(LOCALE:) The Alpha State Medical Society

(OCCASION:) Annual Banquet

Conversation overheard at table:

First Pediatrician: “Have any of the babies, delivered by that upstart obstetrician, Dr. Graham, come your way?”

Second Pediatrician: “Yes, and I’m completely puzzled as to what to do. I never saw such a conglomeration. Why, some of these babies suck their thumbs, others seem confused, and others have awfully poor feeding habits.”

1st Ped.—“I know just how you feel. What burns me up is all the publicity this man gets; and he has written a number of articles and books on obstetrics.”

2nd Ped.—“Yes, a number of the infants I have seen haven’t been inoculated against polio; in fact they have not been inoculated against any communicable disease.

1st Ped.—“One reason I haven’t any use for this fellow is that he thinks an obstetrician’s business is to deliver babies. He doesn’t carry them through to maturity.”

2nd Ped.—“And you know, he’s so busy with obstetrics that he says little about public health, and I’ve never heard him make a pronouncement on the genocide pact or the United Nations.”

1st Ped.—“It’s embarrassing to have these infants come when you don’t like either the man or his methods. At the same time many men cooperating with Dr. Graham seem to be getting a tremendous number of new patients from his clinic.”

2nd Ped. (In a low voice, glancing around the table to see if anyone is looking)—“You know, and you surely must not quote me or the Medical Society might kick me out, I have serious doubts about how babies are born. Or, whether they are born at all. I have some specimens in my office (pickled in formalin) and as I look at those jars sometimes I wonder where they really came from and what they really are.”

1st Ped. (Also with a furtive look)—“I am glad to hear you say that, because I have come to reject the entire idea of babies being born. I believe they come into existence by a confusion of educational ectoplasm transplanted to a conglomeration of pseudo-scientific astigmatism. It is so utterly naive to hold the archaic view that they are born into the world as babes.”

Internist: “Excuse me boys but my hearing aid is so acute I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I am professor of dialectic medicine down at Miasma Medical College. I’m intrigued by your views because they’re mine too. The basic problem is that man has lost his depth perception and has emerged through the back door of theoretical spatial orbitization. The plain fact is that we don’t know where we came from, where we are, or where we are going.”

1st and 2nd Ped. (In unison)—“You fascinate us with the profundity of your group hallucinations.”

Internist: “Be sure you keep this quiet. So far only a few of us hold this advanced hypothesis. The man in the street might not understand and if the trustees of my school heard it they might become restive and ask some embarrassing questions.”

1st and 2nd Ped.—“We’re all in the same boat. Our patients would not understand either. In fact we do not understand ourselves. As for these infants “delivered” by Dr. Graham—let them die! But wait a minute; we don’t believe they were born in the first place … Wouldn’t it be nice if we really knew what we do believe?”

(Locale🙂 The City-Wide Ministerial Council

(Occasion🙂 Monthly Meeting—Topic: “How to make the Far-Country more pleasant for the Prodigal”

Conversation overheard in cloakroom:

First Minister: “Have you had any of these people come to you from the Billy Graham Crusade?”

Second Minister: “Yes, several, and I must say that I resent them. I never saw such a conglomeration. I talked to two who were utterly confused; they even asked me how to study the Bible.”

1st Min.—“I had the same experience. What burns me up is the publicity this man gets. And he has written several books and a number of articles on how to win men to Christ.”

2nd Min.—“It exasperates me because he spends so much time talking about ‘sin’ and being ‘born again.’ Doesn’t he know that sin is merely an emotional reaction to the adverse conditions and circumstances of life? He should certainly be aware of that fact.”

1st Min.—“I know, I know. And I get burned up because he seems to think the social order can only be changed when men’s hearts are changed. Why doesn’t he spend more time attacking the great social problems of our day?”

2nd Min.—“One of my parishioners embarrassed me the other day by suggesting that it is the place of us ministers to take these people and lead them on in the Christian life. Why doesn’t Graham send them to us as mature Christians?”

1st Min. (In a low voice and with a hasty glance around)—“You know, and I don’t want to be quoted because some wouldn’t understand, I just don’t have any truck with this talk about being ‘born again.’ A lot of people in my church certainly haven’t been born again, and I dislike archaic and childish ideas.”

2nd Min.—“I surely am glad to hear you say that. I’ve felt that way a long time. The way to make Christians is to tell them about the divine spark within them, challenge them to follow the example of the carpenter of Galilee and be good.”

1st Min.—“Education is the secret. Get a good program started. Be careful about the Bible too. I’ve known people to go off their rockers reading the Bible.”

2nd Min.—“We are so busy in our church we have no time to talk about sin and judgment. We’ve something more challenging to talk about.”

1st Min.—“Unfortunately you and I are in the minority now. But a lot of people like to hear us, it makes them feel good.”

