after sailing
about forty miles up the James River, they landed. Supplies were
very, very scarce, and, in the beginning, there was only a 10%
survival rate. John Smith, one of the members of the original
seven-man council that governed the colony, was very provocative
in his treatment of the Indians, whom he looked upon as savages.
In disobedience to the directives of the other council members,
he continually provoked the Indians. In view of these factors,
it is surprising that the colony survived at all.
In the providence of God, however, the neighboring Powhatan
Indians dealt very kindly in spite of Smith's hostility.
Concerning the location of the Jamestown settlement, Peter
Marshall and David Manuel have written:
Was it chance that guided the first settlers to
Powhatan's domain on Chesapeake Bay? The East Coast
was populated by some of the most hostile Indian tribes
in all America. We have already seen the ferocity of
the Seminoles, who kept the Spanish from any
significant colonization of Florida. And inland to the
north, the diabolical Iroquois precluded any thought of
French or English settlement for many years. On
Massachusetts Bay, the Massachusetts Indians were
sufficiently warlike to discourage all but the most
foolhardy, and south of them, the Narragansetts were
equally fearsome. Seen from this vantage point, the
entire East Coast of America seemed fairly to bristle
with arrows and tomahawks. Any one of these tribes
would have annihilated the little colony without any
provocation whatever, let alone the outrages that Smith
was routinely perpetrating.
Or was it the hand of a merciful God that had led
them to perhaps the only place on the Atlantic seaboard
at that particular time where there was any real
possibility of their putting down roots? Powhatan may
have been the only chief on the continent who would
have put up with Smith's behavior, let alone shared his
people's precious corn.2
Another miracle of divine providence took place in May of
1610, when there were only sixty starving settlers at Jamestown
out of 480 who had been there the previous August. Thomas Gates
and George Somers and their men arrived after being shipwrecked
in Bermuda, but when they saw the terrible condition of the
colony, they began to leave rather than use up their own
provisions on these starving people. As they were leaving,
however, Lord De La Warr arrived in a very large ship. At his
command, everyone turned around and headed back to the
settlement. According to Marshall and Manuel, "As soon as he set
foot on that desolate, hated piece of land, he knelt and gave
thanks to God for bringing them safely there and causing them to
arrive in time to save all lives. . . . The extraordinary
coincidence of timing was counted by the whole world as an act of
Divine Providence."3 William Crashaw wrote of this incident:
If God had not sent Sir Thomas Gates from the Bermudas,
within four days they had all been famished. If God
had not directed the heart of that worthy Knight to
save the fort from fire . . . If they had set sail
sooner . . . Brachium Domini: this was the arm of the
Lord of Hosts.4
New England was settled a few years later by both the
Pilgrims, who were Separatists, and by Puritans. In Britain, the
Puritans had wanted to see the Church of England purified much
more thoroughly than it had been by the Elizabethan Settlement of
1563. They wanted a spiritually minded pastor in each parish who
was able to preach, and end to clerical dress and an end to
kneeling at the Lord's supper. For each parish, they wanted
elders chosen to exercise discipline, and they wanted the
ministers to be chosen by the people, rather than by a bishop.
In fact, they wanted to abolish the office of bishop.
The Separatists had the same concerns, but they disagreed
with the Puritans about reforming from within. They therefore
separated from the Church of England, believing that each local
church is self-sufficient.
The Pilgrims who established the Plymouth Colony in 1620
were Separatists. In 1628, non-Separatist Puritans founded the
Massachusetts Bay Colony at Salem.
King James I of England had stated that he would force the
Puritans to conform to the rules of the Church of England or he
would "harry them out of the land." He made things so unpleasant
that a congregation in Scrooby, England, south refuge in Leyden,
in the Netherlands, in 1609. However, they did not feel at home
there, and they found it hard to make a living in a foreign
country. They saw their children "being drawn away by evil
examples into extravagant and dangerous courses," so they decided
to seek a new home in the New World. They sailed to Plymouth,
England, and from there they sailed in the Mayflower to Cape Cod,
where they arrived at Plymouth Rock toward the end of 1620.
These Pilgrims had a very strong faith in God, and believed
that He was leading them to America so that they could practice
purity in life and faith. They went through many very serious
struggles, but their lives were also ordered by a series of very
unusual coincidences which they recognized as the hand of God.
After the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod, a sailing shallop
was assembled for use to explore the inner coast of the bay and
to find the right place for settlement. Those who went on the
expedition had a skirmish with the Indians, but escaped harm:
Yet by the special providence of God, none of [the
arrows] either hit or hurt us, though many came close
by us on every side of us, and some coasts which were
hung up in our barricado were shot through and through.
So, after we had given God thanks for our deliverance
. . . we went on our journey and called this place "The
First Encounter."5
After a few days of exploration, there was a remarkable
series of coincidences:
This was to be a day of discoveries, each more amazing
than the one before. The first was that the little
island they were on was in the middle of a perfect
natural harbor, almost completely enclosed. The next
was that the harbor was deep enough to take ships of
twice the draft of the Mayflower.
They rowed the shallop across to the mainland, and
their discoveries came in quick succession. The soil
was rich and fertile. There was a gentle open slope
that rose up from the water's edge which would afford
an ideal place to settle, with excellent drainage and
an open field of fire for muskets and cannon, in case
they had to defend it. There were not one but four
spring-fed creeks close at hand, with the sweetest
water any of them had ever tasted. . . . On the hill a
good twenty acres of ground had already been cleared
and were ready to plant, though there were signs
indicating that for some reason no planting had been
done for several years.6
The Pilgrims later discovered that this area had been the
territory of the Patuxets, a large, hostile tribe that had
barbarously murdered every white man who had landed on their
shores. However, four years before the arrival of the Pilgrims,
a mysterious plague had broken out among them, and killed every
one of them. The devastation had been so complete that
neighboring tribes feared the area. The cleared land which the
Pilgrims found therefore literally belonged to no one. Their
nearest neighbors were the Wampanoags, fifty miles to the
southwest. Their chief, Massasoit, had such wisdom that he ruled
over several other small tribes in that area.
It happened that, just when they were needed, two English-
speaking Indians, at separate times, came into contact with the
Pilgrims. Samoset, a chief of the Algoniquins in Maine, had
learned English from various fishing captains who had been
exploring the coast of Maine. Squanto, another English-speaking
Indian, had actually spent several years in Europe. A Patuxet,
he found his way back to his native land only to find that his
entire tribe had died of disease.
Because these Indians could act as interpreters,
facilitating communication, a peace treaty was concluded with
Massasoit, pledging mutual aid and assistance, which lasted for
forty years and became a model for many that were made
thereafter. Marshall and Manuel wrote:
Massasoit was a remarkable example of God's
providential care for His Pilgrims. He was probably
the only other chief on the northeast coast of America
who (like Powhatan to the south) would have welcomed
the white man as a friend. And the Pilgrims took great
pains not to abuse his acceptance of them. On the
contrary, the record of their relations with him and
his people is a strong testimony to the love of Christ
that was in them.7
Because Squanto formerly lived as a member of the Patuxet
tribe where the Pilgrims settled, and because he had spent many
years in Europe, he went to live with the Pilgrims. He once
again found a purpose for life, after losing his entire family
and tribe: he would teach the Pilgrims how to survive in the
wilderness. According to William Bradford, Squanto was "a
special instrument sent of God for their good, beyond
expectation."8
Another example of the operation of God's sovereignty can be
seen in the circumstances surrounding the reorganization of the
New England Company into the Massachusetts Bay Company. The
Puritans believed that the Kingdom of God could actually be built
on earth, in their lifetimes. While they knew they were sinners,
they were dedicated to living together in obedience to God's laws
under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. All that was needed, they
felt, was the right time, the right place, and the right people,
provided they were willing to commit themselves totally.
In 1628, under King Charles I, William Laud became bishop of
London and began persecuting English clergy who were Puritans.
This brought about the Great Migration, and many Puritans decided
to go to America. They wanted to remain loyal to the Crown and
to the Church of England, but they wanted to be able to live in
true obedience to God, and this was an opportunity to do so.
Therefore, they arranged to reorganize the New England Company as
the Massachusetts Bay Company. Marshall and Manuel wrote:
A new, enlarged charter was routinely processed through
Parliament and presented for His Majesty's signature.
But the King failed to notice that there was no mention
of where the Company's meetings were to be held. He
signed it and forgot about it. The wondrous timing of
God can further be seen in the fact that, less than a
week later, the King dissolved Parliament and took the
reins of the country entirely into his own hands,
thereafter jealously scrutinizing every document to
ensure that his authority was in no way diminished!
The Bay Company's partners were privately
jubilant. There was now nothing binding them to
England, nothing to prevent them from moving to New
England themselves--and taking their charter with them.
Once removed from the suspicious eyes of Church and
Crown, the Company could become a self-governing
commonwealth with the charter as its carte blanche.
Only now, they would be governed by the laws of God,
not merely the laws of men.9
__________________________________
1Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Boston: Little,
Brown & Co., 1942), pp. 404-405.
2Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Old
Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), p. 95.
3Ibid., p. 101.
4George F. Willison, Behold Virginia (New York: Harcourt, Brace &
Co., 1952), p. 120.
5William Bradford and Edward Winslow, Morte's Relation, as quoted
by Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims Fathers (Boston:
Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), pp. 158-159.
6Marshall and Manuel, p. 125.
7Ibid., p. 132.
8William Bradford, History of the Plymouth Plantation 1606-1646,
ed. William T. Davis (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908),
p. 111.
9Marshall and Manuel, pp. 154-155.
THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR NOAH`S ARK
Josephus (A.D. 37-c.100) stated that, in the country called
Carroe, there were "in it the remains of the ark, wherein it is
related that Noah escaped the deluge, and where they are still
shown to such as are desirous to see them."1 Elsewhere, Josephus
wrote:
However, the Armenians call this place ,
the Place of Descent; for the ark being saved in that
place, its remains are showed there by the inhabitants
to this day.
Now all the writers of barbarian histories make
mention of this flood, and of this ark; among whom is
Berossus the Chaldean. For when he was describing the
circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus: "It is
said, there is still some part of this ship in Armenia,
at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people
carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away,
and use chiefly as amulets, for the averting of
mischiefs."--Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote
the Phenician antiquities, and Manases, and a great
many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicholas of
Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular
relation about them; where he speaks thus: "There is a
great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris,
upon which it is reported, that many who fled at the
time of the deluge were saved; and that one who was
carried in an ark, came on shore upon the top of it;
and that the remains of the timber were a great while
preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the
legislator of the Jews wrote."2
The existence of the ark on Mt. Ararat is also mentioned by
Theophilus of Antioch (c. 115-185), who stated, "and of the ark,
the remains are to this day to be seen in the Arabian
mountains."3 A similar statement is made by Epiphanius of
Salamis (c. 315-403), who said, "Do you seriously suppose that we
are unable to prove our point, when even to this day the remains
of Noah's Ark are shown in the country of the Kurds?"4
Chrysostom (c. 345-407), wrote, "Have you heard of the
Flood--of that universal destruction? That was not just a
threat, was it? Did it not really come to pass--was not this
mighty work carried out? Do not the mountains of Armenia testify
to it, where the Ark rested? And are not the remains of the Ark
preserved there to this very day for our admonition?"5
Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) wrote: "Ararat is a mountain
in Armenia, where the historians testify that the Ark came to
rest after the Flood. So even to this day wood remains of it are
to be seen there."6
A thirteenth century Armenian prince, Jehan Haithon, wrote
as follows:
In Armenia there is a very high mountain--the highest
in existence--and its name is Ararat. On that mountain
Noah's Ark landed after the Flood. No one can climb
this mountain because of the great quantity of snow on
it winter and summer. But at the summit a great black
object is always visible, which is said to be the ark
of Noah.7
Sir John Mandeville (d. 1372), an English knight, wrote an
account of his travels between 1322 and 1356. In The Travels,
chapter 13, he writes:
From that city of Artyroun men go to a mountain called
Sabissocolle; and there beside is another mountain
called Ararat, but the Jews call it Taneez, where
Noah's ship rested, and still is upon that mountain;
and men many see it afar in clear weather. That
mountain is full seven miles high; and some men say
that they have seen and touched the ship, and put their
fingers in the parts where the devil went out, when
Noah said "Benedicte."8
Adam Olearus (1603-1671) also travelled extensively, and
wrote that "the Armenians, and the Persians themselves, are of
opinion, that there are still upon the said Mountain some
remainders of the Ark, but that Time hath so hardened them, that
they seem absolutely petrified."9
The ancient traditions of India and China include accounts
of a time when the ancient world was carried away by a flood and
re-peopled by a few who had been preserved miraculously.
According to Hindu tradition, Manu was warned by a great fish
that the earth was about to be engulfed by water. He was told to
build a ship and to put into it all kinds of seeds, together with
the seven Rishis, or holy beings. The flood came as predicted
and covered the whole earth. The ship was made fast to the horns
of the fish, which drew it on safely and finally landed it on the
highest summit of the Himalayas. Manu was then permitted by God
to create the new race of mankind.
There were seven companions of Manu, and, including himself,
eight were saved. Manu is called Satya, or "the righteous."
After the flood, he drank mead and became senseless and lay
asleep, naked. One of the three sons who had been born to him,
Charma, found him and called on his two brothers to witness the
shame of their father, and said, "What has now befallen? In what
state is our sire?" The two brothers were more dutiful than
Charma and hid him with clothes. When he recovered his senses,
and knowing what had happened, he cursed Charma and said to him,
"Thou shalt be a servant of servants."10
According to Chinese tradition, Fah-he escaped from a deluge
which destroyed the human race with the exception of himself, his
wife, his three sons, and three daughters, and from these, the
whole earth was peopled.
Manetho, who lived about 250 B.C., wrote the ancient history
of the Egyptians, according to which there was a worldwide
catastrophe in which a person called Toth was saved. Before the
cataclysm, Toth inscribed on a slab of stone in sacred language
the principles of all knowledge. Afterward, he translated it
into common language. The Egyptians connected the Deluge
tradition with their commemoration of the dead, which was done by
symbolic ceremony, in which the priest placed the image of Osiris
in a sacred ark and launched it into the sea and watched it
disappear from sight.11
In the ancient town of Apamea in Phrygia, there was pillar
upon which was carved an ark, which, according to tradition, had
come to rest on that very spot. A coin was also found on one
side of which was represented an ark with the door wide open and
a patriarchal figure receiving a returning bird into the ark. On
the other side of the coin is a man and his wife leaving the ark.
On the ark itself appears the name "Noe."12
The Roman Flood tradition was preserved by the well-known
Latin poet Ovid, in Metamorphoses, while the Greek writer Plato
preserved material on the flood tradition in his unfinished
dialogue, Critias. Another ancient writer, Lucian (A.D. 120-
180), renders the Greek tradition as follows in his Dialogues on
the Syrian Goddess:
Not one of us now living is descended from the original
race of men, who all perished. We, numerous as we are,
are no other than a second race sprung from Deucalion.
The aborigines were full of pride and insolence,
unfaithful to their promises, inhospitable to
strangers, deaf to supplicants. Hence they were
overtaken by a greater disaster. The earth suddenly
opened its sluices, heavy showers of rain fell, the
rivers swelled, and the sea arose until the waters
everywhere prevailed, and every mortal [perished]
except Deucalion, who on account of his virtue and
piety, was saved to give birth to a new race of men.
He put himself with his wives and children in a great
chest, and thereupon there came to him boars and horses
and lions and serpents and all kind of land animals.
He took them all in, and all the time they were with
him Zeus ordered it so that they did no injury, but
lived together in harmony.13
The native North American Kolushes of Alaska had an ancient
tradition that the father of the Indian tribes formerly lived
toward the rising sun. Having been warned in a dream that a
deluge would desolate the earth, he built a raft on which he
saved himself and his family, and all animals. He floated for
several months on the water. The animals, who could then talk,
complained against him. A new earth at length appeared, and he
then alighted with all the animals, which then lost the power of
speech as a punishment for their complaining.14
The native Mexican historian, Ixtilxochitl, wrote as
follows:
It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this
age and the first world, as they call it, lasted 1,716
years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and
lightning from the sky, and even all the land, without
the exception of anything, and the highest mountains
were covered up and submerged in water fifteen cubits
(caxtolmolatlic); and here they add other fables of how
men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this
destruction in a `toptipetlocali,' which nearly
signifies a closed chest; and how, after men had
multiplied, they erected a very high `zacvali,' which
is today a tower of great height, in order to take
refuge in it should the second world (age) be
destroyed. Presently their languages were confused,
and, not being able to understand each other, they went
to different parts of the earth. The Toltecs,
consisting of seven friends, with their wives, who
understood the same language, came to these parts,
having first passed great land and seas, having lived
in caves, and having endured great hardships in order
to reach this land; they wandered 104 years through
different parts of the world before they reached Hue
Hue Tlapalan, which was in Ce Tecpatl, 520 years after
the Flood.15
Flood traditions of this kind are characteristic of just about
all ancient cultures. Dr. Richard Andree, a German scholar, has
compiled a collection of 88 different flood traditions from
various cultures around the world.16
There have been many modern sightings of Noah's ark. In
1905, a ten-year-old Armenian boy, Georgie Hagopian, went with
his uncle from Azerbajain in Old Persia to Mount Ararat and saw
Noah's ark.17 An interview with Mr. Hagopian is printed in John
Warwick Montgomery's book, The Quest for Noah's Ark, which refers
to him as George Tamisian.18
In 1916, during the First World War, a Russian airman, W.
Roskovitsky, flying over Mt. Ararat, stated that he had observed
on one of the slopes of Mt. Ararat the remains of an ancient
vessel. The Czar organized an expedition, which found the
remains in question and brought back a description of them which
was conclusive with respect to their identification. The report
was lost during the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.19
In the 1930s a New Zealander, Hardwicke Knight, stumbled
upon the remains of Noah's ark without realizing what it was
until some time later.20 Then, in 1952, George Jefferson Greene
took photographs of Noah's ark from a helicopter. These
photographs were lost ten years later, when he was murdered for
his gold.21
There have been many recent reports of sightings of Noah's
ark, including that of Chuck Aaron of Orlando, Florida, in
September of 1989. He and Bob Garbe photographed the ark during
a September 15 flight. These photos are available from the
Immanuel Expedition Foundation in Orlando, Florida.22
__________________________________
1Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XX, ii, 2, in The
Works of Flavius Josephus, 2 vols., trans. William Whiston
(Philadelphia: J. Grigg, 1833), vol. II, p. 107.
2Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, I, iii, 5 and 6, in Whiston,
vol. I, pp. 17, 18.
3Ad Autolycum, book 3, chapter 19, trans. Marcus Dodds, in the
Ante-Nicene Fathers (1885), vol. II, p. 117.
4Panarion, I,i,18, trans. John W. Montgomery, The Quest for
Noah's Ark, 2d ed. (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany Fellowship,
1974), p. 77.
5John Chrysostum, sermon, "On Perfect Charity," trans. John W.
Montgomery, The Quest For Noah's Ark, p. 78.
6Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, in "Scriptorium Classicorum
Bibliotheca Oxoniensis," (1911), XIV,8,5, trans. Montgomery,
p. 80.
7Trans. Montgomery, pp. 82-83.
8Quoted by Montgomery, pp. 93-94.
9The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors, trans. John Davies
(London, 1662), Book IV, p. 187.
10Hugh Miller, The Testimony of the Rocks (Edinburgh: Thomas
Constable & Co., 1857), p. 290.
11John Urquhart, Modern Discoveries and the Bible (London:
Marshall Brothers, 1898), p. 175.
12Alfred M. Rehwinkel, The Flood (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia
Publishing House, 1951), p. 144.
13Quoted by Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story In Stone
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany Fellowship, 1968), p. 175.
14Ibid., p. 183.
15Quoted by Ibid., pp. 186-187.
16Richard Andree, Die Flutensagen, ethnologisch betrachtet, as
cited by Rehwinkel, pp. 129-130.
17Violet Cummings, Has Anybody Really Seen Noah's Ark? (San
Diego, Ca.: Creation-Life Publishers, 1982), p. 217.
18Montgomery, pp. 113-118.
19Ibid., pp. 119-125; Cummings, pp. 61-108.
20Montgomery, pp. 125-128.
21Montgomery, pp. 128-131; Cummings, pp. 143-148.
22"Yanks: We Discovered Noah's Ark," in The Home News, Friday,
September 22, 1989, p. A6.
