THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7002, 26 April 1884, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.

Professor Diman's Theißtio argument baa been accepted aa one of the fairest, clearest, and most forcible of modern apologetic statements. In his leoturo on "Inferences from Theism" is this suggestive sentence :— " It seems to me that the most convincing proof of the truth of any revelation is to be found, not in the faot that it stands apart from nature, still less in the fact that it seemingly contradicts or suspends any of the laws of nature • but, rather, in the fact that it corresponds with nature, and that while going beyond it, while disclosing truths which mere external nature could not suggest, and whioh never entered into the heart tf man to conceive, it still, in its supreme disclosures, conforms to the analogy ot Nature, and follows the method which nature in a lower sphere has indicated." The unity of all Divine disclosures, in whatever realm, cannot be too firmly held or too often proclaimed. Our God is one God, and in whatever language He speaks, He speaks Himself. Nature and revelation, therefore, are not far apart—they move in parallel lines, they follow the same general method. Thus, the progressive development of nature is the prominent fact of our modern science. The' God of Nature does nothing suddenly. The slide. of the glacier, that breaks with' a crash, has been loosening for ages. , Volcanfo eruptions, doubtless, have a rhythm in their passion, if we could but follow it. Growth leads the world along. This idea is, perhaps, the most valuable contribution of modern science to modem thought. Its value is not by the extravagancies to whioh it may lead, among those who may use it as a lever for putting aside the throne of intelligent agency. Thoughtful Christians cannot only aocopt, but gladly hail a theory of development of the universe according to law, whioh so exalts the potency and wisdom of the great Lawgiver. For sudden creation is less wonderful than development from germs, acoording to sleepless laws. Though only a. well-developed intelligence can perceive it, the earliest explanations of the origin of tho world make it'-to consist in a-

series of scenic wonders, instantaneous apparitions,, startling signs in the heavens and the earth. So are all the heathen cosmogonies. Their claim to credence was according to the" violent and sudden action which'they supposed. - Creation by development supposes tor its understanding a* more advanced stage of human thought; and to such a stage the miraole of the universe is is not less, but more. To build the system of things out of protoplasmic nebula, with countless ivges at its command,'and an omnipresent law for its manipulator, is a far keener, subtler, and grander conception of God in nature, than the old idea that He bnilt the world as children build block houses —by adding lump to lump. > We say again, whatever limitations may yet have to be put upon the sweep of the development hypothesis, and against whatever'vagaries it may be necessary to guard it, the most advanced Christian thought of the day accepts it as embodying the great and manifest truth that the systom of things involves the idea of growth; that according to that idea alone the world finds Bcientino explanation, ' and that it does not detract from, but adds to the glory of God. Recurring now to Professor Diman's idea of the parallelism between natureandrevelation, let it be noticed how exactly modern science confirms this unity of all God's workß, whether in. • written word, or in a world. His method is the same ; and when science insists on the gradual growth of all things in nature, it only brings nature, as to its method, into closer harmony with that other work of God—the revelation of truth in the Bible.

It is not a new idea that the Bible is also a development. The development of inspired truth is a conception that long antedates the idea of the development of nature.' The Bible is the book of beginnings and growth. It has its earliest roots m the very beginnings of Jewish history., Its form and colouring have been shaped and determined by its national surroundings. The unfolding of it has, indeed, not been according to the life of the Hebrews ; for it presents the singular fact (and alone among all historical books in this), that its essential doctrines constantly antagonised the national thought. It grew up as a protest against Hebraiam. It was not, therefore, a merely natural development. Its antagonism to Jewish life and thought proves always its supernatural origin. It is idle, therefore, to classify it ' with other national religions, and say, as has become the fashion now, that the Bible stands related to Hebrew life precisely as the Koran stands to Islam. Those who have at all perceived the internal character of Biblical development, and compared or contrasted it with Hebrew life and thought, cannot fail to have seen that it is not the outgrowth of that life. It iB not because it is everywhere resisting the national current, and striving to make headway againßt it. At the same time the Book grows. The records of the hills do not more emphatically speak of ages of growth in them, than do the books of the Bible reach into each other and grow out of each other, not according to national • ideas, but after a Divine method.

It has become the truism of modern theological science to say, he who has not studied each part of the Bible in its relation to the whole has no conception of the system of Divine trnth. Both historically and logically it is severely linked together. It follows the pattern of things in The Mount, from first to last. This hoe unity of the Bible is, indeed, an old truth. The Fathers saw it. It has long been the intelligent Christian's delight to read in the shadows of the first days of the Old Testament the bright light of the "fulness of Time." And this rooting of the flower of human redemption far back in the dim beginnings of history has made it to him all the grander, and diviner. The energy of God was evidently in that development of truth. Therefore, it is not difficult for the Christian to believe that the natnral world has followed the same method. The idea that God doeth nothing sudden is new to the scientist, it is new to the theological scientist, but it is old to the believer, the spring of whose comfort long has been that God took ages of human history to prepare His great Thought of the world. Having studied the Bible, he is in a condition to nocept the doctrine of natural science, that this world has been slowly growing from fine dust to » soene'of beauty, and complexity in things physical, national, social; intellectual, and moral. He is in condition to acoept it, because it is just like God. It is just as He has wrought in the volume, which on every page bears the impress of His hand.

Further, the Christian believer oceupies the Diane from which it is easy for him to see signs and wonders pass from the physical realm, and laws slip quietly into their place; for so his Bible teaches him. The progress of the development of- God ? Truth has boon steadily away from a looking for the BpAotaoular and toward a finding of God in quieter ways. By this is modern science distinguished from the older and more immature. Comets were portentous. They were Heaven's flaming aword. God's hand was upon the hilt for vengeance. Now they take vheir place among other stars, and move vrith orderly preoision. But, in this movement from a time . of wonder to one of the force of truth, the Bible hi\s far antedated science. Christ, indeed, _ performed miracles, but only as credential? needed by that generation. He never performed in oompliance with the popular desire, never to impress people, never to compel a reluctant faith. He steadily depreciated signs and wonders. He said if they did not believe the truth, they would not believe if one rose from the dead. And as over againßt the works He wrought, He constantly exalted Himself and His doctrine as the light and lifo of man. So, also, Paul,, after enumerating the gifts of miracles and toDgues, exclaims, "I show unto you a more excellent way." And that way is love, without whioh, he says, tongues and works are of co account.

So, as a matter of fact, the development of biblical truth through the Old and New Testaments ia steadily away from signs in the heavens or on fine earth, and toward those inner forces of truth and righteousness, on whioh the world must henceforth depend for_ proof of the divinaness of religion, and whioh are more and greater than any external sign of power could possibly be. The line of thought thus indicated points significantly to the conclusion that the spirit of Christianity, as it comes out in the progress of the truth, and ii\ the doctrines.of its Founder, is quite parallel with the last of well-established science in declaring that God's method is one of gradual progress, and that the line of it is from the outer and visible to the inner and invisible. Science when it discovers that method in nature gets credence for its discovery from the Bible, whioh represents the energy of God in another sphere, in which He has worked in precisely the same way. True scienoe has no battle to wage with the Bible. The Bible has antedated it-8 methods—that is all. —The Interior.