Professor: “Gentlemen, I was not eavesdropping but I am deaf and I have been reading your lips. Congratulations! I am professor of Obscure Philosophy at Humanist Divinity School. You must have been reading my books for you express my thoughts so clearly. I am glad you have freed yourselves from a theology which talks of sin and of God’s holiness and justice. God is love and if we do our best we can leave the rest to him.”

1st and 2nd Min.—“We are truly glad to meet you. Your depth of perception, your scholarship, your reasoning, your philosophy of life have fascinated us.”

Professor: “I appreciate your attitude. But let me advise you to hold these views in confidence until more people hold them too. The other day I heard a crack-pot layman say the greatest hoax in America is to be found in those ministers who do not believe the Gospel they are supposed to minister. Such ideas are dangerous and those holding them should be silenced. If you cannot silence them make them look ridiculous.”

1st and 2nd Min.—“Just what shall we do with any who come to us from Graham’s Crusade? They have been deluded into thinking they have had some sort of religious experience. But we just don’t believe they have been ‘born again’ because we do not believe in any such thing. Our idea is just to let them alone.”

Professor: “Your deductions and conclusions are correct. You have the philosophical approach, based on your predetermined prejudice and that is based on your rejection of childish notions. I am happy to meet such enlightened men.”

1st and 2nd Min.—“Ah, what a relief. Just let them die! Wait a minute, they never were born in the first place. Or, were they? We wish we knew.”

At the risk of being excessively negative, I shall try to show why orthodoxy finds it difficult to cooperate with the National and World Councils of Churches. The ethos of orthodoxy is seldom sympathetically understood. Critics tend to judge it by its worst, rather than by its best, elements.

Were I to name the criterion that inspires the best elements in orthodoxy, it would be the following: The visible unity of Christendom is an ideal which simultaneously inspires and judges the real. Just as we strive for sinless perfection, though we shall never reach it, so we strive for the equally valid, though equally elusive, ideal of visible unity. If a person imagines that the ideal can be realized in history, he betrays his own want of education. Either the terms of the ideal are underestimated or the possibilities of the real are overestimated. Since original sin tinctures the entire human enterprise, man’s quest for unity is never a purely virtuous undertaking. Organizational security is partly a status symbol of pride and an outlet for will to power.

I am not saying that orthodoxy succeeds in applying its own principles. I only say that, in its finest moments, it evaluates the possibilities of Christian unity by what theologians call the “polar method.” The ideal and the real must be kept in delicate balance.

I

While orthodoxy may err in its conviction—and I want to stress this possibility—it nevertheless believes that the ecumenical movement is plying a course which overlooks the effect of original sin or collective human efforts. And this oversight traces back to a rather loose handling of the Word of God. Let me establish this by reviewing the kind of argument that appeals to the orthodox mind.

Christian unity is deceptively simple. Even a junior in seminary can define it. It is a fellowship of those who are spiritually joined with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13 RSV). But if the definition of Christian unity is simple, its application is not. We unite when we sing the Te Deum, “We praise thee, O God,” but we divide when we spell out the theology of this hymn. Our theology is never systematic, and unsystematic theology spawns disunity. This can be abundantly illustrated from the pages of church history, but I shall confine myself to two striking examples.

Luther and Zwingli tried to unite the Protestant cause, but “a different spirit” hindered them. Since they could not agree on the theology of the Eucharist, division was unavoidable. And after centuries of theological debate, the Lutheran and Reformed efforts are no nearer union than on the eve of the Marburg Conference.

A similar difficulty frustrated the Reformed cause. Baptists contend that public profession of faith precedes the rite of baptism, while Presbyterians contend that covenant infants form an exception to this rule. Classical Baptist divines (John Gill, Abraham Booth, etc.) and classical Presbyterian divines (William Cunningham, B. B. Warfield, etc.) exhibit equal powers of critical acumen and personal piety. But apparently something more than this is required to exegete the fine points in the Bible. This is why the threat of division, like the poor, is with us always.

There is only one way to defeat this, and that is by making unity a higher virtue than truth. Romanism aptly illustrates the technique. Roman apologists cite our fragmented efforts as palpable proof that the Reformation principle defeats itself. But it should be observed that Roman apologists never tell us how the Vatican eliminates the threat of disunity. And there is good reason for this concealment, for if Roman strategy were really understood, the Catholic cause would fall into considerable disrepute.

The Vatican eliminates the threat of disunity by eliminating religious liberty. Unless a Roman Catholic surrenders his judgment to the Pope, he is excommunicated. But this species of unity holds no attraction to one who believes that man is made in the image of God and that freedom of inquiry is an indefeasible prerogative. Furthermore, Roman security is specious. A man must exercise religious liberty to evaluate a system which nullifies religious liberty. Before one can surrender his judgment to the Pope, and thus be safe, he must use his own fallible judgment to assure himself that the Pope is infallible. The complex criteria of verification must then be faced. Thus, if we trace Catholic confidence back far enough, it rests on the same peril of private judgment that led the Reformers to conclude that the Pope is not infallible. Where, then, is the Roman advantage? Orthodoxy fails to see any.