EVANGELICAL AWAKENINGS
See excerpts from Richard M. Riss, A Survey of 20th-Century
Revival Movements in North America (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
Publishers, 1988), as follows:
Introduction: pp. 1-7
Early Awakenings: pp. 7-11
The Great Awakening: pp. 11-12
The Second Evangelical Awakening
and other 19th Century revivals: pp. 12-14
The Revival of 1857-59: pp. 14-16
The Early Twentieth Century Revival: pp. 31-46
The Mid-Twentieth Century Revival: pp. 125-145
HAS SCIENCE DISPROVED THE BIBLE?
H. H. Price has stated that "a Deity who intervened
miraculously and suspended natural law could never be accepted by
Science."1 In his reply to Professor Price, C. S. Lewis
observed that you cannot discover a railway accident by studying
railway timetables:
To discover a regularity is by definition not to
discover its interruptions, even if they occur. You
cannot discover a railway accident from studying
Bradshaw [Bradshaw's Railway Guide]: only by being
there when it happens or hearing about it afterwards
from someone who was. . . . But surely this does not
mean that a student of Bradshaw is logically forced to
deny the possibility of railway accidents.2
Many people believe that it is unscientific to believe the
Bible. If this is true, however, then the following people were
unscientific: Isaac Newton, Johann Kepler, Robert Boyle, Lord
Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, Matthew Maury, Michael Faraday, Clerk
Maxwell, John Ray, and Carolus Linnaeus. All of these great
scientists believed the Bible, including the miracles recorded
within it. In fact, they were creationists, as were almost all
scientists before the time of Charles Darwin, whose Origin of
Species was not published until 1859.
Has the Darwinians revolution changed all of that? No,
there is nothing intrinsically unscientific about Sir Isaac
Newton's world view, according to which all of the miracles of
the Bible took place, including the creation of the universe by
God ex nihilo. However, with the acceptance of the Darwinian
theories, there was an acceptance of a new world view. Ernst
Mayr, Agassiz Professor Zoology at Harvard University, wrote as
follows in the prestigious British journal, Nature:
The Darwinian revolution was not merely the replacement
of one scientific theory by another, as had been the
scientific revolutions in the physical sciences, but
rather the replacement of a world view, in which the
supernatural was accepted as a normal and relevant
explanatory principle, but a new world view in which
there was no room for supernatural forces.3
According to Mayr, the implication of Darwin's thesis was
that "it is unscientific to believe in supernatural causation."4
If Mayr is correct, then the "scientific" world view, according
to which there is no supernatural causation, is relatively new to
science.
Science itself was built upon the foundation of a Biblical
world view. The great historian of science, Stanley L. Jaki,
asks in his book, Science and Creation,5 why it is that the
development of science took place in Europe between 1250 and 1650
and not in any of the great civilizations of antiquity, even
though many of them had long periods of relative stability, and
were able to develop technology to a considerable degree. Jaki
surveys the civilizations of ancient Babylon, Egypt, China, the
Hindus, the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Mayas, in an attempt to
determine what kept them from developing a true science.
Scientific research requires certain basic beliefs about
order and rationality. Jaki concludes that the elements needed
for the birth of science came into existence through the Judaeo-
Christian belief in an omnipotent God, creator and sustainer of
all things. Within such a world view it becomes meaningful to
attempt to understand nature, and this is the fundamental reason
why science developed as it did in the Middle Ages in Christian
Europe, culminating in the brilliant achievements of the
seventeenth century.6 Christianity's objective view of truth
made possible the rise of modern science. Jaki writes:
The scientific quest found fertile soil only when this
faith in a personal, rational Creator had truly
permeated a whole culture, beginning with the centuries
of the High Middle Ages. It was that faith which
provided, in sufficient measure, confidence in the
rationality of the universe, trust in progress, and
appreciation of the quantitative method, all
indispensable ingredients of the scientific quest.
. . .
The future of man rests with that judgment which
holds the universe to be the handiwork of a Creator and
Lawgiver. To this belief, science owes its very birth
and life.7
Science will not flourish in a world view which excludes a
creator and orderer of the universe. If there is no order in the
universe, there can be no science, because the very purpose of
science is to study that order. It the presupposition of
materialism persists, we can be certain that science as a field
will progressively become an unfruitful area of endeavor.
__________________________________
1H. H. Price, "The Grounds of Modern Agnosticism," Phoenix
Quarterly, vol. I, no. 1 (Autumn 1946), p. 25.
2C. S. Lewis, "Religion Without Dogma?" in C. S. Lewis, God In
the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), p. 134.
3Ernst Mayr, "Evolution and God," Nature, Vol. 248 (22 March
1974), p. 285.
4Ibid.
5Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation (Edinburgh and London:
Scottish Academic Press, 1974).
6Marvin L. Lubenow, "Progressive Creationism: Is It A Biblical
Option?", a paper presented to the Midwestern Section of the
Evangelical Theological Society, twentieth general meeting, March
21-22, 1975, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield,
Illinois, p. 8.
7Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation (New York: Science History
Publications, 1974), p. viii.
THE CHRISTIAN ORIGINS OF SCIENCE
The Christian Origin of Science becomes quite clear when we
study the history of science, and we see that until very
recently, scientists interpreted the data in light of the Bible.
Until the time of Darwin, biologists were creationists, and until
the time of Charles Leyell, geological data were interpreted in
light of the Flood of Noah's time.
For example, Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686), the distinguished
scientist who discovered the circulation of the blood in the
human body and who discovered the law of crystallography known as
"the law of constancy of interfacial angles," also upheld the
Biblical story of Noah's Flood in his work, A Treatise on a Solid
Body Enclosed By Natural Process Within a Solid (1669).
The Flood was also upheld by Jacobus Grandius of Venice, who
wrote About the Truth of the Universal Deluge and the Remains
Which Are Found At Great Distance From the Sea (1676), in which
he stated that the remains of marine shells in the Alps were a
result of the Deluge.
In 1681, Thomas Burnet wrote A Sacred Theory of the Earth,
according to which the Deluge was largely responsible for the
present formation of the earth. Later, John Woodward wrote a
book on the Deluge, An Essay Toward A Natural Theory of the Earth
(1695), which observes that there are fossils of all forms of
life in many different places, and in many types of rock. There
are sea shells, teeth, and bones of fishes buried in different
sorts of strata, not only in chalk, clay, and marl, but even in
solid stone. Deposits of sea life are visible at the bottoms of
the deepest mines and at the tops of the highest mountains,
sometimes in unusual bulk and quantity. There are shells buried
in the earth that are not the product of neighboring seas, but of
seas a great distance away. The stratified rocks of Greenland
contain fossils of ferns, oaks, magnolias, cinnamons, ginkos and
breadfruits, even though these plants cannot grow in Greenland's
climate. Woodward's explanation for all of this is that a
universal flood at the time of Noah brought about this
distribution of the fossils.
John Harris wrote in 1697 that "all sober and judicious men
are now convinced that the exuviae of sea animals, so plentifully
found at this day in the strata of the earth, and in the most
hard and solid stone and marble, are the lasting proof of the
Deluge itself and of its universality."1
In 1708, J. J. Scheuchzer of Switzerland wrote a book
entitled Complaint and Vindication of the Fishes, describing and
providing good illustrations of fossil fish found in rocky layers
of the Alps, and arguing that they were entombed by the Flood.
He wrote that the bent strata of the Alps were originally
horizontal and much lower, and that they became bent when that
part of the earth was elevated to cause the waters of the Deluge
to run off. At that time the strata cracked in many places, and
the immense waters flowing away widened and deepened the cracks
to form the great Alpine valleys.
In Germany, D. S. Buttners wrote Signs and Witnesses of the
Flood (1710), and Fossil Corals (1714), in which he argued that,
entombed all over the earth as a result of the Flood were leaves,
shells, animal bones and fish. Buried trees had become coal, and
the earth before the Deluge was a beautiful thing.
In A New Theory of the Earth (1696), William Whiston of
Cambridge wrote that the destruction of the earth by the Flood
"is evident by the vast number of shells and other very strange
things buried at the Deluge and enclosed in the bowels of the
present earth and of its most solid and compact bodies."2
John Hutchinson, author of Moses' Principles (1749),
believed that the order in which the various kinds of strata
repose on one another in the earth is the result of the flow of
tidal waves flowing in varying directions and leaving the earth
bare at different times as the waters of the Deluge receded.
Patrick Cockburn, in An Enquiry Into The Truth and Certainty
of the Mosaic Deluge (1750), stated that there was certainly
enough water in the ocean and inside the earth to cover the
earth's surface, while Alexander Catcott's book, A Treatise on
the Deluge (1761), argued that the strata of mountain areas were
originally continuous, and formed level plains or plateaus.
Catcott compared the strata with the broken walls of a castle,
which, if partially demolished, would imply that the vacant
places in the walls were once filled up with similar substances
and were continuous with the rest of the wall. Because the
strata in some of the highest ridges of mountains are positioned
horizontally, some mountains were formed as a result of the
process of erosion, while others were formed by uplifting and
erosion. He maintained that the cores of some mountains are the
relics of the prediluvian earth, and that the features of the
landscape are just such as the waters of the Flood would cause in
a final retreat from the earth. He wrote:
You will find the moose-deer, native of America, buried
in Ireland; elephants, natives of Asia and Africa,
buried in the midst of England; crocodiles, natives of
the Nile, in the heart of Germany; shell-fish, never
known in the American seas, together with the entire
skeletons of whales, in the most inland regions of
England; trees of vast dimensions, with their roots and
their tops, and some also with leaves and fruit, at the
bottom of mines . . . The pyramids of Egypt are
reckoned to be some of the most ancient structures of
the world, and yet the stones of which these pyramids
consist about with fossil marine shells and coral.3
John Williams, in The Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom
(1789), said a great deal about the formation of coal during the
time of the flood. He wrote:
Coal has a very obvious and striking appearance of
being composed of vegetable substances. I have
frequently seen evidently the grain and other
characters of wood in several coals . . . the
antediluvian [pre-Flood] timber was the original
[origin] of coal.4
Williams noticed that the coal strata appeared to be "formed by
the flowing of successive tides."5 He wrote:
I have already made it pretty evident that the greatest
part of the surface of the earth, before the Deluge,
was covered with a luxuriant growth of tall timber,
that this antediluvian timber is the origin of our pit-
coal; and that it was a sufficient and an adequate
source of all coals in the world. I am of the opinion
that the antediluvian timber floated upon the chaos, or
waters of the deluge, until the strata of the highest
mountains were formed, with much of the other strata in
our sight, and that during the height of the Deluge,
and at the time when the greatest part of the strata
were forming, the timber was preparing and being fitted
for being deposited in strata of coal.6
The various strata were laid down by successive tides of the
waters of the Flood:
The very part of the globe where a particular part of
the stratum was made, began to be dry land before the
next tide brought with it the matter which produced
that stratum, and so on, stratum super stratum, tide
after tide, until all the strata were completed. And
perhaps higher and lower, stronger and weaker tides,
might have been the cause of thicker and thinner
strata.7
The pressure of the higher strata upon the lower strata then
forced the water out, causing breaks in the higher strata in many
places. "A great quantity of water forcing its way out would
make a large passage, and the violent manner in which this
passage was made would greatly disturb and distort the strata
about the rupture."8
Thus, by the time of the late eighteenth century, it was
considered a majority view that the geological phenomena were
best explained by a universal Flood in Noah's time. In England,
Brander wrote as follows in 1766:
Various opinions have been entertained concerning the
time when and how these bodies (fossils) became
deposited. Some there were who conceive that it might
have been effected in a wonderfully length of time by a
gradual changing and shifting of the seas, etc. But
the most common cause assigned is that of the Deluge.9
Byron C. Nelson refers to the early nineteenth century as a
period of waning for the Flood theory of geology, because the
control of education in Europe and America passed gradually out
of the hands of people of great religious faith, who believed
strongly in the Bible, and into the hands of those who were
either lacking in religious convictions, or who were secretly or
even openly hostile to the Bible.10
Similar statements could be made with respect to many other
disciplines. As a result, the leadership of Western culture fell
into the hands of those who presupposed that the Bible was not to
be trusted in its statements about the natural world.
__________________________________
1Quoted by Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story In Stone
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany Fellowship, 1968), p. 51.
2Quoted in Ibid., p. 52.
3Quoted by Ibid., p. 66.
4Quoted by Ibid., pp. 74-76.
5Quoted by Ibid., p. 77.
6Quoted by Ibid., pp. 77-78.
7Quoted by Ibid., pp. 78-79.
8Ibid., p. 79.
9Quoted by Ibid., p. 81.
10Ibid., p. 83.
NOAH`S FLOOD
Until the nineteenth century, as we have seen, geologists
were aware of a great deal of evidence for a universal flood at
the time of Noah. For example, Benjamin Silliman, head of the
geology department of Yale University wrote in his Geological
Lectures (1829):
Respecting the Deluge, there can be but one opinion:
geology fully confirms the Scriptural history of the
event . . . Whales, sharks, and other fishes,
crocodiles and amphibians, the mammoth and the extinct
elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, hyenas,
tigers, deer, horses, the various species of the bovine
family and a multitude more, are found buried in
diluvium at a greater or less depth; and in most
instances under circumstances indicating that they were
buried by the same catastrophe which destroyed them:
namely a sudden and violent deluge . . . a skeleton of
a whale lay on top of the mountain Sanhorn on the coast
of the northern sea. . . . [The mountain] is three
thousand feet high and there is no cause that could
have conveyed the whale to that elevation except a
deluge rising to that height.1
In 1833, James Parkinson discussed the formation of
petroleum by the Deluge in a work entitled Organic Remains of a
Former World--An Examination of Mineralized Remains of the
Vegetable and Animals of the Antediluvian World: Generally Termed
Extraneous Fossils. He wrote that the fresh vegetable matter of
the coal strata was cut off from air and covered over by a layer
of sediment in the Flood. This vegetable matter was converted
into a black pasty substance. In the case of coal this paste
eventually hardened and crystallized. In the case of petroleum
the fermentation went further and converted the vegetation into
liquid form. According to Parkinson, it was because of this
fermentation process in coals that all traces of leaves and
branches in the coal layers have been lost except on the upper
surface, or "roof" of the coal, where the imprint of the leaves
and branches, and sometimes logs, are often visible.
Near the city of Munden, Germany, at the top of a mountain
1150 feet in height, there is a large quantity of fossil wood,
such that tree trunks were lying massed together, flattened by
pressure from above. In the body of the same mountain are
specimens of marble containing bivalves and other marine shells,
including large shark teeth.
In 1837, George Fairholme published his New and Conclusive
Physical Demonstration of the Fact and Period of the Mosaic
Deluge, in which he describes some of the fossil remains at Big-
bone Lick:
That the animals did not perish on the spot, but were
carried and deposited by the mighty torrent, which, it
is evident, once spread over this country, is probable
from the circumstances of marine shells, plants, and
fossil substances having been found not only mixed with
bones, but adhering to them, and tightly wedged in the
cavities of the skull. "Those holes where eyes did
once inhabit" were often stopped up by shells or pieces
of coral, forcibly crammed into them. . . . Although
elephants are too unwieldy to climb the mountains in a
wild state, and have never been seen, even on the
lowest side of the hills that bound the plain, yet I am
assured that their fossil bones are found in the
highest elevations that man has attained in Tibet.
. . . The bones of many different elephants were
brought into contact; and on some oyster shells were
matted.2
Fairholme made reference to "Dry Rivers," which were great,
long, river valleys which now have only comparatively small
streams flowing in them, but which give the impression of having
contained vastly greater amounts of water at one time. He also
pointed out that the "gradual passage from one sedimentary
deposit to another as seen at the point of contact is perhaps the
strongest proof that can be advanced of the uninterrupted and
aqueous deposition throughout the whole formation of the earth's
strata."3 The upper surface of almost every formation was still
soft and moist when the superincumbent sediments were deposited
upon it.
Fairholme also point out that "ripple-marks," or irregular,
wash-board markings, which form on the sandy bottoms of streams,
lakes and oceans in storms and other disturbances, and which
disappear as quickly as they come, have been preserved in great
abundance in the stratified layers of the earth in many kinds of
stone. Some of these marks are small, evidently having been
formed in shallow water, while others are immense, sometimes
found to measure over twenty feet between ripples or waves.
Fairholme also considered the "reptile-tracks" in the
stratified rocks to be proof of the speedy deposition of the
sediments. So soft must the clay have been on which the steps
were taken, that had the tracks not been covered and filled in
almost instantly with a sedimentary deposit of some kind, they
would have disappeared.
In 1830, Charles Lyell published the first volume of his
Principles of Geology, advocating the uniformitarianism of Buffon
and Hutton, who, in 1749 and 1788 had attempted to advance
similar views, but had been met with little favor. However, by
the time Charles Lyell began advancing his views, the academic
world was ripe for them. Theological skepticism was gaining
rapidly over faith. The higher critics were successfully
undermining the authenticity of the Biblical documents, and
scholars were accepting their conclusions uncritically,
especially due to the prestige of many of the German schools that
promulgated these views. Therefore, when Charles Lyell
skillfully presented the old uniformitarian viewpoint, the world
was ready to hear.
In 1838, George Young wrote Scriptural Geology, in which he
pointed out that there were many unwarranted assumptions in
Lyell's work, which had stated that knowledge of modern changes
in the earth is the key that unlocks the door to knowledge of the
past. Young pointed out that geological or physical changes on
the earth may have been at times in the past of an entirely
different sort, and they may have taken place at an entirely
different rate. He opposed the idea, which was already spreading
rapidly, that the fossils in the lowest strata are most unlike
present, living forms, and that those in the highest strata are
most similar to living forms. Young observed that in the lowest
strata there were many forms identical with living types, and
that in the highest strata, there were many forms that could not
be matched with any living forms at all. These conditions would
be explained easily on the Flood theory.
The high state of the preservation of fossil fish was
another indication to Young of the Deluge, as opposed to
uniformity. He wrote:
It is well known that scarcely any substance decomposes
more speedily than fishes; so that when we find fossil
fishes in a high state of preservation, we may be sure
that the strata containing them were deposited so
rapidly as not to allow them time to become putrid,
till they were safely encased in their present matrix.
Now, the fossil fishes in the carboniferous strata, in
the magnesium limestones, in the lias, in the oolite,
in the chalk, and in some of the tertiary deposits, are
often found in the finest condition, with no part of
their structure injured; while we know that fishes left
dead on the beach, or on the banks of rivers, begin to
decay in a few hours. . . . The proper cause of their
fine preservation was their being so suddenly entombed
in the strata.4
Another indication to Young of the Flood was the way in
which the entombed remains of animals were pressed flat by the
weight of higher layers:
Thus, the great crocodile in the Whitby Museum has
evidently been crushed by the super-incumbent strata;
the effect of pressure being visible, both on the head
and the body, the bones of the one leg being
practically sunk into those of the other. A fine
specimen of ichthyosaurus in the Museum gives similar
indications of violent pressure, the whole being
crushed into a flat mass, and the ribs of the one side
pressed across the spine, so as to form an angle with
the ribs of the other side. . . . The elegant
curvature of the spine shows that it was not the dead
carcass of the animal that was embedded in the strata;
it was not in the flaccid state of a dead and stranded
fish, but must have been suddenly entombed alive; and,
writhing in the agonies of death, it has twisted its
body into its present handsome shape. . . . Similar
instances have been noticed among the fossil fishes of
Germany.5
In 1843, Robert Maxwell MacBriar wrote Geology and
Geologists, in which he discussed and opposed the theories of
Lyell, Smith, Cuvier, and others, and pointed out that their
theories of geological uniformitarianism could be explained
simply and without difficulties if one assumed the historicity of
the Biblical account of Noah's Flood.
Opposition to the newly arising modern theory proved
fruitless, however, since Flood geology was based upon the
Judaeo-Christian Scriptures and therefore upon the supernatural,
which is not the type of thing the world wanted. Therefore,
henceforth, Flood geology was ignored or ridiculed.6
It should be obvious from the preceding historical
discussion that the Flood geology of the early nineteenth century
differs with modern uniformitarianism, not with respect to the
factual data of geology, but with respect to the interpretation
of those data.
Objections to the historicity of the Biblical account
of Noah's flood often result from preconceptions about conditions
that existed before the time of the flood. However, climactic
conditions may have been different before the time of the Flood.
