CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19529, 11 July 1925, Page 19

CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I road yonr rejxirt of Dr Holloway’s lecture on this theme witii some interest, and will be pleased if you will give mo space for a few remarks thereon. Of course, I shall not dare to enter upon a debate with Dr Holloway. I know the victory would go to the abler debater, and I wouldn’t bo he. I only desire to point out two or three matters which might otherwise escape some of your readers. The lecturer assures us that “ ‘cocksureness’ is far from the spirit of true science.” I like that, and only wish that I could bo quite sure that “cocksuroncfis” is not the very attitude of many of the teachers of science. But may I ask, is not ‘‘science” knowledge? and is not a man “cocksure” of what he knows? Or is science mere guesswork after all ? Or again, is the teacher of science not “cocksure,” but only “sure”—sure enough to be warranted in asking others to rely on his statements, but not quite “sure?” Well, the distinction is pretty fine. Then, in answering his own question, “How did the Holy Spirit move the minds of mon ?” Dr Holloway said there wore tv?o theories about that. Ono was that. Ho moved them mechanically, a.s if they were a non; the other was that He used mon, taking account of their personalities, and the times in which they lived. One could have wished for a clearer definition than this, but lot us take it as it is. What docs this mean? Docs it mean that the Holy Spirit, in giving His Divine message to man, caused impressions to take possession of the prophet and left the prophet with his individualities, idiosyncracics, and imperfect ions, and affected by his environment, to put those impressions into words according to the best of his (the prophet’s) judgment? This, however, would not agree with tho words of the Apostle Peter, who wrote, “borno on by tho Holy Spirit, did men speak from God,” or with the words found in Hebrew 1,1: “God having . . . spoken to tho fathers in tho prophets.” The learned doctor said, “there was no half way between tho two ideas.” I am sorry ho said thfit. for there is a statement of the method of inspiration—that mentioned in tho Bible itself, which avoids both of those ideas. Dr Holloway is reported to have said that evolution was compelling them to saj' whether certain Old Testament stories were to bo taken literally or as parables. Tho pith of this statement is this that those stories may not, express the facte. In passing, I would ask, in dealing with eternal things is the use of the word “stories” quite wise? One of these “stories” is this, “And God said, let ua make man in our

image, after our likeness: . . . And God created man in His own image, in the. image of Clod created He him.’’ Another is the sad statement of man’s fall, and another is God’s promise of a Redeemer, as related in Gen. iii. Aro the.se stories merely parables? On reflection, would it not bo wise if science would be “cocksure’’ before asking us to believe that these stories are not history, especially when we know that the theory which contradicts them is still an unproved theory;—l am. etc., Johx A. D. Adams. Maori Hill, July 9.