The Reformers had one goal in view, and that was to coax Roman theology into conformity with biblical truth. But Rome promptly answered by banishing the Reformers. This means that the genesis of our divisions traces back to the medieval Church itself. Instead of meeting the Reformers on exegetical grounds, as Christ and the apostles met the Jews, Rome hurled barbed epithets of heresy and schism. The Reformers were given the curt option of either submitting to the tradition of the Church or of being excommunicated. To men of powerful Christian convictions, of course, this was not a live option at all. And Luther promptly showed his contempt by burning the papal bull.

II

Orthodoxy believes that the National and World Councils of Churches defend a position which is strikingly similar to that of Romanism. This is an audacious assertion, to be sure, but it rests on the solidest kind of evidence.

The Protestant principle received its first clarification in the Leipzig Disputation of 1519. When Luther said that the Council of Constance erred in condemning John Huss, it was plain to Eck, and Luther soon saw it, that two incompatible criteria were vying for primacy. Luther claimed the right of religious liberty, while Eck replied that this was one right Luther did not have. Since God has deposited the whole counsel of his will in the church diffusive, ecclesiastical tradition cannot be challenged by the opinion of an individual.

But Luther stood his ground. He knew that if a man surrenders his right to interpret Scripture according to the dictates of his conscience, whatever else remains is of very small account. No wonder Carlyle called Luther’s stand at Worms the greatest moment in the modern history of man. Luther thundered: “Unless I am persuaded by testimonies from Scripture or clear arguments,—for by themselves, I believe neither pope nor council—I stand convinced by the Holy Scriptures adduced by myself and my conscience is bound up in God’s Word. Retract I do not and will not, for to do anything against conscience is unsafe and dangerous. Here I stand. I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen” (Translation by David S. Schaff).

If the Reformation has done nothing else, it has clarified what is perhaps the most important theological question in this or any other age. Do we find the truth by submitting to the church, or do we find the church by submitting to the truth? Rome defends the first possibility, while the Reformers defend the second. But a choice must be made; the option is forced. Rome contends that the truth is where the church is, while the Reformers contend that the church is where the truth is.

If Rome is right, we have only one course before us, and that is to recant our Reformation heritage and return with haste to the papal fold. We cannot plead indefectible ignorance. Moreover, Romanism boasts a consummate order of visible unity. To create a Protestant counterpart would be a very foolish expedient.

But if Rome is wrong, then it seems to orthodoxy that Protestants ought to have the moral courage and the intellectual honesty to live by their own principles. The moment we defend man’s right to bind his conscience by a free and open study of Scripture, we are on Reformation soil and divisions in the church are both natural and necessary.

To say this, however, does not mean that divisions are either desirable or good. Such an outcome would offend the biblical ideal. To speak of spiritual unity without visible unity, what is this but to utter a contradiction? If a family will not live together, it is not a family at all. I now mean to say, even as I shall continue to mean to say, that divisions in the church are evil. As long as a single believer is outside the fellowship, love is incomplete.

To develop the problem more fully, let us return to Martin Luther and the problem of tragic moral choices. A choice is tragic, and thus invites admiration, when circumstances force one to decide between levels of good. Tragic moral choices are always difficult to make, for they entail a compromise between the ideal and the real. Protestants should remember that the great schism in Western Christianity was the direct fruit of a tragic moral choice. Otherwise they will overestimate the possibilities of human virtue.

Martin Luther did not want to disturb the visible unity of Christendom. But he did not see how such a disturbance could be avoided, for the gospel of Rome and the gospel of Scripture were different gospels. A tragic moral choice had to be made. Luther had to decide between a united church that taught error and a divided church that at least allowed for the possibility of truth. And being bound by the Word of God, he threw himself on the higher alternative. When a decision must be made between unity and truth, unity must yield to truth; for it is better to be divided by truth than to be united by error. We test the church by truth, not truth by the church. The apostles judged the Christian community by the norm of divine revelation.

Each generation must make this same tragic moral choice—and not only once, but again and again. If we want the comfort of the Christian gospel, we must accept the distress of a divided church. When men are free to unite in Christ, they are also free to divide in Christ. Religious liberty brings dissension, and dissension brings disunity. “For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor. 11:19, RSV). If we remove the threat of factions, we corrupt the very matrix of evangelical confrontation.

Sincere and unavoidable divisions should excite a sense of honor, not shame, in us. Milton wisely observes, “It is written that the Coat of our Saviour was without seame: whence some would infer that there should be no division in the Church of Christ. It should be so indeed; Yet seams in the same cloath, neither hurt the garment, nor misbecome it; and not only seams, but Schisms will be while men are fallible” (Of True Religion, Heresie, Schism and Toleration, in Works of John Milton, Columbia University Press, Vol. 6, pp. 176–177). An unfettered gospel is the important thing.

