By REV. GEORGE F. PENTECOST, D. D.
Many, especially among the younger and partly educated portions of
every community, are troubled with what they term the scientific
difficulties of the Bible. We can only hint at this point. Because
the Bible is not a speculation as to the origin of things, but an
authoritative statement of the truth from God to man, it does not
follow that its revealed truth is unphilosophical. And so, because the
Bible does not contain a scientific account of creation, and is not
written in the terms of the modern scientists it does not follow that
the Bible is scientifically inaccurate in its statements. It must be
borne in mind that the Bible was written ages before the birth of the
modern sciences. And had it been written in scientific language it
would have been to the people then living, and even to the great mass
of people now living, an utterly unintelligible book—as most scientific
books are unintelligible except to the educated few.
There can be no greater mistake than to suppose, for an instant, that
any well ascertained fact of science has yet been shown to be in
conflict with the Scriptural account of creation. We are aware that the
assertion to this effect is often made; but such assertions have never
been proved. Indeed, it is becoming more evident every day that science
and revelation are drawing nearer together; that is, drawing nearer,
in her domain to the truth as revealed in the Word of God. But were
this not so, and were it shown that there was a real and thoroughly
demonstrated error in the Bible account of creation, so that we must
needs honestly give up Moses and the Bible, to whom should we go for
the truth? We might adapt the words of Joshua and say (xiv: 15), “And
if it seem evil unto you to believe the Bible, choose ye this day whom
ye will believe, whether the pantheistic or materialistic philosophers
who speculated before the rise of modern science, or the atheistic,
theistic, or agnostic scientists;” for there be some who say science
teaches there is no God, and some who say there must be God, and others
who say we can not know if there be a God. Certainly science is at
present on a wide sea of discovery in many boats, guided, each boat, by
the _theory_ of its particular occupant. Two things are certain: (1)
Neither philosophy nor science has succeeded thus far in impeaching
the accuracy of the Bible statement; (2) they have as yet reached no
common ground of agreement among themselves. So that the Christian need
not, as yet, (and I am sure he never will) be in any fear from the
assaults of the students of science. It is indeed no new experience for
the Bible to meet the shock of skepticism. For centuries it has been
the object of attack, always fierce and relentless, and for centuries
it has endured and beaten back its assailants. As a granite rock in
the sea meets and hurls back into the ocean the fierce waves that roll
in upon it, so the Bible has met and beaten back by the power of its
immovable and eternal truth all its assailants. Like a rock in the sea
rooted in a great submarine but unseen formation, it has sometimes
seemed to be overwhelmed by the surging fury of the waves, but it has
ever emerged unshaken and triumphant; the only effect has been to sweep
away some human theological structure or false system of interpretation
built upon it, but not growing out of it.
In this connection it is well to bear in mind that skeptical scientists
have of late become far less haughty in their criticisms of the Bible,
and far more humble in their estimate of their own knowledge (as it
becomes every student, whether of science or theology, to be); for says
an eminent scientific writer on the rights and duties of science: “It
becomes science to confess with much humility how far it falls short of
the full comprehension of nature, and to abstain conscientiously from
_premature_ conclusions. The rapid progress of discovery in recent
times only makes more plain to us the fact that the extension of our
knowledge _implies the extension of our ignorance_, that everywhere the
progress of our knowledge leads us to unsolvable mysteries. It would be
easy to furnish illustrations from every branch of science; but geology
and biology are very fertile in them.” It has seemed due to many honest
but uninformed minds, especially among the young, to say so much by
way of recognition of their new-found difficulties, and also by way of
indicating the outline of answer.
The Bible is not a scientific, but a _religious book_, intended not to
inform the scientific and philosophic understanding, but to instruct
the religious intelligence of man in those things that make for the
life that now is, and that which is to come (I Tim., iv:8). What a
blessed fact it is that we thirsty mortals can drink a glass of pure
water and quench our burning thirst without having to know the chemical
analysis of water, or how it was originally created. We are thirsty
beings, and if our thirst is not slaked we shall die. Meantime we find
water is provided; it is offered to us, and we are told it will slake
our thirst, that it was provided in nature for that very purpose, and
without stopping to have it analyzed, we drink it and live. We thus
experimentally prove it to be water, and that all that was claimed
for it is true. We likewise are religious beings, and if we do not
find truth, and love, and happiness, and regeneration, and eternal
life, and resurrection, we shall die and perish. God’s word is brought
to us; it contains truths, or at least statements and promises that
stand over against these spiritual hungerings and thirstings just as
food and drink stand over against the hunger and thirst of the body.
We take hold by faith of these promises, and the hunger and thirst of
our souls are satisfied. We know the truth of the Bible, therefore,
not by metaphysical or intellectual demonstration, but by experimental
proof, as real in the sphere of our religious nature as scientific
demonstration is real in the realm of matter. Two and two make four,
that is mathematics; hydrogen and oxygen in certain proportions
make water, that is science; Christ and him crucified is the power
and wisdom of God for salvation, that is revelation. But how do you
know? Put two and two together, and you have four; count and see. Put
hydrogen and oxygen together, and you have water; taste and prove.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Believe and
thou shalt know. The last is as clear a demonstration as the others.
As a practical necessity we do not have to know the mysteries involved
in our own being, and in all the provisions of nature made for our
well-being on the earth. It is well to understand the chemistry of food
and drink; but it would not only be unwise but might be fatal for us to
postpone eating and drinking until we had mastered the chemistry. And
so again we may derive great satisfaction and benefit in discovering a
philosophical and scientific adjustment of revelation; but we would be
consummately foolish if we refused to believe—and thus practically to
demonstrate, by believing—the truth of God’s word, until we had found
the philosophical and scientific adjustment of it.
Our Lord said when he was in the world, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. xi:25). God does
not reveal himself and his truth to the wisdom of the philosopher or
to the prudence of the scientist, but he is easily found by child-like
faith. “For after that, in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew
not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them
that believe. For the Jews (the scientists) require a sign, and the
Greeks (the philosophers) seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ and
him crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks
foolishness; but unto them which are called (believers), both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.... Not in
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men,
but in the power of God” (I Cor., i:21-24; ii:4, 5, _et seq._). While
philosophers and scientists have been disputing and treading over and
over again the dreary paths of pantheism and materialism, trying to put
God in a crucible or under a microscope, millions of souls in the ages
past, and thousands in the daily present, have been and are finding
God and Christ and salvation, to the joy and rejoicing of their souls;
living in the power of an endless life even here; some meeting death
triumphantly even at the stake, and others peacefully passing into the
presence of him whom, having not seen on earth, they have yet known by
faith and the power of his presence in them.
The engineers who directed the work of the Hoosac Tunnel started two
gangs of men from opposite sides of the mountain. So accurate was
their survey that when they met midway in the mountain, the walls of
the excavations approaching from the different starting points joined
within less than an inch. The practical working of the bore proved the
scientific accuracy of the survey. Man, starting from the side of his
human spiritual need reaching out and upward toward God, is met by the
revelation in Christ coming out and downward from God, a revelation
which exactly fits and covers his need. This perfect match between the
human need and the heavenly supply is the perfect proof of the Divine
origin of the Bible. Just as color is intuitive to sight, harmony to
the musical sense, beauty to the sense of the beautiful, so is God’s
word intuitive to the spiritual consciousness. Coleridge was wont to
say: “I know the Bible is true because it finds me.”
[_End of Required Reading for February._]