Evolution can not be true, because it contradicts the inspired word of
God. We do not speak arbitrarily and say, without proof, that whatever
contradicts the revealed word of God can not be true, although such an
attitude could be easily defended. Disregarding all the many other
cogent and legitimate arguments in support of a divine revelation, we
will appeal to the remarkable harmony between the story of Creation in
Genesis and the modern sciences. This could not be, if God had not
revealed to Moses the story of creation. Moses personally knew nothing
revealed by the sciences of today. And the man of that day who would
invent the story of creation, would be sure to conflict with one or
more of the following modern sciences: geology, astronomy, zoology,
biology, geography, chemistry, physics, anatomy, philology,
archaeology, history, ethics, religion, etc. There is not one chance
in a million that a writer of a fictitious account would not have run
amuck among many of these sciences, if, like Moses, he had no personal
knowledge of them.
Although the Babylonian account may have had some foundation in fact,
from a tradition of a prior revelation, it plainly bears the marks of
error. "The Babylonian stories of creation are full of grotesque and
polytheistic ideas, while those of the Bible speak only of the one
living and true God." "All things," the Babylonian legend says, "were
produced at the first from Tiamat." "The gods came into being in long
succession, but, at length, enmity arose between them and Tiamat, who
created monsters to oppose them. Merodach, a solar deity, vanquished
Tiamat, cut her body in two, and with one-half of it made a firmament
supporting the upper waters in the sky, etc., etc." The Babylonian
gods, like even those of the classics, were criminals fit only for
prison or death.
Alfred Russell Wallace, who, with Darwin, devised the evolution
theory, says: "There must have been three interpositions of a Divine
and supernatural power to account for things as they are: _the
agreement of science with Genesis is very striking_: There is a
gulf between matter and nothing; one between life and the non-living;
and a third between man and the lower creation; and science can not
bridge them!"
This "striking agreement" between science and Genesis I, is shown by
the fact that at least 11 great events are enumerated in the same
order as claimed by modern science: 1. The earth was "waste and void";
2. "Darkness was upon the face of the deep"; 3. Light appears; 4. A
clearing expanse, or firmament; 5. The elevation of the land and the
formation of the seas; 6. Grass, herbs and fruit trees appear; 7. The
sun, moon and stars _appear_; 8. Marine animals were created;
9. "Winged fowls" were created; 10. Land animals were created; 11. Man
was created.
The chance of guessing the exact order of these 11 great events is
ascertained by the law of permutations-the product of the numbers from
1 to 11, which is 39,916,800. Therefore, Moses had one chance out of
39,916,800 to guess the correct order of these 11 great events, as
revealed both by science and revelation. If, for example, the first 11
letters of the alphabet were arranged in some unknown miscellaneous
order, any one would have but one chance out of 39,916,800 to guess
the order. If Moses did not have the order revealed to him, he never
could have guessed it. Therefore, he was inspired and was told the
order.
This mathematical demonstration annihilates the contradicting theory
of evolution. At once it proves that the account was divinely
inspired, and man came by special creation and not by evolution. The
fact that the language of Genesis is in remarkable harmony with all
proven modern scientific theories, and manifestly confirmed by them,
is a proof in favor of the creation story, decisive and final.
This harmony is manifest whether the Heb. _yom_, day, be taken to
mean a long period, as advocated by many biblical scholars, or a
literal day of 24 hours, followed, it may be, by years or ages of
continuance of the work, before the next day's work of 24 hours began.
Believing that this interpretation does no violence to the text, and
that it is especially in harmony with the statements in the fourth
commandment and elsewhere in the Bible, it is here briefly presented
as one interpretation, showing the marvelous harmony between
revelation and the proven, and even the generally accepted, scientific
theories. The stately procession of events is the same, no matter
which interpretation is accepted, and doubtless will remain, even if
both must yield to another and better interpretation. This majestic
divine order, in harmony with both science and revelation, removes all
doubt of special creation.
Another interpretation, advocated by many scholars, is that all
geologic ages may have intervened during the time indicated between
the 1st and 2nd verses of Gen. I.
The following is a possible, and, it would seem, a probable
interpretation of the inspired creation story. The words of Scripture,
whether from the American Revision, or marginal rendering of the
original Hebrew, or other translation, are put in quotation marks:--