Whenever orthodoxy ponders the goals of the ecumenical movement, it feels that the issue of the Reformation must be raised all over again. Rome says that truth is decided by the church. And judging by the rising tide of Protestant ecclesiasticism, the Roman position is attracting a legion of new converts. The ecumenical movement sees the evil in disunity, and for this it must be praised. But it does not see the evil in untruth, and for this it must be criticized. Whether in Rome, Amsterdam, or Moscow, it makes no difference; truth still ranks above unity.

There is only one live heresy in the eyes of the National and World Councils of Churches, and that is the heresy of not cooperating with the National and World Councils of Churches. If a person cooperates, his defection from the Word of God is relegated to a place of tertiary importance. But this is precisely the theological climate which forced the Reformation. Luther was a heretic because he dared to say that the church is where the truth is, and not the other way around. Orthodoxy is proud to take its stand with Luther.

III

To make its position as attractive as possible, the ecumenical movement has reduced Christian commitment to what it believes is a decisive creedal minimum. The 1948 Amsterdam assertion says, “The Ecumenical Council is a union of Churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior.” This is a praiseworthy confession, but it is not praiseworthy enough to suit orthodoxy, for the only heresy it catches is unitarianism. The holes in the mesh are so wide that a sea of theological error can swim safely through. This proves that the ecumenical movement is more concerned with unity than it is with truth.

Furthermore, the Amsterdam assertion is in direct conflict with Scripture. “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21, RSV). This verse asserts that unless a confession of Christ’s lordship is united with an evangelical affection to do the will of God, it profits nothing. And where is the will of God, if not in the system of holy Scripture?

The ecumenical movement ought to come to terms with the disturbing fact that at least one church exists which accepts our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior, but which promptly anathematizes those who defend religious liberty as part of God’s image in man. This is what makes ecumenical strategy so anomalous. How can the Amsterdam assertion compose the differences in Western Christianity, when it was not a cause of these differences in the first place? What the Reformers knew, but what the ecumenical movement does not seem to know, is that the schism in Western Christianity cannot be mended until Rome acknowledges man’s right to bind his conscience by a free and open study of the Word of God. But this is a concession Rome will never make, for the very genius of her position rests on a negation of religious liberty.

The practices of the ecumenical movement baffle orthodoxy. For example, what can possibly be gained by extending olive branches of reconciliation to the papacy? These overtures are as embarrassing to Protestants as they are offensive to Catholics. Since Rome claims an absolute monopoly on grace and truth, it considers ecumenical overtures, however sincere, as nothing but loathsome evidences that the Protestant mutiny has not yet been crushed. Rome will not rest until it enjoys absolute ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It seems to me that the ecumenical movement ought to have the good sense to see this.

When Protestants want unity so badly that they are embarrassed by the Reformation, they may want it so badly that they will end up surrendering their judgment to the Pope. They will have their coveted unity, to be sure, but at the price of the Word of God.

Orthodoxy would like to entertain a more charitable attitude toward the ecumenical movement—and this irenic note should be taken in the best possible sense—but it is not sure how to go about the matter without violating Scripture. Since the meaning of Christianity was normatively defined by Christ and the apostles, the course before us is clear. We must conform our conscience to truth. If there is an extra-biblical way to know the mind of God, orthodoxy has never heard of it. The Bible, and only the Bible, tells us how an offended God will dispose of a sinful world.

When orthodoxy examines the Bible with an eye to truth, it confronts a series of doctrines which have equal authority to bind the conscience because they are delineated with equal power and lucidity—God as triune, God’s image in man, the federal headship of the first Adam, the fall of man, the federal headship of the last Adam, and Christ’s virgin birth, humanity and deity, sinless life, miraculous works, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, ascension into heaven, and glorious return. There is nothing esoteric about these doctrines. They are all open and plain. They are all carried by the rights of language.

The Amsterdam assertion is included in the above doctrines. Orthodoxy rejoices over any testimony to the lordship of Christ. But because the ecumenical movement is content to select one doctrine out of a number that are delineated with equal power and lucidity, it betrays its indifference to the exegetical demands of the biblical system. And what is this but a return to the ethos of Romanism?

For example, Christ’s resurrection is of such importance that not only is Christian fellowship inconceivable apart from the empty tomb, but the very coherence of the Christian world view turns on the empirical validity of this one event. “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14, RSV). Deny that Christ defeated death, and where is the good news?

This is very clear. But apparently it is not clear enough, for the ecumenical movement extends a cordial welcome to open antagonists of the resurrection. Whether Christ conquered death is apparently not important. The important thing is that we all get together under one roof. And the ecumenical movement does not take this stand because of any textual difficulties in the Bible, for First Corinthians is universally recognized as Pauline.

IV

If the visible unity of Christendom is ever realized, it will be a sad day for the Gospel. Just as democratic freedom is preserved by a prudential balance of social interests, so the freedom of the gospel is preserved by a prudential balance of ecclesiastical interests. Orthodoxy is afraid that the ecumenical movement will upset the balance by taking too much power to itself.