Morris and Whitcomb wrote:
Arctic and desert zones may never have existed before
the Flood; nor the great intercontinental barriers of
high mountain ranges, impenetrable jungles, and open
seas (as between Australia and Southeast Asia, and
between Siberia and Alaska). On this basis, it is
quite probable that animals were more widely
distributed than now, with representatives of each
created kind of land animal living in that part of the
earth where Noah was building the Ark.7
Some people have wondered if it could have been possible to
carry all of the known species of animals on the ark. In
addressing this issue, Morris and Whitcomb have pointed out,
first of all, that the Ark had a carrying capacity equivalent to
that of 522 standard stock cars of modern railroads.8 According
to the estimate of Ernst Mayr, probably America's leading
systematic taxonomist, there are a total of 3500 mammalian
species in the world, 8600 species of birds, and 5500 species of
reptiles and amphibians.9 If this is so, then Noah would have
had to bring two of each kind, or approximately 35,200 vertebrate
animals on the ark. Noah was not required to take the largest or
even adult specimens of each species, but even if he did, there
would have been more than three times the necessary space for
35,200 animals, if the average size was that of a sheep. Reports
of stock cars and railroads show that the average number of live
animals to the carload is 25 for cattle, 75 for hogs in single
deck cars, and 120 per deck for sheep. Thus, 240 animals of the
size of sheep can be accommodated in a standard two-decked stock
car. Therefore, 35,200 of them could be carried in 147 of such
cars, but as we have seen, the ark's carrying capacity was
equivalent to that of 522 stock cars of modern railroads.10
If it is objected that there are hundreds of varieties for
each of these species, it should be pointed out that a great deal
of diversification is possible within a species. For example,
over 200 distinct varieties of dogs as different from each other
as the dacshund and the collie have been developed from a very
few wild dogs.11 However, no amount of breeding has ever
brought about a new animal species.
Some people wonder how Noah and his family could have cared
for all of the animals during the time of the Flood. One
reasonable possibility is the remarkable factor of animal
physiology known as hibernation, which occurs in every group of
vertebrates except birds.12
Another objection sometimes raised against a universal flood
during the time of Noah is that there would not have been enough
water to cover the entire earth at that time. In answer to this,
Morris and Whitcomb have written:
For such an objection to be valid, we would have to
assume that there were no waters "above the firmament"
before the Flood, and that the earth's topography was
unaltered by the Flood. In other words, we would be
assuming the truth of uniformitarianism in order to
prove the impossibility of catastrophism! But if we
accept the Biblical testimony concerning an
antediluvian canopy of waters (Gen. 1:6-8, 7:11, 8:2,
II Peter 3:5-7), we have an adequate source for the
waters of a universal Flood. Furthermore, such
passages as Genesis 8:3 and Psalm 104:6-9 suggest that
ocean basins were deepened after the Flood to provide
adequate storage space for the additional waters that
had been "above the firmament" from the second day of
creation to the time of the Flood, while mountain
ranges rose to heights never attained during the
antediluvian era.13
Another problem is that of animal distribution after the
time of the Flood. For example, how do we explain that
marsupials are found only in Australia, and in the Western
Hemisphere? One possible explanation was given by A. Franklin
Shull, Professor of Zoology at the University of Michigan:
The marsupials spread over the world, in all
directions. They could not go far to the north before
striking impossible climate, but the path south was
open all the way to the tips of Africa and South
America and through Australia . . . The placental
mammals proved to be superior to the marsupials in the
struggle for existence and drove the marsupials
out . . . that is, forced them southward. Australia
was then connected by land with Asia, so that it could
receive the fugitives . . . Behind them the true
mammals were coming; but before the latter reached
Australia, that continent was separated from Asia, and
the primitive types to the south were protected from
further competition.14
Another possible explanation is that, in times of flood,
large masses of earth and entwined vegetation, including trees,
are sometimes torn loose from the banks of rivers and sept out to
sea. Sometimes these masses can be found floating out in the
ocean, far from land, still lush and green, with palm trees
twenty to thirty feet high. Land animals may have been
transported long distances in this manner. According to Mayr,
many tropical ocean currents have a speed of two knots, amounting
to 1,000 miles in three weeks.15
Frank L. Marsh has written as follows on this question:
One glance at a world map will show that, with the
exception of the narrow break at the Bering Strait, a
dry-land path leads from Armenia to all lands of the
globe except Australia. In the case of the latter the
East Indies even today form a fairly continuous bridge
of stepping-stones to that southern continent. As
regards the Bering Strait, there is no doubt that a
land connection once existed between Asia and North
America. With the strait closed, the cold waters of
the Arctic would have been prevented from coming south,
and the Japan Current would have curved around the
coast line farther north than today. The washing of
those shores by the warm waters of this current would
have produced a dry-land route that even tropical forms
could have used.16
One argument that is frequently raised against the idea of a
universal Flood is that the Flood waters would have moved
massively back and forth across the earth and that the Ark would
surly have capsized and its occupants would have been unable to
survive. However, the Ark was more like a barge than a ship:
A model was made by Peter Jansen of Holland, and Danish
barges called Fleuten were modelled after the ark. The
models proved that the ark had a greater capacity than
curved or shaped vessels. They were very seaworthy and
almost impossible to capsize. . . . The stability of
such a barge is great and it increase as it sinks
deeper into the water. The lower the center of gravity
the more difficult it is to capsize.17
__________________________________
1Quoted by Byron C. Nelson, p. 85.
2Quoted by Ibid., p. 93.
3Quoted by Ibid., p. 100.
4Quoted by Ibid., pp. 107-108.
5Quoted by Ibid., pp. 108-109.
6Ibid., p. 110.
7John C. Whitcomb, Jr., and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1961), pp. 64-65.
8Ibid., pp. 67-68.
9Ibid., p. 68.
10Ibid., p. 69.
11Ibid., p. 66.
12Ibid., p. 71.
13Ibid., p. 77.
14A. Franklin Shull, Evolution, 2d ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Co., 1951), p. 60, as quoted by Ibid., p. 82. Shull is an
evolutionist.
15Morris & Whitcomb, p. 85.
16Frank L. Marsh, Evolution, Creation, and Science (Washington
Review and Herald Pub. Assoc., 1947), pp. 291-292, as quoted by
Ibid., p. 86.
17Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science & Scripture (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954),
pp. 230-231.
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY
If the theory of evolution is correct, then death did not
come by Adam as Paul states in his epistles; rather, death is the
mechanism by which man has evolved. The theory of natural
selection is dependent upon the assumption that there was death
in the world before the appearance of man and that death played a
part in the development of mankind, since man would have been the
product of the process of the survival of the fittest. Thus, the
theory of natural selection places the origin of death prior to
the existence of man. On the other hand, the Christian view of
redemption is that man's fall introduced sin and physical death
into the world and that Jesus Christ redeemed us from these
effects of the fall through his incarnation, crucifixion and
resurrection. According to the Christian view, death resulted
from the fall of man. If this is so, then how could man have
evolved through a process of natural selection, since death is
the mechanism through which the survival of the fittest must
necessarily occur?
Natural selection could not possibly have taken place apart
from the mechanism of physical death inherent in the process of
the survival of the fittest. If men evolved as a result of this
process, then physical death could not have resulted from man's
fall. Rather, man's tendency to die would have been inherited
from his immediate forbears. Yet, the Christian faith is based
upon the recognition that death took place as a result of the
fall of man. Man must therefore have existed before death. Paul
wrote in Romans 5:12 that, "just as through one man sin entered
into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all
men, because all sinned." The Christian message is that Christ
has redeemed mankind from sin and physical death. If Adam did
not bring these things into the world, then Jesus Christ could
not have acted as the "second Adam" to redeem mankind from these
things. Paul wrote in I Cor. 15:21-23:
For since by a man came death, by a man also came the
resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so
also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in
his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that
those who are Christ's at His coming.
Thus, the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the
Christian view of redemption.
There are many categories of evidence that have been used in
support of the theory of evolution. The evidence from
classification, for example, is that animals and other life forms
can be graded from the most simple to the most complex,
indicating that there has been a development from lower to higher
life forms. It appears, also, that there has been an adaptation
of animals and plants to their environments. Their existence in
every conceivable set of conditions all over the world in many
different environments suggests that, though natural selection,
they became adapted for the circumstances in which they live.
However, there is no reason not to believe that all of the
animals were distributed almost everywhere after they dispersed
from Noah's ark, and that those life forms which survived in any
given place were the ones most suited for the particular
environment that they happened to inhabit. As far as the
evidence from classification is concerned, the evolutionary
biologist T. H. Morgan, in his book, A Critique of Evolution
Theory, does not consider the evidence from classification to be
a satisfactory indication that evolution has occurred. Although
it is true that there are varying degrees of complexity among
organisms, from the one-celled microorganisms to the higher
mammals, this in itself is not an adequate indication that
evolution has occurred.
Another form of evidence that has been advanced for the
theory of evolution is the homology of structure and function
that can be observed between different animals species. These
similarities seem to be distributed in a somewhat continuous
fashion throughout all species. There is a remarkable similarity
between how a human being is constructed and how monkeys and
other primates are constructed, down to the lowest forms. For
example, the monkey has the same number of bones in its foot as a
human. These similarities often do not jump from one species to
another, but seem to be very continuous. If you find two animals
that seem very similar, chances are that there will be another in
existence which is a living compromise between the two. This
struck Darwin in his travels as he encountered various unusual
species previously not known to exist.
Although the same biological structures, modified to varying
degrees, occur from species to species, evolution is not the only
possible explanation. An alternate hypothesis, that a common
environment necessitates homologous structure, is equally viable.
Since all species find themselves in a similar environment,
similarity in structure may exist simply because a given
particular structure is most efficient for a given environment.
Perhaps God did not create creatures with five feet, for example,
simply because it is not a convenient structure for the use of
creatures in our environment.
Moreover, cytochemistry has recently given confirmation for
the hypothesis that each species is independent of the others.
It has been discovered that if the cytoplasm of any cell is
centrifuged, the particulates of the centrifugate always differ
in chemical formula in differing species. Each species has its
own distinctive formula.
The fixity of the species, according to which God created
all life forms "according to their kinds" (Genesis 1:21, 24, 25),
is also evident in consideration of the fact that animals of
different species cannot cross-breed and bring forth fertile
offspring.
Another consideration often used in favor of the theory of
evolution is in the area of embryology. Haekel stated that
"ontology recapitulates phylogeny." In other words, the stages
of the development of an embryo repeat the various stages of
evolutionary development. However, as has been pointed out by
Julian Huxley, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory, in
his book, Evolution In Action, "this is not strictly true; the
individual does not run through the adult stages of its
evolutionary ancestors. What is often does do is to pass through
ancestral developmental stages." Huxley's "evolutionary
ancestors" and "ancestral developmental stages," however, are
merely postulated. There is no fossil record of the hypothesized
ancestors or of their stages of development. More recently, the
evidence of embryology for the theory of evolution has fallen out
of favor among many biologists.1
Some people use as evidence for the theory of evolution the
very rare appearance of gills on some newborn babies. This is
sometimes taken as an indication that we have evolved from fish-
like animals that lived in the water. However, it should be
noted that small alterations in the genetic code, or mutations,
due to radiation, can cause problems of this kind. A mutation
can easily account for gill formation without the necessity of
presupposing that this could only occur if we evolved from
animals which had gills.
Others have proposed that the very fact that mutations take
place demonstrates that evolution has occurred. However, most
mutations are either lethal or nearly lethal. In fact, there is
real doubt that any mutations are really favorable. Furthermore,
the chance that a mutation will be preserved in the gene pool,
even if favorable, is remote. The evolutionary biologist Hampton
L. Carson has stated that one of the great dilemmas in modern
evolutionary theory is that most of the mutations found
repeatedly within such populations as those of the various
Drosophila (fruit-fly) species do not constitute the kind of
differences which distinguish species.2
Vestigial organs are also often cited as evidence for
evolution. The appendix in humans, for example, has no useful
function, but perhaps it is a vestige of an organ that had a
useful function for our earlier ancestors.
It is important to remember, however, that the fact that a
function has not been demonstrated for an organ is no real
evidence that it has no function. For many years the endocrine
glands were regarded as vestigial organs, but we now know that
they have a very important function in the secretion of hormones.
Sir Arthur Keith, the well-known anthropologist and
paleontologist, believed that the appendix is not a vestigial
organ, but an organ, the function of which is not known.3
The existence of marsupials in Australia, but no placental
mammals, seems to support the idea that evolution was at the
marsupial stage when Australia was cut off from the rest of the
world. But again, evolution is not the only possible explanation
for this situation, and, in fact, whether one postulates that
evolution has taken place or that marsupials travelled to
Australia from Noah's ark and arrived there ahead of the
placental mammals, who then found it inaccessible due to
geographical changes, one runs into the same problems in either
case. John W. Klotz has written:
If only those animals on the ark survived, how did they
achieve the present distribution? It is possible, of
course, that they traveled by means of land bridges
from Mount Ararat to the places where they are now
found. The development of a land bridge, however, is
not as easy as it sounds. It requires tremendous
changes in the earth's crust. Heavier rocks, it is
believed, must be replaced by lighter rocks if
submerged areas are to rise.
At the same time the evolutionist has this same
problem. He, too, wants land bridges to explain the
migration of animals from one area to another. And if
land bridges radiating from Mount Ararat to various
parts of the world are difficult to erect, so are the
land bridges of the evolutionist.
Some evolutionists have asked: "Why is it that
there are no marsupials in Asia and along the Malay
Peninsula, where they must have been found in their
travels from Mount Ararat?" It is possible to suggest
an answer. It may be that these forms have become
extinct in Asia and along the Malay Peninsula.
Possibly they were able to live in some of these areas
for only a very short time and traveled almost
immediately to those places included in their present
range. The evolutionary scheme itself requires that
animals have become extinct in many areas in which they
once lived.
Indeed, in this case it requires that these same
animals--the marsupials--have become extinct in these
same areas. In late Cretaceous and early Tertiary
times the marsupials were almost world-wide in their
distribution, according to the evolutionists. However,
the marsupials could not compete with the placental
mammals when they arose, and so died out in all regions
except those from which the placental mammals were
excluded.4
According to T. H. Huxley, "The primary and direct evidence
for evolution can only be found in paleontology." However, the
geological data do not always support the theory of evolution,
but often contradicts it. Evolutionary theory hypothesizes the
existence of common ancestors, the remains of which should be
observable in the geologic strata. However, none of these
"missing links" have been found since the search for them began
over one hundred years ago. None of the thirty hypothesized
links between land mammals and whales have been identified, nor
have any of the twenty hypothesized links between wingless
mammals and bats been found.
The archaeopteryx, which was of the Jurassic period, is
often considered to be common ancestor of birds and reptiles.
However, it is clear that this animal was a toothed bird, since
it was warm blooded and had feathers. It is often hypothesized
that birds developed feathers from the scales of early reptilian
forms, but features and scales originate at entirely different
layers of the epidermis. Any intermediate form can actually be
easily identified as a member of one or the other of the two
species of which it is supposed to be the common ancestor.
Evolutionary sequences of fossils are constructed with the
assumption that evolution has occurred. Thus, the evolutionary
arrangement of the fossils of horses, for example, at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is
artificial, for each skeleton was found in a different part of
the world. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine
whether the smaller horses actually existed in an earlier period
of time than the larger horses. It is possible that all types of
horse inhabited the world at the same time. The hoof of a modern
horse was found in strata older than that of the eohippus, which
is supposed to be prehistoric ancestor of the modern horse.
Facts such as this, although frequently discovered, are not taken
into consideration in textbooks on evolution. It is often the
case that facts that tend to disconfirm evolutionary theory are
actually held suppressed.
In his book, Limitations of Science, J. W. N. Sullivan
compares the universe to a clock which is in the process of
running down. As time passes, the energy of the universe becomes
more disorganized. However, if this law of entropy (the second
law of thermodynamics) is true, then the energy of the universe
should have been more organized in the past, and still more
organized in the distant past. Eventually we reach a point of
perfect organization, and it is impossible to extrapolate any
further. These considerations suggest that the universe actually
sprang into existence in a state of perfect organization at some
time in the past.
It would appear that the creation of the universe out of
nothing by God is a very good explanation for its existence.
Moreover, the acceptance of the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures with
respect to origins solves many more problems than it creates.
The presuppositional nature of truth is often responsible for
difficulties in these matters, for there are usually alternative
presuppositional systems, which, although unpopular, may explain
the data as easily or more easily than others. The facts, when
evaluated from the Biblical perspective, certainly do not
disconfirm the Biblical presuppositional system.
__________________________________
1See, for example, H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (London:
Evangelical Press, 1966), pp. 56-65.
2Hampton L. Carson, "Genetic Conditions Which Promote or Retard
the Formation of Species," Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on
Quantitative Biology 24 (1959): 95.
3Sir Arthur Keith, The Human Body (London: Williams and Norgate,
1912), p. 236.
4John W. Klotz, Genes, Genesis, and Evolution, 2d ed. (St. Louis,
Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1970), p. 211. RADIOISOTOPIC DATING METHODS
Many people believe that the data obtained from the
radiometric dating of rocks indicates (1) that the earth is
approximately 4.5 billion years old, (2) that the ages of the
earth's geologic strata have been positively determined,
indicating that fossils within these strata are in the sequence
one would expect if evolution had taken place, (3) that these
strata are many, many millions of years old, demonstrating that
the process of evolution has had plenty of time to take place,
and (4) that the Flood theories of geologists prior to the time
of Charles Lyell are invalid, since they assume that the geologic
strata were laid down during the time of Noah's Flood only a few
thousand years ago.
One of the tenets of Charles Lyell's uniformitarianism is
that all events of the past must be interpreted in the light of
present-day geological processes. This principle, which is taken
for granted in all radioisotopic dating methods, assumes that
there have been no catastrophic geological events in the past,
such as a universal Flood in Noah's day.
The radiometric dating of rocks assumes that the present-day
rates of decay of various radioisotopes has always remained
constant throughout the history of the earth. It is assumed, for
example, that the intensity of cosmic rays, which will
significantly alter this rate of decay, has always remained
constant. If there was a time when cosmic rays bombarded the
earth with great intensity, then, of course, the results of
radiometric dating would be completely unreliable.
It is possible that, prior to the time of Noah's Flood, the
earth's atmosphere was surrounded by a thick layer of water vapor
which served as the source for the heavy rains of the Flood.
This vapor canopy would explain the longevity of those who lived
before the Flood, since it would have acted as a filter,
protecting the earth from cosmic rays, which are known to hasten
the aging process. With the collapse of the vapor canopy, the
earth would have been bombarded with cosmic rays, upsetting all
radioactive "clocks," moving them ahead many, many millions of
years. This bombardment by cosmic rays would later have been
retarded by the formation of ozone in an upper layer of the
atmosphere (a result of the bombardment of normal O2 in the upper
atmosphere), bringing about more stable conditions.
The existence of a vapor canopy over the entire earth prior
to the time of the flood would explain the uniformly temperate
climate that was enjoyed during the "Jurassic" period of the
earth's history, or, as flood geologists would say, before the
time of the Flood.
Radiometric dating can only be reliable in determining the
age of rocks if geological conditions have been uniform over the
entire course of the earth's history. Yet this is a tremendous
assumption for those who believe the earth to be billions of
years old. Harold S. Slusher has written:
The geologist says that essentially the past should be
interpreted in the light of the present--"the present
is the key to the past." Though the study of these
present processes has continued at an ever-increasing
pace for decades, we are still appallingly ignorant of
many of the simplest details of what is happening
today. . . . Furthermore, many data around the earth
indicate that the rates of the processes operating in
the past have been radically different from those of
the present. Catastrophic happenings in the past may
have radically altered the distribution of radioactive
minerals and their decay products. Volcanism, for
example, which has obviously occurred in the past on a
large scale, would radically alter the carbon-14 to
carbon-12 ratio (C14/C12) in the atmosphere, thus
affecting the C14 "clock." . . .
The determination of the times of occurrences of
the various geological events depends first on the
determination of rates, such as the rate of decay of
uranium and other radioactive elements into their
daughter products, influx rates of salts into the
oceans, etc. These rates may have been very different
in the past from what they were when the measurements
were actually made. Secondly, the determination
depends on the initial conditions, which cannot be
ascertained in any direct way, e.g., the initial ratios
of parent-to-daughter elements of radioactive series.
