"We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In years that bring the philosophic mind." FIRST PRIMARY CONVICTION "I believe in God the Father Almighty." "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." -Gen. i. 1. BELIEF in God the Father Almighty is the preamble of all religion in any true sense of the word. This momentous belief Genesis does not prove, but presupposes. Considering the part which the Old Testament has played in creating and propagating Theism, and the degree to which the Church through her Master is committed to Genesis, some discussion of certain leading principles in the narrative of Genesis is certainly connected with the evidences of Christianity. It is frequently asked why the Church still ventures to read the first three chapters of Genesis? I make no attempt to reconcile Genesis and science. Were the task possible at present, I am not the man who could venture upon it. I am rendered less dissatisfied with my incompetency by observing that those who profess to do so are generally ignorant either of Genesis or of science, or of both. Moreover, it does not require much knowledge of Hebrew to feel sure that a revelation of science could not be made in that language. I adopt the weighty words of the Duke of Argyll: "The meaning of the words of Moses is ahead of all science, not because it anticipates the results of science, but because it is independent of them and runs as it were round the outer margin of all possible discovery." Much in the old narrative must ever remain obscure. High above all towers God and Creation. Evolution has played a great part in moulding things into their present shape. But "the origin of species by natural selection" is an illogical mode of expres sion. How can there be selection before there are species to select from? We shall examine two points only, the position of man, and the moral account of his trial and fall. I We consider the position of man (1) according to science, and (2) according to the Bible. 1. The position of man according to science is as exceptional as it is pre-eminent. Natural selection implies that all life is a struggle for existence; the best equipped physically wins the day; and the weakest inevitably goes to the wall, and is at last crushed against it or thrown over into the abyss. This being so, we have one unparalleled phenomenon to account for. Man, who is at the summit and rules over all other forms of life, has manifold peculiarities, some useless, some positively injurious, in the great prolonged struggle; and each of those peculiarities is prophetic. |