And there is a good reason for this fear. The National Council of Churches not only pretends to speak for the whole of American Protestantism, but it thinks it is sufficiently virtuous to decide what religious activity is of God and what is not. O. Walter Wagner writes in the August 22, 1956, issue of The Christian Century, “Gone are the days when the airways were a wide-open range for the denominational demagogue who could afford to buy time, or for the fundamentalist fringe group that used them to sell its divisive wares. Today, prevailingly, public service time is granted to the radio and television commission of the local council of churches.” This is most instructive strategy. The ecumenical movement takes away the prejudices of the demagogue and the anarchist, and in their place puts the prejudices of the ecumenical movement. It then caps its arrogance by calling this progress. The truth is that the right of religious liberty is being curtailed. When a single power controls religious broadcasting, what is this but ecclesiastical tyranny? In an effort to restore a reasonable balance of power, orthodoxy has had to create such counteragents as the National Religious Broadcasters and the Radio Commission.

Because sinners use power as an outlet of pride, no part of Christendom can speak for all of Christendom. Whenever bands of union become too tight, religious liberty is threatened. Voltaire may have been wide of the mark at many points, but he knew enough about human depravity to hit the mark when judging the relation between pride, power, and ecclesiastical pretense. “If one religion only were allowed in England, the government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy in peace” (Letters on the English, Letter VI, “On the Presbyterians”).

Orthodoxy believes that every prudent means should be used to heal the divisions in the Christian church. But before one Protestant denomination joins with another, it must examine its own distinctives in the light of the Word of God. If the exegetical ground of these distinctives is no longer conclusive, overtures of union may be undertaken. But if Scripture affords no such release, separation must remain. Under no conditions should truth be subordinated to unity. We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law—and especially not by the law that the church should be visibly united. Our divisions will continue to scandalize the natural man, but this should not unhinge us. The message of the cross is also a scandal.

At an earlier point I admitted that orthodoxy does not succeed in applying its own principles. I want to reaffirm this as I close. If the ecumenical movement tends to upset the biblical balance from one side, orthodoxy tends to upset it from the other. The ecumenical movement sees the perils in a divided, but not in a united, church; while orthodoxy sees the perils in a united, but not a divided, church. The one error leads to tyranny, the other to anarchy. And the anarchy is no less reprehensible than the tyranny. Orthodoxy overlooks the work of sin in the separatist himself. Since the separatist does not belong to the National and World Councils of Churches, he thinks he is virtuous. This is a pathetic illusion, however, for status by negation is a far cry from affirmative righteousness. Orthodox doctrine, unsavored by orthodox love, profits nothing. As the apostle Paul stated so succinctly, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).

I am sorry about one thing. I am sorry that orthodoxy hesitates to take an active part in the modern dialogue about unity. I should think that the possession of truth would issue in a passionate desire to guide, rather than chide, the groping efforts of a tragically divided church. Failing in this nobler role, orthodoxy has merited its disrespect.

What shall we say, then, is the nature of the unity we seek? It is a fellowship in Jesus Christ which is vitally united with the system of biblical truth. Fellowship is the flesh, while truth is the bones. Flesh without bones is flabby, while bones without flesh are dead. Together they make for organic unity.

Preacher In The Red

HEART-WARMING

One of the dear old ladies in the congregation was in the habit of expressing her emotions during a sermon by shouting, “Praise the Lord, Hallelujah.”

The pastor, unaccustomed to such demonstrations, became nervous and during a call at the home of the lady, after telling her that he appreciated her presence at the services, said, “I notice that you frequently become very emotional, and you express this emotion by shouting your praises to the Lord. I know that when you feel happy, you cannot keep from shouting, but for some reason this makes me almost forget what I am about to say. Suppose I make this bargain with you: if you contain yourself, and not shout from now until Christmas, I’ll give you a pair of nice woolen blankets.”

The lady agreed to this proposition, and all went well until just before Christmas, when, during a heart-warming sermon, she just could not contain herself, and suddenly shouted to the top of her voice, “Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, blankets or no blankets.”—E. M. UMBACH, Elizabethton, Tenn.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Suite 1014 Washington Building, Washington, D.C.

Edward John Carnell is President of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Author of numerous books, of which the most recent is Christian Commitment, he is currently at work on another. The essay above was written by invitation of Religion in Life, a Christian quarterly of opinion and discussion, as one of five viewpoints on “The Nature of the Unity We Seek.” It appeared in the Spring issue, 1957 (Copyright 1957 by Abingdon Press, and used by permission.)