The third factor involves hypotheses about the origin
of the crust of the earth and the physical/chemical
processes that have taken place and are presently
occurring.1
Other methods used to determine the age of the earth are
equally problematic due to their inherent assumptions. For
example, the measurement of the influx of sodium chloride and
other salts into the ocean also assumes that the processes
presently observable have gone on at exactly the same rate at all
times in the past. If there had been a flood that covered the
entire earth at one point in the earth's past, then again, the
results of age analysis would differ markedly from those that
would arise if it were assumed that no such catastrophe had
occurred.
If the universe is only a few thousand years old, one might
ask how it might be possible that the light from stars millions
of light years away could already be reaching the earth. One
obvious answer is that, if God created the heavens and the earth,
and the stars in the heavens, and if He did so instantaneously,
out of nothing, then there is no reason why He could not have
created the stars in such a way as to cause their light already
to be shining upon the earth at the moment of creation. They
were thus, in a sense, created with the appearance of age, just
as Adam and Eve were created as adults, not as infants or
embryos. The same could be said for the universe as a whole.
For it to have been functioning properly at the time of its
creation, it would have been necessary that it be created with
the appearance of age.
Some people object that there are many obvious indications
that the earth is millions, if not billions of years old, such as
the Grand Canyon. Questions of this nature are usually posed
with uniformitarian assumptions. It is true that the Grand
Canyon is made up of many, many geologic strata. But if these
strata were all laid down as flood deposits during the time of
Noah's Flood, the layers of sediment would have been soft at the
time that the canyon was carved out, and its formation would then
have taken place within a very short time.
Most of the sedimentary strata of the Grand Canyon are of
marine origin. It is very, very difficult to believe that its
layers of sedimentary rock could have been uplifted from the
depths of the ocean without disturbing the horizontality of its
layers. That the layers of sedimentary rock in the Grand Canyon
are perfectly horizontal is obvious even to the most casual
observer. Could this plateau have been lifted up such an
enormous distance, yet kept perfectly level? Or was there a
worldwide Flood that laid down these strata, which were then
carved out by the receding flood waters while the strata were
still soft, forming the Grand Canyon? No geologist can explain
why these layers of sedimentary rock are so high, yet so
perfectly horizontal. But believers can explain it very easily.
These strata were laid down by the waters of the Deluge.
Moreover, it stretches one's credulity to imagine that the huge
rift of the Grand Canyon is the result of the work of the tiny
Colorado River now visible at the bottom of the canyon. Nor does
it make any sense at all that these perfectly horizontal strata
could have been laid down over the course of millions or billions
of years. How could they possibly have remained so uniform and
horizontal over such great periods of time? Would there not have
been a single shift in the earth's crust during literally
millions of millennia? This is inconceivable. Considerations of
this nature demonstrate how unbelievably gullible we have been in
the twentieth century to take seriously the assertions of
uniformitarian geologists and paleontologists. It takes far more
faith to believe their assertions than to take at face value the
statements of the Bible concerning such matters.
The bones of dinosaurs also testify to the historicity of
the Flood. Whitcomb and Morris wrote:
Another mystery connected with the dinosaurs is
the number of great dinosaur graveyards found in
various parts of the world. The entombment of such
numbers of such great creatures literally demands some
form of catastrophic action. One such location, the
Dinosaur National Monument, in Utah and Colorado, in
the Morrison formation of the Jurassic, for example,
has yielded remains of more than 300 dinosaurs of many
different kinds.2
If dinosaurs of various representative species were taken on
the Ark, they would probably have been very young specimens.
Their extinction could then have resulted from very sharp changes
in climate after the Flood, although it is possible that some
persisted for a long time after the Flood, perhaps accounting for
the universal occurrence of "dragons" in ancient mythologies. In
any case, it is clear that, with the exception of whatever
remnant may have been aboard Noah's Ark, the dinosaurs were
destroyed along with everything else during the time of the
Flood. One of the great dinosaur graveyards is described as
follows by a pamphlet from the U.S. Government Printing Office:
The quarry area is a dinosaur graveyard, not a place
where they died. A majority of the remains probably
floated down an eastward flowing river until they were
stranded on a shallow sandbar. Some of them, such as
the stegosaurs, may have come from far-away dry-land
areas to the west. Perhaps they drowned trying to ford
a tributary stream or were washed away during floods.
Some of the swamp dwellers may have mired down on the
very sandbar that became their grave while others may
have floated for miles before being stranded.3
__________________________________
1Harold S. Slusher, Critique of Radiometric Dating, 2d ed. (San
Diego, Ca.: ICR, 1981), pp. 1-2.
2John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1961), p. 280.
3J. M. Good, T. E. White, and G. F. Stucker, "The Dinosaur
Quarry," U. S. Government Printing Office, 1958, p. 26, as cited
by Whitcomb and Morris, p. 280. CHARLES DARWIN AND THE DARWINIAN CONTROVERSIES
At the time of the publication of Darwin's Origin of
Species, most scientists were creationists. In 1973, Harvard,
Cambridge, and Oxford jointly published a book, Darwin and His
Critics, containing reprints of sixteen reviews by scientists of
Darwin's Origin of Species which came out shortly after its
publication in 1859.1 Ernst Mayr writes concerning this book:
Even though the present volume limits itself to sixteen
reviews by scientists, the defence of the view that the
world is the result of creation and governed by
finalistic laws is prominent in each of the twelve
reviews critical of Darwin.2
Mayr, one of the leading evolutionary biologists of our day, was
impressed by the quality and relevance of these reviews:
One might well ask whether a collection of the reviews
of Darwin's Origin of Species, written shortly after
1859, could still be of any interest. Even a quick
perusal of this volume answers this question in the
affirmative; it shows how fascinating these reviews are
and how amazingly pertinent to the present day. Even
though written by scientists--contemporary reviews by
clergymen are not included--they deal not only with
questions of scientific evidence but raise a number of
timeless problems such as the relation between science
and a belief in the supernatural.3
When Darwin proposed the theory of evolution, his views were
not new, but the time was quickly becoming ripe for science to
accept a viewpoint consistent with the idea of a materialistic
universe. Ruth Moore has written:
Darwin did not invent the concept. But when he started
his career, the doctrine of special creation could be
doubted only by heretics. When he finished, the fact
of evolution could be denied only by an abandonment of
reason. . . . Darwin gave modern science a rationale,
a philosophy.4
While Darwinism offered another world view, or framework
within which to interpret the data, it offered very little in the
way of evidence. Ernst Mayr writes:
One must grant Darwin's opponents the validity of two
of their objections. First, Darwin produced
embarrassingly little concrete evidence to back up some
of his most important claims. This includes the change
of one species into another in succeeding geological
strata, or the production of new structures and
taxonomic types by natural selection.5
However, despite its lack of evidence, Darwinism was attractive
for the very reason that it offered an alternative world view.
Mayr observes:
The Darwinian revolution occupies a unique position
among scientific revolutions because, far more than any
others, it caused a dramatic upheaval in the thinking
of man. . . . The Darwinian revolution was not merely
the replacement of one scientific theory by another, as
had been the scientific revolutions in the physical
sciences, but rather the replacement of a world view,
in which the supernatural was accepted as a normal and
relevant explanatory principle, by a new world view in
which there was no room for supernatural forces. . . .
To shift over the Darwin's radically new thinking was
obviously difficult for anyone who had been raised in
an era of creationism and essentialism.6
Even now, according to Michael Polanyi, it is because
Darwinism offers an alternative world view, not because there is
much evidence for it, that it is accepted by the scientific
community:
Neo-Darwinism is firmly accredited and highly regarded
by science, though there is little direct evidence for
it, because it beautifully fits into a mechanistic
system of the universe and bears on a subject--the
origin of man--which is of the utmost intrinsic
interest.7
When Darwin published his views, the time was ripe. Marvin
L. Lubenow writes:
Many of the truly great scientists doing the most basic
and long lasting work were devout Christians--Newton,
Kepler, Boyle, Lord Kelvin, Faraday, Morse, Pasteur,
Maxwell. Their work was based on creation postulates.
However, there must have been many other scientists at
that time who were not Christians. They were working
on creation postulates only because they had no other
world view that was at all scientifically respectable.
Then came Darwin. And for the first time . . . the
[secular] scientist had a world view that was to his
liking--naturalistic, materialistic, and mechanistic.
Whether it was as factual as one would like to have it
was not the point. It was a conceptual framework that
was a legitimate substitute for creationism. . . . It
was inevitable that evolution would be accepted because
the natural heart demanded it. No amount of
creationist erudition and learning--of which there was
plenty--could have stemmed the tide.8
Prior to the time Darwin proposed the theory of evolution,
there had been many earlier proposals of the same ideas, but due
to the Christian consensus among scientists, they met with little
success. Darwin himself mentions many of the ancient attempts to
propose evolution in the opening pages of his Origin of Species.
About one hundred years prior to the publication of the
Origin of Species, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis anticipated
most of what Charles Darwin proposed with respect to evolution.
According to Bentley Glass, Maupertuis included within his theory
of evolution the idea of the survival of the fittest.9 Glass
also stated that the reason Maupertuis proposed evolution through
natural selection was that he had considered, and desired to
refute, the argument for the existence of God from the apparent
order and design seen in nature, just as Darwin's argument's were
an attempt to refute Paley's teleological arguments.10
Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was another
champion of the theory of evolution. However, public sentiment
turned against him during his lifetime because of the growing
evangelical movement of his day led by John Wesley.11
In 1844, Robert Chambers published his Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation, but, in order to protect himself
from public censure, he concealed his identity as the author.
However, suspicion that he had written the book was strong enough
to prevent him from realizing his political ambition to become
Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1848.
Most scientists of the day were critical of Chambers'
theory, including T. H. Huxley, who later became one of Charles
Darwin's champions. According to Arthur Lovejoy of Johns Hopkins
University, Huxley became prejudiced against the Vestiges because
of certain errors that it contained which were of minor
significance. According to Lovejoy, Chambers' Vestiges presented
sufficient evidence that it should have convinced the scientists
of that day of the truth of evolution, but that is did not do so
indicates that "even in the minds of acute and professedly
unprejudiced men of science, the emotion of conviction may lag
behind the presentation of proof."12
During the 1830s, Darwin became convinced of the validity of
the theory of evolution, but he was fearful of making his views
known, because he knew they would not be favorably received at
that time. He read the Vestiges soon after its publication, and
although he was favorably impressed with it, the devastating
criticism it received from the scientific world caused him to
wonder whether he should ever make public his own views:
He had every reason to believe that his book, if ever
he wrote one, would be treated no less harshly than the
Vestiges. Sometimes he thought that it would be wiser
not to proceed with the project at all. . . . But no
sooner had he all but made up his mind accordingly,
than the conviction would come over him irresistibly
that, sooner or later somebody would enjoy the
distinction for the discovery of evolution. What a
shame it would be if that somebody stole his thunder.13
Darwin admitted that his object in life was to be esteemed by his
fellow naturalists, and due to his fear of censure, he did not
make public his views for many years. Then, in June of 1858 he
received a letter from A. R. Wallace asking for advice on a
manuscript that he had enclosed. This manuscript was a perfect
summary of his own views, and he was goaded into action. A long
paper jointly authored by Darwin and Wallace was read before the
Linnean Society and published before the end of 1858, and The
Origin of Species was published the following year. The
publisher, John Murray, remarked that he found its thesis "as
absurd as though one should contemplate a fruitful union between
a poker and a rabbit."14
Darwin's book was largely ignored at first, and it attracted
much less attention than did the Vestiges fifteen years
previously. For several years, it was totally ignored by some of
the best scientific journal of his day. T. H. Huxley later
stated that, in 1860, "The supporters of Mr. Darwin's views were
numerically extremely insignificant. There is not the slightest
doubt that if a general council of the Church scientific had been
held at that time, we should have been condemned by an
overwhelming majority."15
One of Darwin's strongest opponents was Richard Owen, the
greatest living anatomist. Owen was a man of unrivalled
knowledge and experience in research. He wrote a lengthy attack
on the Origin of Species in the Edinburgh Review, throwing
against it all the weight of his anatomical and paleontological
knowledge. He felt that the book left "the determination of the
origin of species very nearly where the author found it,"
pointing out that since variations are not normally transmitted
at all, it was difficult to see how Darwin's suggested theory
could hold water.16
At the end of June, 1860, the British Association met at
Oxford, where, among other things, Darwin's views were discussed.
While many of the speakers were unfavorable, T. H. Huxley spoke
in Darwin's defense. Over the course of the next decade,
Darwin's supporters in scientific circles grew from an
insignificant minority to a majority.
As Darwin's fame grew, Captain Robert Fitzroy of the Beagle
became convinced that he was to blame for the anti-Christian
influence of the Origin of Species, since he had not refused
Darwin passage on the Beagle, where Darwin had served as
naturalist from 1831 until 1836. It was during this trip that
Darwin had become convinced of the validity of the theory of
evolution, and had begun collecting specimens in support of the
theory. After the theory of evolution became widely accepted,
Captain Fitzroy, blaming himself, committed suicide, slitting his
own throat.
With respect to Christianity, Charles Darwin appears to have
been a man of wavering convictions.17 In 1873, he wrote:
Lyell is most firmly convinced that he has shaken the
faith in the deluge far more effectively by never
having said a word against the Bible than if he had
acted otherwise. . . . I have lately read Morley's
Life of Voltaire and he insists strongly that direct
attacks on Christianity (even when written with the
wonderful force and vigor of Voltaire) produce little
permanent effect: real good seems only to follow the
slow and silent side attacks.18
However, in 1879, he wrote, "In my most extreme fluctuations I
have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence
of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow
older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more
correct description of my state of mind."19 In the same year,
he wrote, "for myself, I do not believe that there ever has been
any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for
himself between conflicting vague probabilities."20
In his youth, Darwin was an orthodox Christian. He
recollected this is 1876:
Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I
remember being heartily laughed at by several of the
officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the
Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of
morality. . . . But I had gradually come by this time,
i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament was
no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the
Hindoos. . . .
But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I
feel sure of this, for I can well remember often and
often inventing day-dreams of old letters between
distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered
at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most
striking manner all that was written in the Gospels.
But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope
given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would
suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me
at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The
rate was so slow that I felt no distress. . . .
The old argument from design in nature, as given
by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive,
fails, now that the law of natural selection has been
discovered.21
However, Charles Darwin wavered a great deal with resect to
the Christian faith. In the last year of his life, Darwin spoke
with the Duke of Argyll, who wrote in his book, Good Words (April
1885, p. 244):
In the course of that conversation I said to Mr.
Darwin, with reference to some of his own remarkable
works on the Fertilisation of Orchids, and upon The
Earthworms, and various other observations he made of
the wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in
nature--I said it was impossible to look at these
without seeing that they were the effect and the
expression of mind. I shall never forget Mr. Darwin's
answer. He looked at me very hard and said, "Well,
that often comes over me with overwhelming force; but
at other times," and he shook his head vaguely, adding,
"it seems to go away."22
Lady Hope, of Northfield, England, was at Darwin's bedside
before he died. She reported as follows:
It was on a glorious Autumn afternoon when I was asked
to go and sit with Charles Darwin. He was almost
bedridden for some months before he died. Propped up
with pillows, his features seem[ed] to be lit up with
pleasure as I entered the room. He waved his hand
towards the window as he pointed out the beautiful
sunset seen beyond, while in the other he held an open
Bible which he was always studying.
"What are you reading now?" I asked.
"Hebrews," he answered, "still Hebrews. The Royal
Book, I call it. . . ." Then he placed his finger on
certain passages and commented upon them.
I made some allusions to the strong opinions
expressed by many unbelievers on the history of the
creation and then their treatment of the earlier
chapters of the book of Genesis. He seemed distressed,
his fingers twitched nervously and a look of agony came
across his face as he said, "I was a young man with
unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions,
wondering all the time over everything. And to my
astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made
a religion of them." Then he paused and after a few
more sentences on the holiness of God and the grandeur
of this Book, looking at the Bible which he was holding
tenderly all the time, he said:
"I have a summer house in the garden which holds
about thirty people. It is over there (pointing
through the open window). I want you very much to
speak here. I know you read the Bible in the villages.
Tomorrow afternoon I should like the servants on the
place, some tenants and a few neighbours to gather
there. Will you speak to them?"
"What shall I speak about?" I asked.
"Christ Jesus," he replied in a clear emphatic
voice, adding in a lower tone, "and His salvation. Is
not that the best theme? And then I want you to sing
some hymns with them. You lead on your small
instrument, do you not?"
The look of brightness on his face I shall never
forget, for he added, "If you take the meeting at 3
o'clock this window will be opened and you will know
that I am joining with the singing."23
Although some people have doubted the authenticity of this
account, it should be recognized that as a youth, Darwin had felt
a call to Christian ministry. In the late 1820s, he read
theological books for a while, and in 1828, he decided to attend
Christ's College, Cambridge, in preparation for Anglican orders.
When he completed his studies in 1831, it was only the
opportunity to become naturalist aboard the Beagle that prevented
him from taking his ordination. By the time the ship returned in
1836, his preference was to pursue the career of a naturalist.
The above account of Darwin's dying days bears a striking degree
of similarity to the accounts of others who, just before the time
of death, have suddenly experienced an awakening of Christian
faith.
__________________________________
1David L. Hull, Darwin and His Critics (Harvard University;
Cambridge; Oxford University: London, September 1973).
2Ernst Mayr, "Evolution and God," Nature 248 (22 March 1974):
285.
3Ibid.
4Ruth Moore, Evolution, Life Nature Library (New York: Time,
Incorporated, 1964), p. 10.
5Mayr, p. 285.
6Ibid.
7Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge Towards a Post-Critical
Philosophy (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), pp. 135-136.
8Marvin L. Lubenow, "Progressive Creationism: Is It A Biblical
Option?" paper presented to the Midwestern Section of the
Evangelical Theological Society, Twentieth General Meeting, March
21-22, 1975, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield,
Illinois, p. 10.
9Bentley Glass, ed., Forerunners of Darwin 1745-1859 (The Johns
Hopkins Press, 1959), p. 57.
10Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and Christian Faith (Nutley,
N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1969), p. 46.
11Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate (Reinhart and Co., 1959),
p. 7.
12Arthur O. Lovejoy, "Robert Chambers," in Bentley Glass, ed.,
Forerunners of Darwin, 1745-1859 (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959),
p. 356.
13Robert E. D. Clark, Darwin: Before and After (Chicago: Moody
Press, 1966), p. 56.
14Quoted by Ibid., p. 59.
15Quoted by Ibid., p. 63.
16Ibid., p. 64.
17Davidheiser, p. 66.
18Ibid., p. 67, quoting from Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the
Darwinian Revolution (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co.,
1959), p. 368.
19Francis Darwin, ed., Charles Darwin, new ed. (London: John
Murray, 1902), p. 55.
20Ibid., p. 57.
21Ibid., pp. 58, 60.
22Ibid., p. 64.
23Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Dyer, eds., Bombay Guardian, 25 March 1916,
as quoted by H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (London: Evangelical
Press, 1966), pp. 166-167.
THE SCOPES TRIAL
The Scopes Trial of 1925 has made an almost indelible
impression upon the consciousness of modern Americans as an
indication of the hopelessly anti-intellectual, obscurantist, and
bigoted nature of "Fundamentalism," or the literal belief in the
Bible. However, the image that most of us have of the trial is
derived from Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's portrayal in the
1955 play, Inherit the Wind. When it was released as a movie in
1960, critics, even those with very little sympathy for
Fundamentalism, stated that it "in effect create[s] history," and
"unjustly caricatures Fundamentalism."1 Lawrence and Lee
admitted that their play "is not history."2 However, millions of
people have unknowingly accepted Inherit the Wind as a faithful
dramatization of a historical event.
The Scopes trial was argued at the Rhea County courthouse in
Dayton, Tennessee, from Friday, July 10 until Tuesday, July 21,
1925, when John Thomas Scopes was found guilty of breaking a
Tennessee law which forbade teaching in tax-supported schools
that human beings evolved from lower forms of life. Leading the
defense was the renowned criminal lawyer and agnostic, Clarence
Darrow, who had become widely known in many widely publicized
trials.
One of the many popular misconceptions of the trial concerns
the leader of the prosecution for the case, William Jennings
Bryan. Many people mistakenly think of Bryan as a country
bumpkin with very little education who, due to ignorance and lack
of sophistication, defended a literal interpretation of the
Bible. However, far from being unsophisticated, Bryan was three
times the Democratic nominee for President of the United States,
and was Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson.
