A Great Untintshed Task

Science and religion—Your world will be more of a world of scientism than ours has been. My generation did uncover some amazing scientific data. In fact, much of it became a most disturbing element in the realm of evangelical Christian thought. There developed, therefore, a bitter controversy between science and Christian belief which wrought great havoc in the church. As I look back upon those days, I must confess that those of us who were reared in the fundamentalist tradition did not do a very good job in sincerely and courageously facing up to the scientific data, much of which we must accept today as verified data. By and large, my generation fought and lost many battles with science which not only brought us humiliation, but which have proved detrimental to our Christian testimony. The reasons for this, in my opinion, were several: 1. We maintained an altogether too obscurantist attitude. 2. Oft-times we resorted to ridicule and unwise rebuttal. 3. We fought the battle on too narrow a strip. This was especially true with respect to creation. We grossly oversimplified this complex question so that it was reduced to an either/or matter of instantaneous creationism, or atheistic developmentism. But what is even more regrettable is that we gave the impression that science was an enemy of the Christian faith and that we must do everything in our power to oppose this enemy. What we should have done was to attempt to show that so far from there being ground for any distrust or hostility on the part of the Christian faith toward science, there was actually so close a connection between them that there ought to have been mutual trust, understanding and cooperation between scientists and Christian theologians. We should also have honestly faced and discussed more courageously the real problems and difficulties which arise for our Christian faith in the findings of scientists in their various fields of research. At bottom, the real questions which needed discussion were how any new scientific theories would affect the fundamental doctrines of Christianity about the nature and destiny of man, the fall, and redemption.

But while we are ready to confess that our theology may not embrace everything that we would like to know, we must insist that the scientists do not know everything. More and more I am convinced that one of the main reasons for the view that the relation between religion and science must be envisioned in terms of a conflict is provided by the assumption of the nineteenth century scientist of the virtual finality and immutabilitv of the scientific notions of his day. This was a faulty assumption. I recall having read that the noted philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, said that when he was a student at Cambridge he studied mathematics under the best teachers of his day. He acknowledged every basic presupposition that had been assumed in those days had been either altered or rejected by present-day mathematicians. Scientific views have been altered, and will be altered. Therefore we believe we have a right to confront scientists with the inadequacies of their assumptions and presuppositions as well as the limitations of their methodology. We must insist that they cannot explain the nature of nature itself without a hypothesis which includes God in it. Nor do they have, in fact, an adequate explanation of man as to his origin, his nature and his destiny. Recently some scholars such as Karl Heim, the German theologian, C. E. Raven, the British theologian, and E. L. Mascall, a Catholic theologian who delivered the Bampton Lectures for 1956 (Christian Theology and Natural Science), have made significant contributions in their attempt to relate science and Christian theology. Among evangelical scholars in America we have the work of Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and the Scripture, and also the work edited by Russell L. Mixter, Evolution and Christian Thought Today, which have grappled with this most difficult issue. We are not called upon to subscribe to every position or observation made by any one or all of these authors, but certainly we should be grateful for their having made a long delayed “breakthrough” in the “wall of silence” which has been so long surrounding us evangelicals. But what they have done is only a beginning, and so my generation leaves to you a great unfinished task as a part of your destiny. We sincerely hope you will carry on the dialogue between Christian theology and science and that you will be enabled to demonstrate more and more the harmony which must exist between God’s Word and God’s world to the edification of both the believer and the scientist.—Dr. HOWARD W. FERRIN, President, Barrington College, in remarks to the Senior Banquet in Houghton College.

LET THE BIBLE ALONE—The British scientist who is rewriting Genesis apparently has been demoralized by a peculiarly American admonition: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

The whole idea of Adam and Eve, he says, won’t fit in with evolution, so he’s eliminated the Garden of Eden and his version reads, “In the beginning … God said let matter and energy form atoms and let atoms combine and condense to form solids and liquids and let stars and planets evolve in their millions; and it was so.”

This may be good scientific theory at the moment but it is poor religion and worse literature. We don’t think it will sell. We are not among those who want to fight about whether Adam ate the apple. It may have been a grape, or a pomegranate or a naval orange. But the rich allegory which has come down to us from the nomadic Hebrew poets tells the story of human travail and aspirations accurately enough.

The apparent conflicts between Genesis and scientific fact are minor and probably transient. For the story of Adam’s rib, this humorless scientist substitutes: “So man evolved, male and female, from the higher animals by the spirit of God.” How does he know? Particularly, how does he know the entrancing story of how male and female all began?

The Bible is our richest storehouse of cultural history and tradition. Particularly in the King James version it surpasses in poetry of expression anything else in the language. This scientist should go back to his test tubes and let the Bible alone. Taking with him, if possible, all the other modernizers whose revised and logical versions tend to reduce this inspirational volume to the flat and practical level of a mail order catalog.—Editorial, The Washington Daily News, August 8, 1962.

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