First in a series of four articles on the Christian Hope and the Millennium

Discussions of the millennium or of any theme of biblical prophecy require a humble approach. The prophetic word is a lamp shining in the darkness until the day dawns and the full light of God’s accomplished purpose breaks upon us (2 Pet. 1:19). Prophecy is a light to keep men in the Way through the darkness of This Age until the light of Christ’s coming dispels the darkness forever. This suggests that we should not look to prophecy for pre-written history or for a blueprint of the future. Prophecy’s primary purpose is to give light for our present journey, not to satisfy our curiosity. Since we do not have the full light and our knowledge is admittedly partial (1 Cor. 13:12), we may not expect complete unity of interpretation among God’s servants in prophetic truth. Paul himself asserts that while there is indeed “one faith,” full unity of the faith has not yet been attained (Eph. 4:4, 13). Therefore, humility and charity in such study is more important than perfect agreement. Furthermore, the existence of unsolved problems should be no embarrassment to any interpretation.

Nevertheless, God’s Word does speak about the future, and we are justified, indeed, required to attempt to understand and to interpret the prophetic outlook of Scripture. Redemption is uniformly viewed as incomplete; and we must search Scripture to understand all about the completion of God’s redemptive purpose.

The problems which cluster around the question of a millennium, so far as the New Testament is concerned, are theological, not exegetical. The millenarian who accepts Augustine’s sound dictum that “the New is in the Old concealed while the Old is in the New revealed” may feel embarrassed by the paucity of New Testament teachings about this theme. Sound exegesis of Revelation 20 requires a millennial interpretation; and non-millennialists usually do not appeal so much to exegesis as to theological consistency for support of their position. They interpret such passages as Revelation 20 in a non-millenarian way because they are convinced that the totality of New Testament truth has no room for an interregnum and that there is no alternative in view of the New Testament eschatology as a whole but to interpret Revelation spiritually.

However, it is this author’s conviction that not only exegesis, but also New Testament theology, require a millennial interregnum; for the millennium is the era of the revelation of Christ’s glory.

The Two Ages

Underlying biblical theology is the structure of the two ages: This Age and the Age to Come. Unfortunately, this fact has been obscured to three centuries of English speaking Bible students because the Authorized Version incorrectly translates aion “world” instead of “age.” The two ages constitute the entire course of human existence (Matt. 12:32; Eph. 1:21). The transition between the two ages is the second coming of Christ (Matt. 24:3), resurrection (Luke 20:35), and judgment (Matt. 13:40f.). So long as This Age lasts, evil—demonic, satanic evil—will plague human history. Such influence has God, the King of the Ages (1 Tim. 1:17), permitted Satan to exercise in This Age that he is called the god of This Age (2 Cor. 4:4). This Age is evil (Gal. 1:4), characterized by sin and death.

Only in the Age to Come will God’s people enter into the full experience of what is meant by eternal life (Mark 10:30; Matt. 25:31, 46). Only in the Age to Come will the full blessing of the kingdom of God become man’s possession. For the fact is that eternal life and the kingdom of God (Mark 10:24f.) both belong to the Age to Come, not to This Age.

On the basis of this so-called antithetical structure of the two ages, it can be argued that there is no room for an interregnum between This Age and the Age to Come. The New Testament, it is said, makes the second coming of Christ the dividing point between the ages. At his coming, we shall enter into the full enjoyment of the redemptive blessings of eternal life and the kingdom of God. The coming of Christ is the center of the New Testament expectation of the future. God’s purposes will then be consummated; the Age to Come will then begin.

Facing The Difficulties

The difficulty with this apparently persuasive reasoning is that it proves too much; for in this same antithetical structure, both eternal life and the kingdom of God are exclusively future, not a present possession. Yet every Sunday School child knows that Jesus came to give men eternal life here and now; for he who believes on the Son has eternal life (John 3:36). Furthermore, the kingdom of God is something present which men enter by the new birth (John 3:3, 5); the redeemed are already in the kingdom of God’s Son (Col. 1:13).

Long ago, Professor Geerhardus Vos pointed out in his Pauline Eschatology that the great themes of redemption-justification, the Holy Spirit, as well as eternal life and the kingdom of God—are “semi-eschatological” realities. That is, although they belong to the Age to Come, they have entered into human history through the incarnation and redemptive work of Christ. The redeemed man experiences in This Age, evil as it is, a bit of the life of the Age to Come. There is, in other words, an overlapping of the ages. The redeemed live “between the times”—in two ages at once. We may taste of the powers of the coming age (Heb. 6:5) and thereby be delivered from this present evil age (Gal. 1:4), no longer being conformed to it even though we live in it (Rom. 12:2).

Professor Vos correctly sketches this relationship by two overlapping lines on different levels. Therefore, although the Age to Come is future and begins with the coming of Christ in glory, this new age has already begun with the Incarnation—the coming of Christ in humility. The two ages have come together. However, it is important to note that many passages of Scripture make no reference to this fact. The Age to Come is usually viewed as altogether future, even though it is “spiritually” present.

The millennium is a further stage in this overlapping of the ages. The Age to Come, which is now working secretly in This Age within the lives of God’s people, will manifest itself in outward glory before the final inauguration of the Age to Come. The life of the Age to Come will show itself more splendidly in this world before the final judgment falls and God brings the new heavens and the new earth.