Another common misconception is that, because of the bad
publicity surrounding the trial, the Biblical world view could no
longer be taken seriously by thinking Christians. However, the
Fundamentalist controversy had been the subject of wide publicity
for several years, and by the time of the trial, the battle lines
for the Fundamentalist controversy had already been drawn. While
the press made a mockery of Bryan's Fundamentalism, "most of the
news reports were simply the convinced reaching the already
convinced."3
Some people are also under the mistaken impression that the
outcome of the trial was that the court overturned the Tennessee
state law forbidding the teaching of evolution. However, the
court found Scopes guilty, and he was fined $100.00 for teaching
evolution.
It is true, however, that the Scopes trial received a great
deal of unfavorable publicity, and served to confirm public
opinion in its newly found opposition to the Biblical world view.
Most descriptions of Clarence Darrow's cross examination of
William Jennings Bryan seem to make Bryan appear to be ridiculous
for believing that Jonah had remained three days "in a whale's
belly," and that Joshua had really made the sun stand still. Ray
Ginger describes Clarence Darrow's questioning:
Did Bryan think that Jonah had remained three days in a
whale's belly? . . . Was this whale just an ordinary
big fish, or had God created him especially for this
purpose? . . .
Darrow began asking whether Joshua had really made
the sun stand still. . . .
Is there any conceivable way that a day could be
lengthened unless the earth stood still? What would
happen to the earth if it suddenly stopped? Wouldn't
it become a molton mass? . . .
When, asked Darrow, did the flood occur? . . .
You insult every man of science and learning in
the world because he does not believe in your fool
religion. . . . [Do you] believe that all of the
species on the earth had come into being in the 4,200
years, by the Bishop's dating, since the Flood
occurred? Didn't [you] know that many civilizations
had existed for more than 5,000 years? Didn't [you]
know that many old religions described a Flood? [Do
you] know how old the earth [is]? . . .
We have the purpose of preventing bigots and
ignoramuses from controlling the education of the
United States and you know it--and that is all. . . .
I am examining you on your fool ideas that no
intelligent Christian on earth believes.4
Clarence Darrow continued brow-beating Bryan with questions of
this nature for an hour and a half, and Bryan did not have ready
answers. Five days after the trial, Bryan died, probably as a
direct result of this ordeal. Because Darrow was able to make
Fundamentalism look ridiculous during the Scopes trial, many
people, even to the present day, have been ashamed to admit to a
belief in the Biblical world view. However, one cannot make an
accurate determination as to truth based upon the extent to which
one's opponents can be caricatured and made to look ridiculous
under cross-examination in court.
__________________________________
1James H. Smylie, "In Memoriam: WJB," Christian Century 78
(January 11, 1961): 48-49; and "The New Pictures," Time (October
17, 1960): 95.
2Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Inherit the Wind (New York:
Random House, 1955), preface.
3Paul M. Waggoner, "The Historiography of the Scopes Trial: A
Critical Re-Evaluation," Trinity Journal, vol. 5, New Series
(Autumn 1984): 158.
4Ray Ginger, Six Days or Forever? (London: Oxford University
Press, 1958), pp. 167-173.
CHRISTIAN CULTS
A great deal has been written about the theology of the
various Christian cults, with a view to demonstrating how they
veer off from true Christian orthodoxy.1 While it is important
to be aware of the heterodox nature of the theology of many of
these cults, the discussion is often left here, as though there
were nothing more to be considered. However, cults can be
dangerous for other reasons. They should be studied, not only
from the point of view of doctrine, but also from the point of
view of sociology and behavioral psychology.
Cults usually exhibit characteristics similar to other
sociological entities and have in common with them many of the
characteristics of ideological totalism. In his study of
brainwashing in China, Robert J. Lifton discusses these
characteristics.2
The first step in any environment of thought reform is
milieu control, in which the individual is deprived of the
combination of external information and inner reflection needed
for anyone to test the realities of his environment and to
maintain a measure of identity separate from it. The second step
is extensive personal manipulation which seeks to provoke
specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that
these will appear to have arisen spontaneously. Lifton writes of
ideological totalists that "by thus becoming the instruments of
their own mystique, they create a mystical aura around the
manipulating institutions--the Party, the Government, the
Organization. They are the agents `chosen' (by history, by God,
or by some other supernatural force) to carry out the `mystical
imperative.'"3
Although Lifton was writing of ideological totalism and
brainwashing in China, there are striking similarities between
the situation he described and that of various cults, not all of
which necessarily have aberrant doctrines, but which exhibit
certain manipulative characteristics.
A Christian group may not even necessarily have any serious
doctrinal problems to be classified as a cult. Whether its
ideology is true or false is a question that should be considered
independently of whether the group, or its leaders, are engaged
in certain types of social manipulation.
__________________________________
1Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults (Minneapolis, Minn.:
Bethany Fellowship, 1965); William J. Petersen, Those Curious New
Cults (New Canaan, Ct.: Keats Publishing Co., 1973); John H.
Gerstner, The Theology of the Major Sects (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Book House, 1960); Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Handbook
of Today's Religions (San Bernardino, Ca.: Here's Life
Publishers, 1982).
2Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963), chapter 22.
3Ibid., p. 422.
CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM
Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. The many
Messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures were fulfilled in
Jesus Christ. Judaism is incomplete without Him, and cannot make
sense if His claim to be the Messiah is rejected.
The New Testament, or New Covenant, is a fulfillment of
Jeremiah's prophecy that the Lord was going to make a new
covenant with the house of Israel. According to this New
Covenant, He would write the law upon their hearts, He would
forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (Jeremiah
31: 31-34). The book of Hebrews (Chapters 8-10) explains how
this New Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Christianity is thoroughly Jewish. Jesus was Jewish, all of
his disciples were Jewish, and, at first, the early Church was
Jewish. These people recognized that Jesus was the long-awaited
Jewish Messiah. According to the prophet Daniel, the Messiah was
to come before the destruction of the second temple at Jerusalem
(Daniel 9:26), which took place in A.D. 70.
The Messiah was to die by crucifixion, according to Psalm
22:16 ("They pierced my hands and feet"). The Jewish people as a
whole would not know that their Messiah was the crucified one
until the siege against Jerusalem at the end of the age, when
"they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn
for Him, as one mourns for an only son." (Zechariah 12:10).
We have already examined the fulfillment of the many
Messianic prophecies in Jesus Christ. He was to be born in
Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14). He was to be a
prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15-19). He would enter Jerusalem in
triumph (Zech. 9:9). He was to be rejected by His own people
(Isaiah 53:1,3), betrayed by one of his followers (Psalm 41:9),
tried and condemned (Isaiah 53:8). He was to be silent before
His accusers (Isaiah 53:7), smitten and spat upon by his enemies
(Isaiah 50:6), mocked and taunted (Psalm 22:7,8), and crucified
(Psalm 22:16). He was to suffer with transgressors (Isaiah
53:12), and be given vinegar and gall (Psalm 69:21). They were
to cast lots for Messiah's garments (Psalm 22:18), and His bones
were not to be broken (Numbers 9:12, Exodus 12:46). The Messiah
was to die as a sacrifice for sin (Isaiah 53:5-12). Any casual
reading of the New Testament will demonstrate that Jesus
fulfilled all of these Messianic prophecies, and many more.
Jesus indicated quite clearly that He would be coming again
in the clouds of heaven, as is prophesied of Messiah in Daniel
7:13,14. He will sit on the throne of David and reign over all
of the earth (Isaiah 9:6,7, Psalm 72:8,11). CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
According to Islamic teaching, Muhammed was the last of many
prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and Jesus.
Muhammed was born in A.D. 571 at Mecca in Arabia. His father
died a few days after he was born, and his mother died when he
was six years old. His grandfather then cared for him, until his
own death three years later, when Muhammed was taken into his
uncle's home. He was pure-hearted and well loved, with a sweet
and gentle disposition. His bereavements had made him especially
sensitive to every form of human suffering, and he was always
ready to help others, especially the poor and the weak. He came
to be known as "The True," "The Upright," and "The Trustworthy
One," due to his sense of honor, duty, and fidelity.
The society in which Muhammed lived has been described as
barbaric. People had no sense of responsibility to anyone
outside of their own Bedouin tribe. There were drunken orgies,
often leading to brawls and bloodshed. In Mecca, gambling took
place constantly, at all hours of the night until morning. Young
women went from tent to tent arousing the passions of the men who
occupied them. The prevailing religion was an animistic
polytheism which provided very little check on moral attitudes
and behavior.
At the age of twenty-five, Muhammed began working for a
wealthy widow named Khadija. His prudence and integrity in the
caravan business impressed her so greatly that they ended up
getting married, although she was fifteen years older than him.
On the outskirts of Mecca was a huge, barren rock, Mount
Hira, where there was a cave to which Muhammed often retreated.
Among the many desert gods worshipped by the Meccans was Allah,
who was considered the most impressive one, as Creator, supreme
provider, and determiner of man's destiny. Muhammed came to be
convinced that Allah was the one and only God.
On one particular night, "the Night of Power and
Excellence," Muhammed was lying on the floor of the cave in
contemplation, when a voice commanded him to cry. He resisted
twice, but when the voice commanded "Cry!" for the third time, he
asked what he should cry. He was given a few sentences, and as
he aroused from his trance, he felt that the words had been
deeply impressed upon him. He ran home terrified and, after a
while, when he was able to regain some of his composure, he told
his wife that he had become either a prophet or "one possessed--
mad." At first, she was incredulous, but after she heard the
full story, she became his first convert. Muhammed had many
doubts about whether the voice was really God's or whether it was
of demonic origin, but his wife encouraged him. The voice
returned frequently, and it commanded him to preach.
Muhammed did not claim to be a miracle-worker, but he did
claim that, by his own devices, he could not have produced the
Koran, which was said to be dictated to him directly by God in
segments over a period of twenty-three years through voices that
sounded like the "reverberating of bells," which, although
seeming to vary at first, gradually became focused into a single
voice which became identified as Gabriel's.
Muhammed's message of uncompromising monotheism threatened
the revenues coming to Mecca from Bedouin pilgrimages to over
three hundred shrines. Its moral teachings insisted upon an end
to licentiousness, and the necessity of looking upon men as equal
in the sight of God.
The reaction to this message was one of intense persecution
from a licentious society ridden with class distinctions. This
only caused Muhammed to throw himself more fully into preaching.
He admonished the people to turn from their false gods, abandon
their evil ways, and prepare for the day of judgement. After ten
years, several hundred people had accepted Muhammed as God's
prophet, but the rest of the city of Mecca seemed intensely
opposed to him.
In Yathrib, a city about two hundred miles north of Mecca,
Muhammed's teachings had begun to take a firm hold. However, the
city faced many internal rivalries and needed a strong leader
from elsewhere. A delegation of about 75 of its leading citizens
went to Mecca to ask Muhammed if he would take on this
responsibility. Muhammed pondered this proposal, and asked them
to pledge that they would worship none but God, that they would
observe Islam's principles and obey him in all that was right and
defend him. When they agreed to these terms, he agreed to come.
When the leaders of Mecca heard of this, they attempted to
prevent him from going, but he eluded them. He and a friend hid
in a crevice south of the city, and horsemen searching for him
came so close to finding them that his companion began to
despair. Muhammed encouraged him and told him that God was with
them, and, indeed, they were not discovered. After three days,
they were able to escape by way of deserted roads to Yathrib.
This Hegira or Hijrah (flight) took place in A.D. 622, and is the
time from which Muslims date their calendar.
The city changed its name to Medina, and Muhammed was thrust
into the role of a political leader, which he handled extremely
well. His administration was described as an ideal blend of
justice and mercy. He was gentle and merciful toward his own
enemies, but as chief of state, he meted out punishment to those
who were guilty of criminal acts towards other people. He
continued to live an unpretentious life, remaining in an ordinary
clay house, milking his own goats, and making himself accessible
to all people, regardless of their economic or social status.
As time passed, he was able to bring the conflicting
factions of the city into unity, including Arabs and Jews. His
reputation spread, and people began flocking from all parts of
Arabia to visit the man who had made this outstanding
accomplishment. There were wars between Mecca and Medina, and
Medina emerged victorious. Huston Smith writes:
The city that had treated him cruelly now lay at his
feet with his old persecutors at his mercy. He
refused, however, to press his victory; in the hour of
his triumph the past was forgotten. Making his way to
the famous Kaaba stone which had been the religious
focus of Mecca since time immemorial and which he now
rededicated to Allah, he accepted the almost mass
conversion of the city but returned himself to Medina.
Two years later, in 632 A.D. (10 A.H.), Muhammed
died with virtually all of Arabia under his control.
With all the power of armies, police, and civil
service, no other Arab had ever succeeded in uniting
his countrymen as he had. By the time a century had
passed, his followers had conquered Armenia, Persia,
Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and Spain, and had
crossed the Pyrenees into France. But for their defeat
by Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours in 732 A.D.,
the entire Western world might today be Muslim.1
According to Islam, the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures were
authentic revelations from God, but they were revealed at earlier
stages in man's spiritual development, and are therefore
incomplete. Moreover, the Old and New Testaments, according to
Islam, have become partially corrupted in the process of
transmission. However, the Koran is the final and infallible
revelation of God's will. According to Islam, the Koran is a
miracle from God, since Muhammed had been so unskilled in writing
that he could barely write his own name; yet the Koran embodies
all wisdom and theology essential to human life and is
grammatically perfect and without equal as a work of literature.
The Koran does not advocate the idea of pacifism, or of
turning the other cheek. While it teaches forgiveness and the
return of good for evil under certain circumstances, the Muslim
is not to be a doormat for the ruthless. Without the punishment
of wrongdoers, morality evaporates into mere sentimentality.
Thus, in accordance with the Muslim concept of holy war (jihad),
martyrs who die are assured of heaven.
One basic difference between Islam and the Judaeo-Christian
tradition, therefore, has to do with the idea of vengeance.
According to the Old and the New Testaments, it is God who is to
be the avenger, not the individual. Quoting Deuteronomy 32:35,
Paul writes in Romans 12:19 that one is not to avenge oneself,
but that it is God Himself who, independent of our own individual
actions, will exact vengeance.
Monotheism is a primary emphasis of Islam; Christians are
not considered true monotheists, because they believe in the
divinity of Jesus Christ. While Islam accepts Jesus as a
prophet, and even His virgin birth, it nevertheless insists that
the doctrines of the Incarnation and of the Trinity are
violations of monotheism, and the one unforgivable sin is to
associate anyone or anything with the Almighty.
According to Islam, the work of Jesus was left unfinished,
being reserved for another teacher, Muhammed, who would
systematize the laws of morality. Jesus did not live long enough
to do this, but even if he had, mankind was not sufficiently
advanced at the time of Jesus for the refined teachings of
Muhammed. These teachings betray a basic misunderstanding of the
mission of Jesus Christ, the primary purpose of which was to
bring about man's redemption and reconciliation with God by His
death and resurrection.
With respect to the crucifixion, the Koran states that it
only appeared as though Jesus was crucified (Surah 4:156-158).
Many Muslims believe that Judas was crucified in Christ's place,
and that Christ was then taken up into heaven. According to
Islamic teaching, Christ could not have been crucified because it
is contrary to God's justice to permit the suffering of an
innocent man on behalf of others, and contrary to His omnipotence
not to be able to rescue a prophet in danger. Thus, since Jesus
was not the one who was crucified, neither was he raised from the
dead.
Of course, the cornerstone of Christianity is the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have already examined the
extensive evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Without Christ's death and resurrection, there could not
have been any redemption of the human race from sin, disease,
aging, and death. Without the shedding of blood, there can be no
forgiveness of sin, according to Hebrews 9:22. If Christ did not
die, then we are still in our sins. And, if he was not raised,
then our faith is in vain, as Paul says in I Corinthians 15:17,
since it is His resurrection that assures us of resurrection and
immortality.
Islam refers to Jesus as a prophet, but not as divine. We
have seen, however, that there are many problems that arise if we
reject Christ's claims for himself. It is not possible to refer
to Christ as a prophet if His claims to divinity were false. He
made these claims consistently, and they were the basis of the
complaints of the Jews, who eventually saw to it that he was
crucified because of what they considered to be the blasphemous
nature of his claims to divinity.
The Koran argues that the records that we have of the Old
and New Testaments have been corrupted during the transmission of
the documents. We have already examined extensive evidence,
however, that tremendous care was taken in the transmission of
these texts. For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that
the Masoretic text remained virtually unchanged from about two
thousand years ago until the present day. As far as the New
Testament is concerned, the manuscript attestation is far better
than for any other classical text, and some of these manuscripts
reach as far back as the second century. Moreover, there is
considerable uniformity in the thousands of manuscripts now
extant, although there are minor variations in phraseology. The
Koran, on the other hand, offers no historical evidence for its
assertions about the transmission of the texts of the Old and New
Testaments, nor does it offer any evidence for the doubts it
raises about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In
Galatians 1:8,9, Paul wrote that if anyone were to preach a
different gospel, he would be accursed:
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any
other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached
unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so
say I now again, if any man preach any other Gospel
unto you than that ye have received, let him be
accursed.
Islam is not a refinement of Christianity, as it claims to be.
Its teachings, as we have seen, contradict the basic teachings of
Christianity: the divinity of Christ, the atoning work of Christ,
and His death and resurrection, all of which are at the very core
of the teachings of Jesus and of the apostles.
__________________________________
1Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1958), p. 209.
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM
There are many forms and expressions of Hinduism.
Associated with Hinduism are at least several hundred images of
God. Houston Smith has written of these images:
Valued as ends in themselves these could, of course,
usurp God's place, but this is not their intent. . . .
It is clumsy to confuse Hinduism's images with idolatry
and her many images with polytheism. They are but
runways from which man's heavily sense-embodied spirit
can take off for its "flight of the alone to the
Alone."1
Nevertheless, regardless of the original intent of the use
of images in Hinduism, millions of Hindus may be within the firm
grip of idolatry. Among the many important symbols of Hinduism
is the cow, which is considered sacred. This is in direct
contrast to Christianity. Paul writes, "they exchanged the truth
of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever" (Romans 1:25).
It is often said that Hinduism is pantheistic. Pantheism is
the idea that the universe and all that it contains is God, or a
part of God. This brings us back to idolatry, since one can
worship the creation, or its components, if when all is said and
done, these things are really a part of God. In contrast,
Christianity recognizes that, while the universe (and everything
within it) has been created by God (and is therefore to be
respected as God-given and as a manifestation of His power and
majesty) it is not God, or a part of Him. If all that exists in
the created universe were suddenly to cease existing God would
not disappear, nor would He be diminished in any way. He existed
before its creation, and He would therefore exist if it were
somehow annihilated.
According to pantheism, all that now is had an impersonal
beginning. That is, according to pantheism, the universe was not
created by a personal God. Francis Schaeffer has observed that
if this were so, then there would be no explanation for the fact
that the universe exists at all, in all of its complexity and
order, nor would there be any explanation for the existence of
man's personality. Personality cannot arise from that which has
no personality.
Moreover, as Schaeffer points out, pantheism leaves one with
no real reason for drawing any distinction between cruelty and
non-cruelty. Cruelty is just as much a part of what exists as
non-cruelty. There is ultimately no real basis for morals if one
holds to a pantheistic world view.2
There may be, however, forms of Hinduism which are not
pantheistic. Huston Smith feels that the following quotation
form a Christian author is as applicable to Hinduism as it is to
Christianity:
The union [of man with God] . . . is no Pantheistic
absorption of the man in the one . . . but is
essentially personal in character.3
One must ask why it is necessary to quote from a Christian author
to explain the Hindu viewpoint of oneness with God, but even so,
let us give him the benefit of the doubt, and consider Hinduism
in greater depth.
According to Hinduism, anybody can have what he or she
wants. The wants of mankind are four: (1) pleasure, (2) wealth,
fame, and power, (3) to be of service, and (4) infinite being,
infinite awareness, and infinite joy. As long as the basic rules
of morality are observed, every person is free to seek as much
pleasure as he or she wishes. However, eventually people do come
to realize that there must be more to life than momentary
pleasures. The second goal, that of success, also has its
limitations. It is fleeting, and the lust for power and wealth
is never satisfied. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong
with such things, people usually eventually recognize that, in
and of themselves, such things fail to satisfy. With this
realization, people pass beyond the wish to succeed into the wish
to be of service to others. Nevertheless, even this is
ephemeral. Even a life of service will not bring society to a
place of perfection. There must yet be something beyond service
for which people yearn.