Theological Necessity

The theological necessity for such a period is seen in 1 Corinthians 15:23–28. In the days of his flesh, Christ emptied himself, pouring himself out in humility even to the point of death. “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:7–8). He is now exalted “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name,” (Phil. 2:9) and seated at the right hand of God; but his glory does not appear to the world. This Age is still the evil age. Christ’s glory is known only to his people, but even they suffer and die. Christ’s rule is hidden from the world. He is indeed now reigning in victory and enthroned with his Father (Rev. 3:21); but the world does not know it, for his reign has not been disclosed to the world. In fact, so far as the world is concerned, his reign is in a sense potential and not realized. “As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (Heb. 2:8, RSV).

Yet, “he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25). His reign must become public in power and glory. The “reign of grace” must become a “reign of power.”

The Age To Come

However, the Age to Come is not the age of Christ’s reign; it is the age of the Father’s glory. First Corinthians 15:21–24 designates three stages in God’s redemptive purpose. First is the resurrection of Christ, the first fruits of the resurrection (vv. 21, 23). Then will occur the resurrection of those who are Christ’s at his coming. “After that (the literal meaning of the Greek particle) comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father” (v. 24). Here is the third stage, which is the Age to Come. Then, “the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all” (vs. 28).

The Age to Come after “The End” is the age of the Father’s all-encompassing dominion. The Church age—the era between the Resurrection and the Parousia—is the age of the Son’s hidden rule. The millennium will be the age of the manifestation of Christ’s glory when the sovereignty, which he now possesses but does not manifest, and which he will give over to the Father in the Age to Come, will be manifested in glory in the world. God yet has a glorious destiny for the race which will be accomplished by the Son when he comes to reign in glory.

George Eldon Ladd has served on the faculty of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, in the New Testament field, since 1950. He spent the past year in Heidelberg, Germany, pursuing post-doctoral studies. In this first essay in the series on the Christian hope, he presents the premillennial non-dispensationalist viewpoint. John F. Walvoord, President of Dallas Theological Seminary, is to present the premillennial dispensational view; Loraine Boettner, author of Studies in Theology, the postmillennial view; and finally W. J. Grier, Irish minister and author, the amillennial view.

I was born in a Methodist parsonage when the present century was biting a teething ring. My dad served mountain and small-town circuits 100 miles long and eight to ten churches per circuit. He rode aboard a steed he had to buy himself from his $300 to $500 annual salaries. We raised the difference between these salaries and starvation on a few scraggly acres belonging to the parsonage range or we rented them on the halves from some “bighearted” parishioner. I have seen things from the ranks. I have been through the mill.

I have known of some well-to-do “pillar” arise in the quarterly conference and ask, “Just what is the very least you can live on, preacher?” They wanted that dividing line between life and starvation. They would settle for that. One church paying $30 a year argued that during revival meeting time they had to keep and feed both the preacher and his horse and shouldn’t be expected to pay the $2.50 a month salary. Yes, they shouted in the revivals. I still don’t know why.

Missionary or other “foreign” support was virtually nil in many of our churches. We basked behind the old argument, “There’s enough to do at home.” There always was—but we seldom got around to doing it.

In one area in which we lived there was a Christian college. Young student ministers were often sent out to nearby churches that they might earn money to stay in school. Father was giving way to one such pastor at one of his churches when an old brother arose and said, “I am tired of rocking the cradle for Morris Harvey College.” Whereupon, the treasurer of the church turned hurriedly through his ledger and replied: “Sir, according to my record you have rocked the cradle to the tune of four dollars during the past twelve months.”

Yes, we’ve always had our critics and cranks. But along with them God has placed a few level-headed, solid people to hold up the hands of the men of the cloth. I have yet to know of a church that didn’t have a few, today or yesterday. That didn’t come about by chance.

One of our ministers, who served a charge in our hills, wanted to take a circuit nearer his home area. But the congregation didn’t want to let him go, they loved him so. He was getting $470 a year. He asked them if they loved him thirty dollars worth more. They didn’t. He left. And one of the pillars who loved him so much owned a large cattle farm and cleared $9,000 a year—in 1913! He paid $30 a year into the church.

“Christian” Generosity

In another section there was one of those great revivals that you read about but seldom see. I have been through them, too. You sometimes wonder what has become of the converts by the time summer is gone. Anyway, the officers appointed an enthusiastic young convert to raise money for a $175 organ. It was a beauty. The lad rustled about among the men at the plant where he worked and got $100. He would go back and get the rest from the church easily. Three weeks later his enthusiasm had died. He had raised but $28 cash and pledges from the people among whom the revival had taken place. And many of them were in much better position financially than the unsaved men from whom the young man collected the hundred.

I could give instances like this by the dozen, but here are just two more—too unbelievable to omit.