First, we want being. Nobody wants to die. We all want to
continue our existence. Secondly, we want to know and to be
aware. Thirdly, we want joy. These three things we want to an
infinite degree, and therefore we want to be released from the
limitations of our present existence. What man most wants, he
can have. Infinite being, awareness and joy are within our
reach. In fact, they are already ours. Each of us has a
reservoir of being that never dies and is without limit in
awareness and bliss. This beyond that is within the hidden self,
or Atman, is Brahman, the Godhead. However, the eternal is
buried under the morass of distractions, false ideas, and self-
regarding impulses comprising our surface being.
According to Hinduism, the purpose of life is to pass beyond
the imperfections of lack of strength, inability to fulfill our
deepest dreams, susceptibility to illness, ignorance,
discouragement, the aging process, and death. This can be done
by passing beyond the attachment to the things of this life. If
we have no expectations, then we cannot be disappointed. When we
become detached from the finite self and from an attachment to
reality as a whole, we are lifted above the possibility of
frustration.
Ignorance is removable by knowing that which brings the
knowledge of everything. When one achieves this insight, it so
illumines all things that the point of existence becomes crystal
clear. This transcendent knowledge is available to man.
Infinite being is also available. If you identify yourself
with your family, finding your joys in theirs, you will have that
much reality. If you could identify with mankind as a whole it
would be proportionately greater, and if you could identify
yourself with being as a whole, your own being would be
unlimited.
There is, according to Hinduism, more to ourselves than we
realize. We tend to concentrate ourselves upon our present
lifespan. If we could only grow up completely we would realize
that our total being is more vast than we suppose.
One of the objects of Hindu literature is to open our
imaginations to the infinite which lies concealed in the depths
of every life. In one parable, a king fell victim to amnesia and
wandered throughout his kingdom in tatters not knowing who he
really was. According to Hinduism, we are in the same position.
We must come to a realization of our total being. This can only
come through actual experience.
There are four possible paths to the higher state of being,
rendering the surface self transparent to the divinity beneath:
(1) through knowledge, (2) through love, (3) through work, or (4)
through psychological exercises. A prerequisite for all four
methods is to be cleansed of all serious moral impurities and to
cultivate habits of truthfulness, non-injury, non-stealing, self-
control, cleanliness, contentment, self-discipline, and a
compelling desire to reach the goal. The path one should take is
dependent upon the individual. Two or more paths are often used
in combination depending upon one's personality and inclinations.
One of the important tasks of a Hindu master is to help each
initiate determine the path this is best suited for him or her.
The first, the path of knowledge, consists of a series of
meditations and logical demonstrations that there is more to a
person than his or her finite self. It is necessary to become
able to distinguish the surface self that crowds the foreground
of our being from the larger self lying behind it. Three steps
are involved: (1) hearing, (2) thinking, and (3) shifting one's
self-identification from the passing to the eternal part of one's
being. The first step involves listening to sages and reading
scriptures and philosophical treatises demonstrating that there
lies at the center of one's being the infinite fount of being
itself. The second step involves being transformed in outlook.
Various exercises can be used to achieve this purpose. One such
exercise is to examine one's use of language and consider its
implications. How often, for example, does one use the word
"my," implying a distinction between the possessor and what is
possessed? I talk about my body, my mind, and my personality as
though I stand apart from these things in some sense. The third
step involves deep and profound meditation on one's identity with
the Eternal Spirit. One way of doing this is to think of one's
finite self in the third person. Finally, through a knowledge
identical with being, one become in full what one always was at
heart.
The second path to divine realization is through love. The
object in this case is to direct toward God the fountain of love
that lies at the bottom of the human heart. According to
Hinduism, Christianity is one great highway toward God that makes
use of this path. This second path involves loving God dearly,
not merely in word but in deed. It involves loving Him only, and
loving Him with no ulterior motives. This is accomplished with
the use of symbols, images of God, and ritual. Another practice
important for the realization of this goal is that of repeating
the name of God, which soaks down into the subconscious, turning
one's total self toward the divine. Another feature of the path
of love is "ringing the changes on love," or meditating upon the
love of a parent for a child, the child for its parent, the
conjugal love of man and wife, the love of a devoted servant for
his benevolent master, and so on, and understanding their
implications for our love for God. A final feature is the
worship of God in the form of one's chosen ideal. According to
Hinduism, a number of representations can equally point to god,
but each devotee should attach himself on a lifelong basis to
some manifestation, usually one of God' human incarnations such
as Christ, Rama, Krishna, or Buddha.
The third possible path to God is through work. God can be
found in the world of everyday affairs as easily as anywhere.
One can throw oneself wholly into one's work, if it is done
wisely, in a way that will bring the highest rewards. The path
of work can be practiced under the mode of knowledge or the mode
of love, similar to the two paths that have already been
discussed.
The fourth path is raja yoga, the way to God through
psychological experiment. It beings with the suspicion that our
true selves are vastly more wonderful than we now realize and
with a passion for a direct experience with this true self. One
undergoes a series of eight experiments upon oneself, observing
their effects upon one's spiritual condition. The goal is a
direct personal experience of the "beyond that is within."
The first step involves abstaining from injury, lying,
stealing, sensuality, and greed. The second involves observing
cleanliness, contentment, self-control, studiousness, and
contemplation of the divine. The third and fourth steps are
concerned with keeping the body from intruding to distract the
mind from its concentration, while the fifth step involves
becoming oblivious to outside distractions. In the sixth step,
the distractions of the mind itself are quieted, while in the
seventh, concentration deepens to the point at which the duality
of the knower and the known is to be resolved into a perfect
unity. Finally, the eighth step is the final state of samadhi,
in which man's mind is completely absorbed in God. The
individual is brought to the knowledge of total being and
dissolved into it.
Now that we have considered Hinduism in greater depth, it
will be possible to evaluate it in the light of Christian
revelation. At the outset, it should be pointed out that any
aspects of Hinduism that are consistent with Christianity should
be viewed positively. Many of the world's great religions
contain a great deal of truth.
While there may be a great deal of truth in Hinduism,
however, there is also much that is left unexplained for which
Christianity give us the answers. Jesus Christ is the key that
unlocks many of the mysteries that are left unsolved by Hinduism.
There are also many irreconcilable difference between
Christianity and Hinduism. The idea of reincarnation, for
example, is central to Hinduism, but cannot be reconciled with
the Christian understanding of the bodily resurrection at the end
of the age.
Hinduism correctly observes that we are imbued with an
innate desire to live forever. Normally, nobody wants to die.
This desire for immortality is explained by the Judaeo-Christian
world view, while it is never really explained by Hinduism.
According to the Christian Bible, physical death is a judgement
from God resulting from the fall of man. Mankind was made to
live forever, and, indeed, the Bible speaks of a resurrection of
both the just and the unjust (Acts 24:15), although for the
former it will be an awakening to everlasting life, while for the
latter it will be an awakening to everlasting contempt (Daniel
12:2) and to judgment (John 5:29).
Hinduism also correctly observes that man really wants a
complete liberation (mukti) or release from the limitations that
press so closely upon his existence: illness, tiredness, error,
ignorance, discouragement, old age and death. Here, Jesus Christ
is the key to the problem that Hinduism has correctly diagnosed.
Jesus Christ has redeemed us from these things, and all of
creation eagerly awaits the time of the complete fulfillment of
this redemption, as we see in Romans 8:18-23. Hinduism wrestles
with this problem, but it never really explains why the problem
exists in the first place. In the Bible, we see that all of
creation has been subjected to futility as a result of the fall
of man.
The great object of Hinduism is to find union with God.
Here again, Jesus Christ is the key that unlocks the door to the
fulfillment of this objective. Through His death, Jesus brought
reconciliation between God and man, and made possible our union
with God. This union requires no unusual feat on our part.
Rather, it is the free gift of God given to us as a result of the
atoning work of Christ, reconciling us, and all of the fallen
creation, to God. If we repent and believe the Gospel, He freely
fills us with His fullness.
One question that often arises has to do with Christian
mysticism, which is the attempt on the part of some Christians to
seek oneness, or unity with God. It is asked, first of all,
whether this is really necessary if we as Christians have been
freely given the gift of His fullness through the atoning work of
Christ, and, secondly, whether such practices might lead to
satanic deception. The great reformer Martin Luther drew
inspiration from some of the great Christian mystics, such as
Johann Tauler, who referred to the unity of will with God in
one's heart at rare moments as a foretaste of eternal
blessedness.
Luther felt that there was an important distinction to be
made between two types of mysticism. One type, which was to be
avoided, was the seeking of oneness with God in a Neoplatonic
sense. The God of Neoplatonism was a pantheistic, impersonal
God. Neoplatonic mysticism was speculative, and sought oneness
with the essence, or being, of God, bypassing the incarnate and
crucified Christ. A second type of mysticism, which is perfectly
acceptable and desirable, seeks a union with God through Jesus
Christ in emotions, thought, and will. This union is achieved
through prayer and meditation, especially upon Scripture, and
often culminates in a fullness of joy redolent of heavenly bliss.
Luther had such a mystical experience, and referred to it in a
sermon he preached on May 25, 1523, in which he reminisced that
he was once "carried away to the third heaven." This union with
God could be described and given content, in contrast to the
experience of oneness with God in Zen Buddhism, for example,
which is said to be incommunicable and indescribable.
One may ask why a Christian would need to seek oneness with
God if this has already been made freely available by the atoning
work of Christ. Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the
fact that it is sometimes necessary, through spiritual warfare,
to appropriate that which has already been made available to us
through Christ's death.
Is the Hindu state of samadhi, in which man's mind is
completely absorbed in God, comparable in any way to Christian
mysticism? One must be very careful in drawing any parallels
here, because in Hinduism, the individual is said to be brought
to the knowledge of total being and dissolved into it. In fact,
the Hindu union with God is often very similar in many respects
to that of Neoplatonism, and tends to conceive of God as
pantheistic and morally neutral. In all such cases, one must
exercise extreme caution, especially because of the fact that
there is a deceiver, Satan, who appears as an angel of light and
can and does counterfeit all of the things of God.
On the positive side, it must also be recognized that God
can do what he pleases. If He sees fit to grant a foretaste of
heavenly bliss to somebody who has not yet had contact with the
Christian gospel, this is His prerogative. For this reason, one
should not automatically pass judgement on those who have had
such experiences apart from Jesus Christ. Such people may have
had contact with Him without recognizing who He is. However, He
is the key that unlocks the door to the question of union with
God. He has brought reconciliation to God through His death, and
apart from Him, there can be no union with God. If His claims
are true, and if Christian revelation is genuine, the He is the
only true path to infinite being (or immortality), infinite
awareness (or revelation), and infinite joy (or heavenly bliss).
Hinduism cannot be faulted for its attempts to struggle with
the great problems of existence. Yet it is not surprising that
it could not really come up with satisfactory solutions. Apart
from revelation from God Himself, no solution would be
discernable.
We see, therefore, why evangelism is so important, and why
Jesus told the disciples to spread the good news unto the
uttermost parts of the earth, making disciples of all men. All
people recognize, to one degree or another, that they are in
bondage to sin, illness, the aging process, and death, and we all
need to know that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from these things.
Why leave people in ignorance about it? Can we in good
conscience keep this information away from the Hindus simply
because they already have a world view that struggles with these
questions and attempts to give an answer?
If the claims of Christ are true, Christianity does not
simply provide another possible answer to the questions of
existence. Rather, it provides the answer. What right do we
have to say that as long as others have a great religion they
don't need Jesus Christ? If He is going to judge the entire
world in righteousness as He said He would, should not the entire
world be told that this is what will happen to it?
Some people argue that it is a form of bigotry not to accept
all of the religions of the world as equally valid means of
coming to know God. "After all," it is said, "Hinduism accepts
Christianity as one possible way of knowing God. Why can't
Christianity be tolerant of Hinduism in the same way?"
In answer to this objection, it should be pointed out, first
of all, that Jesus Christ stressed that He was unique. The
uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the one through whom all of the
world has been redeemed cannot be overemphasized. The fact that
He emphasized this point demonstrates its importance. As we have
already seen, it is impossible to dismiss His own insistence that
he was God incarnate without also dismissing his authority as a
great moral teacher.
Secondly, one must remember that, while we can feel free to
affirm all that other religions affirm as long as it is
consistent with the Bible, we cannot affirm both what the Bible
states and what other religions teach when those teachings
contradict the Bible. To do so would be to reject the
possibility of any real truth, since two things that are mutually
contradictory cannot both be true. Our preference for the
Bible's teachings arises, first, from the Bible's claim to be
revelation from God, and secondly, from all of the evidence that
we have examined that validates this claim. If God has spoken,
we had better pay attention. And the evidence that He has indeed
spoken to us in the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures is quite
overwhelming.
Some people will ask whether it is not merely a matter of
cultural conditioning whether we are Christians or Hindus.
Ideally, one's beliefs should be based upon evidence, not upon
whether one's culture happens to hold to a particular world view.
As it happens, Western culture no longer holds to a Christian
consensus. It is often the case that, in the twentieth century,
those who hold to a belief in the Bible do so despite the culture
in which they live. Thus, it can no longer be said that, to be a
believing Christian is to be the product of one's culture.
__________________________________
1Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1958), p. 47.
2Francis A. Schaeffer, He Is There And He Is Not Silent (Wheaton,
Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1972), pp. 24-26, and Francis A.
Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H.
Revell Co., 1976), pp. 177-179.
3Bede Frost, The Art of Mental Prayer (London: S.P.C.K., 1950),
pp. 29-30, quoted by Huston Smith, pp. 46-47.
CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM
Buddhism was spawned in a Hindu environment, and therefore
has some similarities to Hinduism. Just as is the case for
Hinduism, there are countless forms and expressions of Buddhism.
Many of the same criticisms that are used against Hinduism have
been used against Buddhism.
"Buddha" is a word which means "awakened one." Buddhism
began with a man who was given this title after he was asked
whether he was a god, or an angel, or a saint, and he replied
that he was none of these things, but that he was "awake."
Buddha (or Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas) was born in 560 B.C.
in northern India, about 100 miles from Benares. He was born a
prince, an heir to his father's throne, but when he was born, the
fortune tellers told the father that he was an unusual child,
destined either to unite all of India into one kingdom, or, if he
forsook the world, to become a world redeemer. Because of this,
the child was brought up completely sheltered from all forms of
misery in the world, and he was given all of the pleasures that
the world could offer. He was to be shielded from any contact
with sickness, decrepitude, or death. However, one day, despite
the best efforts of the servants of the king, he saw an old man
who was decrepit, broken-toothed, gray-haired, and bent of body,
leaning on a staff, and trembling. From this, he learned the
fact of old age. Shortly afterward, he saw a diseased body lying
by the road, and later, a corpse. On a fourth occasion he saw a
monk and he thus learned the possibility of withdrawal from the
world. He said, "Life is subject to age and death. Where is the
realm of life in which there is neither age nor death?" He
became acutely aware of the evanescence of the things of the
world. At the age of 29, he secretly left his father's kingdom
to begin a search for enlightenment. He learned from two of the
foremost Hindu masters of his day, and, after six years, joined a
band of ascetics. This taught him the futility of asceticism,
and he therefore devoted himself to a combination of rigorous
thought and mystic concentration along the lines of the fourth
"path" of Hinduism, raja yoga.
At one point, he seated himself beneath a fig tree (Bo tree)
near Gaya in northeast India, and vowed that he would not arise
until he had attained illumination. He felt that his being was
transformed, and he emerged awakened. He was filled with
rapture, and he therefore could not leave for seven days. On the
eighth day he tried to arise, but he was lost again in bliss, and
was not able to rise up for another 41 days.
He experienced what he considered to be a speech-defying
revelation that could not be translated into words. For the
following forty-five years, he spread the ego-shattering, life-
redeeming "elixir" of his message. He founded an order of monks,
and inquirers came from many distant places, all of whom he
welcomed.
Many people were profoundly affected by Buddha's life and
ministry. He felt that he had risen to a plane of knowledge far
beyond that of anyone else in his time, and his followers felt
that when they were with him they were in the presence of
"something very like omniscience incarnate."1 Although he was
under constant pressure during his lifetime to allow himself to
be worshipped as a God, he rebuffed it categorically, insisting
that he was human in every respect. He seemed to have an unusual
ability to discern character, and he was never taken in by
hypocrisy or fraud. In conversation, he was always able to move
on to that which was authentic and genuine.
Buddha refused to talk about metaphysical questions:
It is not on the view that the world is eternal, that
it is finite, that body and soul are distinct, or that
the Buddha exists after death that a religious life
depends. Whether these views or their opposites are
held, there is still rebirth, there is old age, there
is death, and grief, lamentation, suffering, sorrow,
and despair . . . . I have not spoken to these views
because they do not conduce to absence of passion,
tranquility, and Nirvana.2
Buddha said to his followers that when he was gone, he would
really be gone; that they should not bother to pray to him. He
was there only to point out the way to them. They had to work
out their own salvation with diligence.
Buddha's religion was devoid of miracles of any kind, and he
condemned the use of divination, soothsaying, and fortune
telling.
Direct, personal experience was the final test for truth.
His approach was essentially pragmatic, concerning exclusively
with problem-solving. He made a formal declaration of four
"noble truths" after his awakening. The first is that of the
existence of suffering. He recognized that the affairs of
mankind and of society are in the most imperfect state
imaginable, and in a state of absolute misery almost bordering on
chaos:
Life in the condition it has got itself into is
dislocated. Something has gone wrong. It has slipped
out of joint. As its pivot is no longer true, its
condition involves excessive friction (interpersonal
conflict), impeded motion (blocked creativity), and
pain.3
All of life is subject to the trauma of birth, the pathology of
sickness, the morbidity of decrepitude, the phobia of death,
being tied to that which one hates, such as disease, and being
separated from that which one loves. Huston Smith writes:
The First Noble Truth concludes with the assertion that
the five skandas are painful. As these five skandas
are body, sense, ideas, feelings, and consciousness--in
short the sum total of what we regard as human life--
his statement amounts to the thesis that the totality
of human life in its usual condition is steeped in
suffering. In some way life has become estranged from
reality, and this estrangement precludes real happiness
until it be overcome.4
The Second Noble Truth, that of the origin of suffering,
explains the cause of life's dislocation as the desire to seek
fulfillment of our passions, needs, and wants. To become
completely selfless removes this problem. "Rare indeed is the
man who is more concerned that the standard of life as a whole be
raised than that his own salary be increased. And this, says
Buddha, is why we suffer."5
According to the Third Noble Truth, that of the extinction
of suffering, the cure of life's disharmony lies in overcoming
selfish craving. The Fourth Noble Truth, that of the Path that
leads to the Extinction of Suffering, explains how this cure can
be effected. Our release from this bondage can be accomplished
by means of the "Eightfold Path," by which a man is totally
remade and left a different being, cured of life's crippling
disabilities.
The first step of the eightfold path is right understanding.
One must believe in the truth of the Four Noble Truths. The
second step is right thought or aspiration. We must be certain
that we wish to attain total enlightenment. Third is right
speech. We must notice any lack of charity in our speech and
adjust our thinking accordingly. We must proceed toward truth in
everything we say. Behind our arguments and defenses is a fear
of revealing to others and to ourselves what we really are. Such
protective devices must be overcome.
The fourth step is right action, or behavior. We must
understand our behavior, reflect upon what we have done, and
improve ourselves in accordance with the five precepts: do not
kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not be unchaste, and do not
drink intoxicants. The fifth step is right livelihood. We must
be involved in a livelihood that promotes life instead of
destroying it. Sixth is right effort. One must exercise the
will in the effort to develop virtues and curb passions. Seventh
is right mindfulness, or the use of the mind for continual self-
examination. We must trace our moods and emotions to their
causes and not allow them to influence us to do evil.
The final step of Buddhism's "Eightfold Path" is right
concentration, or right absorption, which is substantially the
same as the series of techniques involved in Hinduism's fourth
path, raja yoga, or the way to God through psychological
exercises.6 Buddhism's similarity to the Hinduism out of which
it was born becomes apparent when we come upon this final and
most important step of the eightfold path. Buddhism looks upon
this state of enlightenment as the ultimate answer to the
problems of existence.
As we compare Buddhism to Christianity it becomes
immediately apparent that, even to a greater degree than
Hinduism, Buddhism diagnoses beautifully the problem of human
existence. Consider, for instance, the following comments on the
First Noble Truth from The Word of the Buddha:
Subject to decay, disease, death, sorrow, lamentation,
pain, grief, and despair, the desire comes to them: `O,
that we were not subject to these things!' `O, that
these things were not before us!' But this cannot be
got by mere desiring; and not to get what one desires,
is suffering.7
Buddhism struggles for an answer to this problem, and does so as
well as can be expected apart from revelation from God, but once
again, Jesus Christ supplies the missing ingredient. He is the
solution to the problems so clearly delineated by Buddhism. Of
course the human condition is miserable. If, as it says in
Genesis, man fell and brought the curse upon himself, then it is
not at all surprising that, apart from revelation, Buddhism has
been able to discern that there is something terribly wrong with
the world in which we live. We live in terrible disharmony due
to sin, and this is accompanied with illness, pain, decrepitude,
suffering, and death.
Buddhism rightly points out that there is a relationship
between this suffering in all of its forms and selfishness, but
it is not able to offer an explanation as to why these things are
as they are. Christianity provides us with the answer to this
question: Adam and Even fell, bringing the curse upon all of
mankind, along with suffering and death.
Jesus Christ is the answer for which Buddha was looking.
Jesus provides the answers to all of the questions that Buddha
pondered. Buddha sought the answer in Hinduism, because he did
not know where else to look for answers. But about 480 years
after the time of Buddha's death, Jesus was born. Redemption
came to all of humanity through His death and resurrection about
33 years later. This redemption from the effects of the fall
included redemption from sin, disease, pain, aging, and death.
If the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us,
He will quicken our mortal bodies, raising us to newness of life,
both spiritually and physically.
Because of its clear understanding of the true condition of
fallen mankind, Buddhism provides one of the clearest evidences
for the truth of the Christian revelation. It would not have
been surprising at all if, had Buddha had met Christ, he would
have become a Christian. Buddha understood man's dilemma, and he
knew man needed to be freed from selfishness and death.
Confronting Christ, he would probably have recognized immediately
that he was beholding the very redemption for which he yearned
and of which he had perhaps had a foretaste.
Of course, there are major differences between Buddhism and
Christianity. Buddhism is certainly indifferent to any personal
creator. According to Buddhism, creation was the result of some
primordial ignorance and willfulness incomprehensible to us.
This negative view of creation stems from the realization of the
reality of suffering in the created world. Christianity also
acknowledges the depth of this suffering, but recognizes that it
is due to man's fall. Prior to the fall, all that had been
created was good. Thus, Christianity affirms the goodness of
creation and the goodness of the God who created the universe,
while Buddhism stumbles at this point.
Another important difference between Buddhism and
Christianity lies in Buddha's belief in reincarnation. The image
he used to describe it was that of a flame being passed from
candle to candle.
It is not surprising that Hinduism and Buddhism adhered to
the idea of reincarnation when one remembers that both of these
religions acknowledged man's desire for infinite being (or
eternal life), yet affirmed the reality of physical death. Since
neither religion knew of the resurrection of the dead, the
yearning for immortality found solace in the idea of the
transmigration of souls.
Of course, Christianity differs markedly from Hinduism and
Buddhism with respect to salvation. Consider the following
quotation from Nyanatiloka's introduction to The Word of The
Buddha:
The Buddha is neither a god nor a prophet or
incarnation of a god, but a supreme human being who--
through his own effort, attained to Final Deliverance
and Perfect Wisdom, and became `the peerless teacher of
gods and men.' He is a `Saviour' only in the sense
that he shows men how to save themselves, by actually
following to the end the Path trodden and shown by
him.8
According to Christianity, man cannot save himself. Only God is
able to save people. He is the active agent, and salvation is by
the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning
work. Through his or her own effort, a human being cannot save
himself. In contrast, Hinduism and Buddhism purport to show
others how to save themselves.
__________________________________
1Huston Smith, p. 95.
2Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta 63.
3Huston Smith, p. 109.
4Ibid., p. 110.
5Ibid., p. 111.
6Ibid., p. 118.
7Nyanatiloka, The Word of The Buddha: An Outline of the Teaching
of the Buddha in the Words of the Pali Canon (Kandy, Ceylon:
Buddhist Publication Society, 1968), p.4.
8Ibid., p. ix.
THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT
The New Age Movement combines various components of secular
humanism, Eastern mysticism and the occult. One strong emphasis
of the New Age Movement is upon the God that is within us, or the
Christ within. We must believe in and actualize the spiritual
power each of us possesses. Each of us has this universal life
force within us, waiting to be tapped.
Christians, on the other hand, believe that spiritual power
is available by drawing upon the power of the Holy Spirit, Who
resides in all people who have repented before God, renounced sin
and disobedience, and have trusted in Jesus Christ, Who died in
order to reconcile us to God, cleanse us of the guilt and power
of sin and disobedience, and Who has poured out the Holy Spirit
upon us to empower us to live lives pleasing to Him.
The New Age Movement emphasizes the healing of ourselves and
of the earth by turning inward to get in touch with our own
disowned energies or life force. We must contact and trust our
own intuitive guidance by getting in touch with the higher self,
which is a part of a higher power of the universe which can be
considered God, spirit, source, or the universe itself. We are
each a part of this mass consciousness of the universe, and
"there is no split between `spiritual' and `unspiritual,' good
and bad. All aspects of life are elements of the life force and
facets of the divine."1
This acceptance of everything as facets of the divine,
whether good or bad, is akin to pantheism, which accepts good and
evil equally, since both are found in nature and since, according
to this view, everything that exists is a part of the divine.
This understanding is diametrically opposed to the Biblical world
view, according to which: (1) God exists completely apart from
that which He created, and (2) although He created everything
good, there was a fall at which time mankind rebelled against God
and did evil, ushering in the curse and all those aspects of life
which we would consider bad, such as sickness, aging, and death.
Nevertheless, according to Christianity, the earth and all
that is within it must be treated with deep reverence and respect
because it is a part of God's creation. Because men and women
have been created in the image of God, they, especially, must be
treated with the utmost love, care, and respect. According to
Christianity, the wrath of God abides upon sin, which often
involves a violation of this reverence and respect for creation,
and for humanity. According to Pantheism, however, good and evil
are equally acceptable, since they are both a part of what is.
Or, as Francis Schaeffer has said, there is no real basis for any
essential distinction in Pantheism between cruelty and non-
cruelty, since both are encompassed in what exists, and there is
therefore no basis for morals of any kind within its framework.
The New Age Movement generally encourages seekers to tap
into or flow with the all-pervasive, morally neutral life force.
Through channelling of this type and other experiences, one can
learn from spiritual masters who lived at earlier times. Jesus,
on the other hand, acknowledged the existence of such spirits,
but treated them as hostile forces, and gave us power over then
in His name. For a Christian, there is only one acceptable
spirit guide, the Holy Spirit. All that He teaches is consistent
with the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures, and He does not require
trances to manifest Himself.2
Some New Agers believe that Jesus was not always Christ, but
that he earned the right to this title by the life that he led.
However, the word "Christ" is the Greek word for "Messiah." As
we have seen in our examination of the fulfillment of Messianic
prophecy, even the circumstances of the birth of Jesus were
unmistakably indicative of His Messiahship, for many of the
details of this event were given hundreds of years earlier.
Moreover, the salvation of mankind was dependent upon the
sinlessness of Christ from the time of His birth, which was made
possible only by His virgin birth.
In any case, the idea that Jesus earned His Messiahship
would imply that others could also conceivably earn such a title.
This contradicts the consistent teaching of Jesus concerning His
uniqueness as the only begotten son of God. If we say that He
was a good teacher then we are forced to accept His teachings
about Himself. He alone had the authority to forgive sins
because He alone was begotten as the Creator in human flesh.
Many people in the New Age Movement feel that dogmatism with
respect to religion is morally objectionable. According to this
viewpoint, one must accept the opinions of others. In other
words, it shows a lack of humility and a lack of graciousness to
reject the opinions of others because they are not one's own. A
few observations should be made about this viewpoint. First of
all, if Christianity is not true, and if God has not spoken to us
in the Bible, then there is really no final basis for morality.
If Christ's single-mindedness about Himself is morally
objectionable, then we must ask by what standard this judgement
is being made, and whether the standard is reliable. Can there
be any epistemological basis for such a moral judgement?
Secondly, the position is inconsistent. It is thought to be
objectionable not to consider the opinions of others, yet neither
are the Christian claims seriously considered. New Age thought
is thus dogmatic about the immorality of dogmatism. Thirdly, if
all religions are to be accepted as true, then what we are really
saying is that none of them can be true, because, although they
advocate similar moral principles, they all nevertheless
contradict one another, not only in peripheral matters, but in
their central affirmations. For example, if Jesus is God, then
Islam collapses. If Christ was not raised, then Christianity
collapses. If Jesus is the Messiah, then Judaism as it is
currently understood collapses. To "accept" all of the religions
of the world, is, in reality, to pick and choose among the
beliefs of these religions, discarding what one finds displeasing
and accepting whatever seems pleasing. Within the context of
such a methodology, there would be no ultimate standard by which
to determine what aspects of each religion are "acceptable" and
which ones are unacceptable.
__________________________________
1Shakti Gawain, "A Turning Point: You Can Help Transform the
World," Science of Mind (January 1990): 40.
2Karen Howe, "New Age Channels Spiritual Darkness," PRRM Renewal
News (January-February 1990): 5-6.
CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNISM
Twentieth-century western democracy and communism were, in a
sense, two sides of the same coin. In both, there was an
unquestioning acceptance of the atheistic anthropocentric views
of the Enlightenment, and these views were carried through to
their logical conclusions.
On both sides of the iron curtain, the major shortcoming was
a failure to realize that, when all is said and done, man is
fallen and therefore selfish. If there had been a uniform
recognition in the nineteenth century that man is morally
corrupt, socialism would never have been seriously entertained as
a political theory. If man is corrupt, there can be no
socialism, because socialism is based upon the premise that man
is inherently good.
In both the west and the east, the predominant world view
has been materialistic and humanistic, and to a large extent, at
least until recently, this view was held with a closed mind in
both cultures. Alternative views were ruled out a priori, and
denied public expression. In the east, this censorship was
governmental, and in the west, it was through the media, which
publicized its own materialistic party line, with very little
room for the expression of alternative views.
Communist governments did not allow for the free exercise of
religion, although these governments claimed, through their
propaganda, that they did so. In the United States, the first
amendment to the Constitution was used to restrict freedom of
speech and freedom of religion, even though it once guaranteed
these very freedoms. "Separation of Church and State," while
once a guarantee of religious freedom, became a slogan used to
silence those who questioned the predominately materialistic
world views of the culture. The American Civil "Liberties" Union
was a tool in the hands of the enemies of freedom to silence
freedom of speech, even though it claimed that its purpose was to
uphold such freedoms. This bore a marked similarity to the
governmental censorship behind the iron curtain which also
claimed to grant the freedoms it denied.
The avowed aim of both democracy and communism was ultimate
happiness for society. Yet, in the quest for happiness and
material security, both societies became depressed, angry,
stress-filled, and disillusioned.
None of this should be surprising to us as Christians. When
there is a collective repudiation of the Christian Gospel, the
result is misery. When there is repentance and a reaffirmation
of Truth, then there can be happiness. As the east and the west
continue to recognize that they have erred from the trail of
Truth blazed by their fathers, they will once again find
fulfillment and joy at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.1
__________________________________
1On the general subject of Christianity and Communism, the
following books should be consulted: Klaus Blockmhl, The
Challenge of Marxism: A Christian Response (Downers Grove, Ill.:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1980); Lester DeKoster, Communism and
Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1956); Thomas O. Kay, The Christian Answer to
Communism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House,
1961); Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, The Thailand
Report on Marxists (Wheaton, Ill.: Lausanne Committee for World
Evangelization, 1980); David Lyon, Karl Marx: A Christian
Assessment of His Life and Thought (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1979); Hans-Lutz Ptsch, Marxism and Christianity
(St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1973); Frank Wilson
Price, Marx Meets Christ (Philadelphia, Pa.: The Westminster
Press, 1957); Edward Rogers, The Christian Approach to the
Communist (London: Edinburgh House Press, 1959); Chester E.
Tulga, The Case Against Communism (Chicago: Good News Publishers,
1949).
EVIDENCES THAT THE TRUTH IS UNIVERSAL
When the apostle Paul spoke to the ancient Greek
philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens he made reference to an
altar which had on it an inscription TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Paul
said that he was making this God known to them. The altar
engraved with this inscription had a history behind it, of which
both Paul and these philosophers were aware.
In Titus 1:12,13, Paul quoted from the poet Epimenides of
Crete. The Greek philosophers to whom Paul spoke were also
familiar with Epimenides from the writings of Plato, Aristotle,
and others. In the sixth century B.C., Epimenides had been
summoned from Crete to Athens when the people of Athens were
experiencing a terrible plague. None of the Gods of Athens had
been able to deliver them of the plague, and the Pythian oracle
indicated that there was a god that remained unappeased. Nicias
of Athens was to summon Epimenides from Knossos, Crete, who would
know how to appease the offended god. After Epimenides arrived
in Athens, he obtained a flock of black and white sheep and
released them on Mars Hill, instructing the people to mark the
places where any of them lay down at the beginning of their
grazing period. When a number of sheep rested, the Athenians
offered them in sacrifice upon unnamed altars built for this
purpose, and the plague lifted from the city.
Paul was making known to the philosophers of ancient Athens
that the God who had cured them of the plague was the God who had
raised Jesus Christ from the dead. In the same passage he said:
He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on
all the face of the earth, having determined their
appointed times, and the boundaries of their
habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they
might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far
from each one of us (Acts 17:26,27).
Paul may have been referring to Epimenides as an example of a
pagan man who "groped for and found" a God who, although, not
known by name, was actually not far away.1
The great philosophers of ancient Greece, Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle, maintained that there was only one God. In the
course of defending this truth, they were persecuted. Socrates
was put to death, but he refused to yield on this point. The
philosophers of ancient Greece sought answers to the great
problems of existence. The answers to all of these problems were
given in Jesus Christ. It is not surprising, therefore, that
early Christianity grew by leaps and bounds when Christ was made
known to Hellenistic society, during the first few centuries of
Christian history.
With these facts in view, Don Richardson has written:
Do you not feel a certain question rising now within
you? . . . Has the God who prepared the gospel for the
world also prepared the world for the gospel? If He
has, then the current assumption, held by millions of
believers and non-believers alike, that pagan people
cannot understand and generally do not want to receive
the Christian gospel, and that it is therefore unfair
(and almost more work than it is worth) to try to get
them to accept it, must be a false assumption.
In the rest of this book (and in a companion
volume to follow in the future) I will prove that this
assumption is false. God has indeed prepared the
Gentile world to receive the gospel. Significant
numbers of non-Christians, therefore, have proved
themselves ten times more willing to receive the gospel
than Christians have been to share it! Read on--2
The Title of Richardson's book is significant: Eternity In
Their Hearts: The Untold Story of Christianity Among Folk
Religions of Ancient People. While his purpose in writing is
basically missiological, the book is also of considerable
apologetic value, since it demonstrates the universality of
Christian truth. That is, Christianity is not merely one of many
possible religious options. Rather, it is true in the sense that
any claims that contradict it are false. And one way that we
know that Christian revelation is true in this sense is that, for
millennia, God has been preparing many people throughout the
world to receive this truth, and that they have been eagerly
awaiting this truth.
Richardson points out that many cultures have retained,
since ancient times, some memory of the flood of Noah's time, of
the world that existed before the time of the flood, and of the
fact that, originally, they only worshipped one God, the true
God.3
He also describes the eagerness with which many different
people of the world have received the Christian Gospel during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, having awaited it for
millennia! In an intriguing chapter entitled "Peoples of the
Lost Book," he describes how people of many different cultures
were expecting the arrival of "a white brother" who would show
them a lost book describing to them all they needed to know about
the unknown God that their forefathers had known in antiquity,
but about Whom they had long since almost forgotten. Traditions
of this sort were particularly prevalent among the Karen of
Burma, the Kachin, the Lahu, the Wa, the Shan and Palaung
Peoples, the Kui of Thailand and Burma, the Lisu of China, the
Naga of India, and the Mizo of India.4
The story of the part played by such a tradition among the
Karen of Burma was also told by Alonzo Bunker,5 who spent thirty
years among these people. Bunker also relates the Karen
tradition concerning the temptation and fall of man, which bears
a marked similarity to the Biblical account of Adam and Eve.6
The Karen tradition with respect to the lost book was that
their deliverer was to be a "white foreigner" and was to come
across the sea from the west with "white wings," or the sails of
ships, and bring "Yuah's white book."7 Richardson commented on
this that "the Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000-
member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting
missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of
deliverance from God."8
In 1817, the great missionary pioneer, Adoniram Judson,
arrived near Rangoon, Burma, where he preached seven years before
finding his first convert among the Buddhist Burmese. However,
all of this time, unknown to him, Karen people were passing his
home daily, often singing, as was their custom, hymns to Yuah,
the true God. However, Judson had not learned their language.
During these seven years, Judson had the time to translate
the Bible into Burmese--a task that would have been impossible if
the Karen people had gotten wind of his message. Then, a Karen
man named Ko Thah-byu came to the household where Judson was
staying. He began to ask questions about the origin of the
gospel and about the "white strangers" who had come from the west
to bring this message and the book that contained it. Richardson
wrote:
Suddenly everything fell into place for Ko Thah-byu.
His spirit received the love of Jesus Christ like dry
land absorbing rain!
Around that time a newly recruited missionary
couple--George and Sarah Boardman, arrived in Rangoon
to assist Judson. . . . To the amazement of Judson and
Boardman, Ko-Thah-byu manifested a total preoccupation
with the Bible and its message.
For it had already dawned upon Ko Thah-byu that he
was the very first among his people to learn that "the
lost book" had actually arrived in Burma! Accordingly,
he also accepted his own responsibility to proclaim the
good news that virtually every Karen was waiting to
hear. So when George and Sarah Boardman announced
plans to launch a new mission in the city of Tavoy, in
the panhandle of southern Burma, Ko Thah-byu said
eagerly, "Take me with you!" . . .
Each time he came to a Karen Village, he preached
the gospel. And almost every time he preached the
gospel, virtually an entire village would respond with
faith! . . .
The entire hill country beyond Tavoy seemed to
come alive with excitement!9
Richardson provides similar stories for many other peoples and
cultures.
__________________________________
1Don Richardson, Eternity In Their Hears (Ventura, Ca.: Regal
Books, 1981), p. 25.
2Ibid., pp. 27-28.
3Ibid., chapter 1, "Peoples of the Vague God," pp. 14-72.
4Ibid., chapter 2, "Peoples of the Lost Book," pp. 73-102.
5Alonzo Bunker, Soo Thah: A Tale of the Karens (New York: Fleming
H. Revell Co., 1902), pp. 79-86.
6Ibid., pp. 87-94.
7Ibid., pp. 81-82.
8Richardson, p. 83.
9Ibid., p. 90.
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS
It is sometimes argued that, since all of the world's major
religions hold to similar systems of morality, it doesn't really
matter which religion you hold to, as long as you hold to one of
them. They all lead to the same place.
On the other hand, it is also sometimes argued that there
cannot be any moral absolutes since each culture holds to a
totally different set of morals.
These objections cannot both be true at the same time.
Either the world's major religions hold to similar systems of
morality, or they do not. C. S. Lewis believed that they do, and
he collected traditions from all over the world to prove his
point. This collection appears in the appendix to his book, The
Abolition of Man.1
According to Lewis, there is a single source for all value
judgements. He writes:
The thing which I have called for convenience the Tao,
and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional
Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or
the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of
possible systems of value. It is the sole source of
all value judgements. . . . The effort to refute it
and raise a new system of value in its place is self-
contradictory.2
The attempt to discard "traditional" values cannot succeed
without assuming that there is some other higher set of values:
A great many of those who "debunk" traditional or (as
they would say) "sentimental" values have in the
background values of their own which they believe to be
immune from the debunking process.3
Thus, there can never be a new system of values:
What purport to be new systems or (as they now call
them) "ideologies" all consist of fragments of the Tao
itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the
whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation,
yet still owing to the Tao and it alone such validity
as they possess.
This great principle of morality is common to all of the great
religions:
In early Hinduism that conduct in men which can be
called good consists in conformity to, or almost
participation in, the Rta--that great ritual or pattern
of nature and supernature which is revealed alike in
the cosmic order, the moral virtues, and the ceremonial
of the temple. Righteousness, correctness, order, the
Rta, is constantly identified with satya or truth,
correspondence to reality. As Plato said that the Good
was "beyond existence" and Wordsworth that through
virtue the stars were strong, so the Indian masters say
that the gods themselves are born of the Rta and obey
it. The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the
greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality
beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the
Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the
Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the
Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and
tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way
which every man should tread in imitation of that
cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all
activities to that great exemplar. "In ritual," say
the Analects, "it is harmony with Nature that is
prized." The ancient Jews likewise praise the Law as
being "true."
This conception in all its forms, Platonic,
Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I
shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as "the
Tao." . . . What is common to them all . . . is the
doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain
attitudes are really true, and others really false, to
the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of
things we are.5
__________________________________
1C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: MacMillan
Publishing Co., 1947), pp. 93-121.
2Ibid., p. 56.
3Ibid., p. 41.
4Ibid., p. 56.
5Ibid., pp. 27-29.
IS CHRISTIANITY THE ONLY TRUE RELIGION?
If there is a moral absolute which is recognized by most of
the great religions, then does it really matter whether one is
Confucian, Taoist, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, or
Christian? Don't all of the great religions point in the same
direction? Does it really matter what path we take as long as we
are going in the right direction?
Here again, C. S. Lewis is helpful. He observes, first of
all, that, if you are a Christian, you don't have to believe that
all of the other religions are completely wrong in everything
they affirm. On the other hand, if you are an atheist, you will
have to believe that the main point of all of the religions of
the world is simply a huge mistake.1 These considerations led
C. S. Lewis to a belief in Jesus Christ:
To me, who first approached Christianity from a
delighted interest in, and reverence for, the best
pagan imagination, who loved Balder before Christ and
Plato before St. Augustine, the anthropological
argument against Christianity has never been
formidable. On the contrary, I could not believe
Christianity if I were forced to say that there were a
thousand religions in the world of which 999 were pure
nonsense and the thousandth (fortunately) true. My
conversion, very largely, depended on recognizing
Christianity as the completion, the actualization, the
entelechy, of something that had never been wholly
absent from the mind of man.2
C. S. Lewis rightly observed that Christianity is the
fulfillment, not only of Judaism, but of what is best in all
religions:
I couldn't believe that nine-hundred and ninety-nine
religions were completely false and the remaining one
true. In reality, Christianity is primarily the
fulfillment of the Jewish religion, but also the
fulfillment of what was vaguely hinted in all the
religions at their best. What was vaguely seen in them
all comes into focus in Christianity.3
Whatever is true in all religions is consummated and made perfect
in Jesus Christ:
Though all salvation is through Jesus, we need not
conclude that He cannot save those who have not
explicitly accepted Him in this life. . . . we are not
pronouncing all other religions to be totally false,
but rather saying that in Christ whatever is true in
all religions is consummated and perfected. But, on
the other hand, I think we must attack wherever we meet
it the nonsensical idea that mutually exclusive
propositions about God can both be true.4
C. S. Lewis recognized that, where Christianity differs from
other religions, Christianity is true. While both Christians and
non-Christians wish to do good for man, it is Christianity that
has the answers:
Suppose you found a man on the point of starvation and
wanted to do the right thing. If you had no knowledge
of medical science, you would probably give him a large
solid meal; and as a result your man would die. That
is what comes of working in the dark. In the same way
a Christian and a non-Christian may both wish to do
good to their fellow men.5
__________________________________
1C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan Co., 1943),
p. 43.
2C. S. Lewis, God In The Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), p. 132.
3Ibid., p. 54.
4Ibid., p. 102.
5Ibid., p. 109.
DEATHBED EXPERIENCES
David Nelson, a physician of the nineteenth century,
ultimately became a Christian partly because of the experiences
he had at the bedside of many of his patients just before the
time of their death. He wrote:
First, I have known those--the cases are not
unfrequent--who were brave, who had stood unflinching
in battle's whirlpool. They had resolved never to
disgrace their system of unbelief by a trembling death.
They had called to Christians in the tone of resolve,
saying, "I can die as coolly as you can." I had seen
those die from whom entire firmness might fairly be
expected. I had heard groans, even if the teeth were
clenched for fear of complaint, such as I never wish to
hear again; and I had looked into countenances, such as
I hope never to see again.
Again, I had seen cowards die. I had seen those
depart who were naturally timid, who expected
themselves to meet death with fright and alarm. I had
heard such, as it were, sing before Jordan was half
forded. I had seen faces where, palled as they were, I
beheld more celestial triumph than I had ever witnessed
anywhere else. In that voice there was a sweetness,
and in that eye there was a glory, which I never could
have fancied in the death-spasms, if I had not been
near.1
According to Nelson, when about to die, some of his patients
would call out, "Catch me, I am sinking; hold me, I am falling,"
while others would say, "Do you hear that music? Oh, were ever
notes so celestial!"2
John Wesley heard what he thought was the music of angels
when he was at the bedside of a dying young woman:
I firmly believed that young woman would die in peace;
though I did not apprehend it would be so soon. We
have had several instances of music heard before or at
the death of those that die in the Lord. May we
conceive that this is, literally, the music of angels?
Can that be heard by ears of flesh and blood?3
Eleven days after John Wesley wrote these things in a letter to
his brother Charles, he made some additional comments, apparently
in response to a letter from him about it:
I cannot apprehend that such music has any analogy at
all to the inward voice of God. I take it to differ
from this toto genre, and to be rather the effect of an
angel affecting the auditory nerves, as an apparition
does the optic nerve, or retina.4
Angelic music is only one manifestation of the heavenly
bliss that awaits those who die in the Lord. Consider, for
example, the following words spoken by John Payson at the time of
his death:
"Christ died for me. I am mounting up to the throne of
God!" Then breaking forth in rapturous strains of
praise, he said: "I know I am dying, but my death-bed
is a bed of roses; I have no thorns planted on my dying
pillow. Heaven already is begun. I die a safe, easy,
happy death. Thou, my God, art present, I know, I feel
Thou art. Precious Jesus! Glory to God!"5
At the same time, those who die apart from Christ die in
anguish. The death of the infidel, Thomas Paine, was as follows:
He would call out during his paroxysms of distress, "O
Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me!"
repeating the same expressions without the least
variations, in a tone that would alarm the house. "I
would give worlds if I had them," he cried, "that The
Age of Reason had never been published."6
The death of David Hume was similar to Paine's, contrary to
popular belief. Robert Haldane had a neighbor, Mr. Abercromby of
Lullibody, who, in the autumn, of 1776, was travelling in a
stage-coach to Haddington. One of the topics of conversation was
the recent death of David Hume. Mr. Abercromby's son-in-law,
Colonel Edmonstone of Newton, had been one of Hume's intimate
friends, and had said that Hume had died in an atmosphere of
buoyant cheerfulness. Alexander Haldane writes:
Whilst the conversation was running on in this strain,
a respectable-looking female dressed in black, who made
a fourth in the coach, begged permission to offer a
remark. "Gentlemen," she said, "I attended Mr. Hume on
his deathbed, but I can assure you I hope never again
to attend the death-bed of a philosopher." They then
cross-examined her as to her meaning, and she told
them, that when his friends were with him, Mr. Hume was
cheerful even to frivolity, but that when alone he was
often overwhelmed with unutterable gloom, and had, in
his hours of depression, declared that he had been in
search of light all his life, but was now in greater
darkness than ever. The anecdote has been told by
those who probably had it from some of the other
travellers. Mr. Haldane's version is substantially the
same, and Mrs. Joass often repeated the circumstances
as related by her venerable father.7
Similar statements, all contrary to popular belief, have also
been made with respect to the death of Voltaire and other well-
known infidels.8
In his book, Life After Life, Dr. Raymond Moody wrote that,
in the experiences of those who were dying, there was never any
reference to heaven or to hell. There was always a sense of
universal forgiveness, acceptance, ecstasy, and peace. There was
never any judgement when the sins of the individual were made
manifest. Stephen Board has taken issue with this observation,
expressing his belief that the benevolent beam of light described
by Dr. Moody reveals an air of moral tolerance and the philosophy
of "I'm okay, you're okay."9
Maurice S. Rawlings, a cardiologist at the Diagnostic Center
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, came to faith in Christ as a result of
an experience with a dying patient who kept screaming, "I am in
hell!" Rawlings wrote:
The patient began "coming to." But whenever I would
reach for instruments or otherwise interrupt my
compression of his chest, the patient would again lose
consciousness, roll his eyes upward, arch his back in
mild convulsion, stop breathing, and die once more.
Each time he regained heartbeat and respiration,
the patient screamed, "I am in hell!" He was terrified
and pleaded with me to help him. I was scared to
death. In fact, the episode literally scared the hell
out of me! It terrified me enough to write this book.
. . .
He said, "Don't you understand? I am in hell.
Each time you quit I go back to hell! Don't let me go
back to hell! . . .
As a result, I started working feverishly and
rapidly. By this time the patient had experienced
three or four episodes of complete unconsciousness and
clinical death from cessation of both heartbeat and
breathing.
After several death episodes he finally asked me,
"How do I stay out of hell?" I told him I guessed it
was the same principle learned in Sunday school--that I
guessed Jesus Christ would be the one whom you would
ask to save you.
Then he said, "I don't know how. Pray for me."
Pray for him! What nerve! I told him I was a
doctor, not a preacher.
"Pray for me!" he repeated.
I knew I had no choice: It was a dying man's
request. So I had him repeat the words after me as we
worked--right there on the floor. It was a very simple
prayer because I did not know much about praying. It
went something like this:
Lord Jesus, I ask you to keep me out of hell.
Forgive my sins.
I turn my life over to you.
If I die, I want to go to heaven.
If I live, I'll be "on the hook" forever.
The patient's condition finally stabilized, and he
was transported to a hospital. I went home, dusted off
the Bible, and started reading it.10
A few days later, Dr. Rawlings approached his patient with
pad and pencil in hand for an interview. When he asked him about
his experiences in hell, the patient did not recall these
experiences, and could not remember being in hell. However,
after he recovered, he became a strong Christian, whereas
previously, he had gone to church only occasionally. He did
remember the prayer they had said together, then losing
consciousness once or twice after that. Although he did not
recall the experiences in hell, he did recall standing in the
back of the room, watching the medical team working on his body
on the floor. He also remembered meeting both his mother and
stepmother in one of the death episodes that took place after
praying with the doctor. Rawlings wrote:
The meeting place was a gorge full of beautiful colors.
He also saw other relatives who had died before. This
experience was very pleasurable, occurring in a narrow
valley with very lush vegetation and brilliant
illumination by a huge beam of light. He "saw" his
mother for the first time. She had died at age twenty-
one when he was fifteen months old, and his father had
soon remarried. This man had never even seen a picture
of his real mother, and yet he was able to pick her
picture out of several others a few weeks later when
his mother's sister, after hearing of his experience,
produced some family pictures for identification.
There was not mistake. . . . He was astounded and so
was his father.11
Rawlings points out that cases of this kind may explain why
many researchers only find "good cases" during the course of
their research. If patient interviews are delayed, it may allow
time for any good experiences to be mentally retained and all bad
experiences to be obliterated from recall. To get dependable
results, it will be necessary to interview patients immediately
after their resuscitation from clinical death, rather than a few
days later, as is now normally done by most researchers into such
phenomena.
__________________________________
1David Nelson, The Cause and Cure of Infidelity (New York:
American Tract Society, 1841), p. 307.
2Ibid., p. 312.
3John Wesley to Charles Wesley, London, October 20, 1753.
4John Wesley to Charles Wesley, London, October 31, 1753.
5Quoted by Oswald J. Smith, The Battle for Truth, 6th ed.
(London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1962), p. 38.
6Ibid., p. 35.
7Alexander Haldane, Memoirs of the Lives of Robert Haldane of
Airthrey, and of His Brother, James Alexander Haldane (London:
Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1852), p. 581.
8Oswald J. Smith, pp. 35-38.
9Stephen Board, "Light at the End of the Tunnel," Eternity, July
1977, pp. 13-17.
10Maurice Rawlings, Beyond Death's Door (New York: Thomas Nelson,
Inc., 1978), pp. 18-20.
11Ibid., pp. 22-23.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD THE GOSPEL?
According to the New Testament, nobody can be saved apart
from Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12, John 14:6), and those who do not
believe that Jesus is the Messiah will die in their sins (John
8:24). What, then, is the eternal destiny of those who have
never heard about Jesus, the savior of the world?
The tenth chapter of Acts is very instructive in this
regard. It describes the conversion of Cornelius, a very devout
man who feared God and prayed continually. The Lord gave him a
vision and showed him that he should send some messengers for
Peter. When they brought him to Cornelius, Peter told him about
Jesus, and everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and
baptized in water. These people were gentiles, and may have been
the first non-Jewish converts to Christianity.
This passage demonstrates that God is not a respecter of
persons, and that one need not be Jewish to come to Christ. It
also demonstrates that if a person is truly seeking God with all
of his or her heart, God will bring about the necessary means for
that person to hear the gospel and come to Christ. Many stories
of a similar nature have been told by missionaries returning from
all parts of the world, throughout all of Christian history. In
fact, missionaries have sometimes found pious people who have
been given revelation from God concerning the gospel without
having heard it from human lips.
If God is truly omnipotent and truly merciful, will He
refuse to allow His Word to become known to those who are
desperately searching for the truth? Of course not. His desire
is that none should perish, but that all should come to
repentance (II Peter 3:9). God cares for those who have not
heard the gospel. However, people generally have a tendency to
suppress the truth in unrighteousness due to their fallen nature
(Romans 1:18). Although God makes His truth evident to all
people, they tend to ignore it. People like Cornelius are happy
exceptions to this rule, and God will always make a way for such
people, sending the Gospel to them through missionaries, or even
through supernatural means if necessary.
God is just. In the time of the day of judgement, nobody
will be able to accuse God of unfairness. No one will be
condemned for never having heard the Gospel. Rather,
condemnation will result from having violated one's own moral
standards (Romans 2:15,16). God will fairly judge all of
mankind. On the last day, no one will be able to claim that he
or she is being treated unjustly by God.1
It is possible that there will be people who will be saved
through Jesus Christ without realizing that Jesus was the source
of that salvation. C. S. Lewis has written:
Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should
be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been
able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not
told us what His arrangements about other people are.
We do know that no man can be saved except through
Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can
be saved through Him. But in the meantime, if you are
worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable
thing you can do is remain outside yourself.2
__________________________________
1Don Stewart, "What's Going to Happen to Those Who Haven't
Heard?" (tape), The Word For Today, P.O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa, CA
92626.
2C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan Publishing
Co., 1943), p. 65.
OPINIONS AND SOCIAL PRESSURE
In a series of studies by Solomon E. Asch (1955),1 it was
found that three out of four people tested agreed with a group of
people giving false answers on some comparisons of the lengths of
lines. In each of these experiments, an unsuspecting subject was
put in a room full of three or more people collaborating with the
experimenter. Everybody was shown a pair of white cards. On the
left card was a single line, while on the right card were three
lines of differing lengths. The object was to identify which of
the three lines was equal in length to the single line on the
other card. In some cases, those collaborating in the experiment
were to give correct answers, while in other cases, the
collaborators were all to give a certain predetermined incorrect
answer.
Some of the subjects agreed with the group on all
comparisons, and 75% of the subjects incorrectly agreed with the
group on at least some occasions. In cases in which the standard
line was ten inches in comparison with a "correct" comparison
line length of three inches, there was still appreciable yielding
to the group "consensus" that the two lines were of equal length.
Some of the subjects later said that they actually saw that the
lines were of equal length, while others were simply so concerned
with appearing different, that they went along with the group
consensus. Many of those who did not succumb to the group
consensus nevertheless viewed their disagreement with the group
as a personal deficiency, believing that they were judging
incorrectly.
These studies demonstrate to us that we cannot assume,
simply because most people now disbelieve Christianity, that
Christianity is false. The consensus is a very powerful force in
determining a person's world view. This is especially the case
if almost everything one reads is written from within a framework
opposed to the Christian world view. C. S. Lewis writes:
We can make people (often) attend to the Christian
point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment
they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our
article, they are plunged back into a world where the
opposite position is taken for granted. . . . Our
Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on
Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on
Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that
its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It
is not the books written in direct defence of
Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it
is the materialistic assumptions in all the other
books.2
C. S. Lewis was well aware that the consensus has changed
from an earlier Christian consensus, and that climates of opinion
change rapidly in all fields of thought:
But the doctrine of Satan's existence and fall is not
among the things we know to be untrue: it contradicts
not the facts discovered by scientists but the mere,
vague "climate of opinion" that we happen to be living
in. Now I take a very low view of "climates of
opinion." In his own subject every man knows that all
discoveries are made and all errors corrected by those
who ignore the "climate of opinion."3
Examples of this principle could be multiplied almost
endlessly. Einstein's theory of Relativity is an obvious
example. Another would be the development of non-Euclidean
geometry by Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855). According to the
"parallel postulate," through a point not on a line there exists
a single line parallel to the given line. Many people tried to
prove it as a theorem, but without success. Among them was
Gauss, who soon concluded that Euclidean geometry was not the
only possible form of geometry. By 1820, he was in full
possession of the main theorem of Non-Euclidean geometry, but he
did not reveal his conclusions until others published on the
subject in 1829 and 1832. The reason for Gauss's silence was
that the intellectual climate of the time in Germany was
dominated by the philosophy of Kant. One of the basic tenets of
his system was that idea that Euclidean geometry is the only
possible way of thinking about space. While Gauss knew that this
idea was totally false and that the Kantian system was a
structure built on sand, he valued his privacy and his quiet
life, holding his peace in order to avoid disputes with the
philosophers. In a letter to Bessel in 1829, he wrote, "I shall
probably not put my very extensive investigation on this subject
into publishable form for a long time, perhaps not in my
lifetime, for I dread the shrieks we would hear from the Boetians
if I were to express myself fully on the matter."4
In all academic fields, the consensus is constantly
shifting. Yet, the consensus is very convincing for most people,
even though it keeps changing. Let us therefore not be led
astray by the antisupernaturalistic and anti-Christian
presuppositions that now dominate our culture, but let each of us
examine the evidence as objectively and independently as we can
and draw our own conclusions, even if they fly in the face of the
predominating world view.
__________________________________
1Solomon E. Asch, "Opinions and Social Pressure," Scientific
American, November 1955, vol. 193, no. 5.
2C. S. Lewis, God In The Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), p. 93.
3C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: MacMillan Publishing
Co., 1962), p. 134.
4Werke, vol. VIII, p. 200. The Boetians were a dull-witted group
of the ancient Greeks living northwest of Athens.
CAUSES OF UNBELIEF
If a person has been presented with good evidence for
Christian truth, there may or may not be a conversion to
Christianity. There is usually a struggle on a volitional level
or on an emotional level. C. S. Lewis writes:
He is deliberately trying not to know whether
Christianity is true or false, because he foresees
endless trouble if it should turn out to be true. He
is like the man who deliberately `forgets' to look at
the notice board because, if he did, he might find his
name down for some unpleasant duty. He is like the man
who won't look at his bank account because he's afraid
of what he might find there. He is like the man who
won't go to the doctor when he first feels a mysterious
pain, because he is afraid of what the doctor may tell
him.
The man who remains an unbeliever for such reasons
is not in a state of honest error. He is in a state of
dishonest error, and that dishonesty will spread
through all his thoughts and actions: a certain
shiftiness, a vague worry in the background, a blunting
of his whole mental edge, will result. He has lost his
intellectual virginity.1
Christian believers are not immune to doubts, even when they
have had exposure to Christian evidences, for similar reasons.
In fact, there are powers of darkness that cause unbelief. These
are real spiritual forces controlled by Satan. There are demons
of unbelief, doubt, skepticism, and incredulity, just as there
are demons of pride, greed, lust, envy, and hatred. These
spiritual forces are especially effective during times of
weakeners or temptation. C. S. Lewis writes:
There will come a moment when there is bad news, or he
is in trouble, or is living among a lot of other people
who do not believe it, and all at once his emotions
will rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on his
belief. Or else there will come a moment when he wants
a woman, or wants to tell a lie, or feels very pleased
with himself, or sees a chance of making a little money
in some way that is not perfectly fair: some moment, in
fact, at which it would be very convenient if
Christianity were not true. And once again his wishes
and desires will carry out a blitz.2
As Christians, we must "fly by the instruments," recognizing at
such moments that, whether or not we happen to be in the right
mood to be believers, the Christian faith is nevertheless
completely true, and we will be held accountable for our actions,
particularly in the light of our knowledge of the truth.
__________________________________
1C. S. Lewis, God In The Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), p. 111.
2C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943),
p. 123.
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