Another old-time, sky blue revival was being held. After it was over, a young farmer went to the preacher to make a confession. He said that he made about $600 a year from his bean crop, to say nothing of his other cash crops, and had banked nearly all of it as he could get his living easily enough from the sod. He had some $9,000 in a nearby bank and was adding to it yearly. He was sitting pretty, but his conscience hurt. He and his wife agreed that they hadn’t been giving enough to the church. They were going to start doubling their portion. Instead of giving the customary fifty cents each yearly, they were going whole hog and give a dollar apiece.

Here’s the other. A lot of older people can tell you of the terrible 1917–1918 winter. We children of the parsonage would run from home to school, the store, or the church, and back again, to keep from freezing en route. The coldest day of this century was the Sunday before Christmas, 1917.

My mother and a few other women of the church had braved the elements to gather in a few dollars to add to their own for a Christmas treat for the children. Several had refused to give, including the town’s lone merchant, from whom they had to buy the candy at full price. He needed that profit to add to the $100,000 estate that was already his. Neither he nor his wife ever darkened a church door. His children went occasionally—with a penny each.

But the Sunday the treat was to be given out, the wife and three of her four children braved the 20-below zero cold to an unheated church to garner four sacks of that precious candy the head of the house had sold the good ladies of the church the day before.

Did you ever drive through the country, especially the hill country, and wonder why various church buildings were located so inconveniently? I’ll tell you. Every-time members decided to build a church, there was always some old codger who couldn’t give any money but would gladly donate the land. The rest of them took his scraggly mountainside site to save money or to keep from inheriting his wrath and his family’s for the next 40 years for turning it down. And there was always that clause in the deed: should the land ever be used for anything other than a church building, it was to revert to the heirs of the donor—for a pasture for goats.

Considering these facts, one does oftentimes wonder how there could be any revivals in those days.

I knew an old German farmer who loaded up his jolt wagon every Sunday morning and took a dozen or more of his neighbors to church. He gathered his family around him three times daily for family prayer. And he let ministers have a choice piece of bottom land free.

I knew a faithful spinster who worked untiringly with the youth, directing them in whatever affairs of religion they would take part. I knew a lady pianist who had sat on the same stool for 40 years hardly missing a Sunday. I’ve known business men and professional men of the old era plunk down many a dollar on the barrelhead that they might have spent well on their families. I knew one lady who drove seven miles round trip to and from church in an open buggy every Sunday morning, hauling her three younger children with her and letting the two older walk behind. She attended every service of a three-week revival meeting in weather that hovered around zero.

I knew an aged mother who fasted and prayed in our mountains telling God she wouldn’t eat any more until people were saved in a revival going on that had come to a stalemate in the community. The miracle happened. God didn’t let her down.

I knew a school teacher and a doctor who just about financed the parsonage at one point releasing dad from his regular duties in order that he might travel through our valley praying with the parents whose sons were leaving for army camps during World War I, and the hundreds who lay sick and dying during the influenza epidemic that followed.

Yes, there have been pillars of the church down through the ages. But the sanctity of the church of your grandfather’s day, as a whole, was no greater than that of the church today. In most instances, admittedly, they worshiped with a lot more zeal and boisterousness; but there was often no missionary spirit, no movement reaching beyond the horizon. There was little, if any, youth organization. There was only skeletal church organization in any except the urban sections as compared with our great church mechanism of the present. The machinery that keeps the church movement orderly today wouldn’t have operated 50 years ago. There was not the necessary motivation.

We didn’t have stately brick churches prominently situated. We had little frame buildings on hillsides or side streets. Go out into the rural sections of our country and you’ll see the evidence.

The Great Drama

Young man, young woman, you are living in the greatest age of church history. You have a part, a very vital part, to play in this great religious drama. Yours is one of inspiration to the older members. Yours is one of accomplishment, of opportunity, of achievement. Your voice is heard in our conferences, a thing virtually unheard of when your grandpa was young.

Collections toward the great undertakings of the church were unknown and undreamed of, even in proportion to the times, when I was in knee pants. The funds for the building of $100,000 churches, pensions for aged ministers, insurance policies for them in case they die in harness, and various other funds of the church were nonexistent or had little force if they did exist. You have had a part in building this great organization we call the church. Don’t let anybody kid you.

The children of the parsonage were not always respected as they are today. Let the old timers say what they will. The minister’s kids wore cast-off clothing and ate what wouldn’t sell in the market place. I bought the first overshoes and overcoat I ever owned with money I made by working in the coal mines. I thought those things were luxuries for the rich people, people like those who sold mother the Christmas candy, then came next day with hands outstretched wanting part of it back.

Son or daughter of the parsonage or manse, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. You are living in one of the best days in church history.

Frank W. Ball is the son of a Methodist circuit rider. His school days were spent mostly in one-room mountain schools; his high school diploma was earned through correspondence school. He works for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad as a machinist’s helper and writes occasionally as a hobby. He is the recipient of two Freedoms Foundation awards. For almost 30 years he has been Trustee and Secretary-Treasurer of Steele Memorial Methodist Church, Barboursville, West Virginia.

The Middle Colony Revival, 1720

American interest in revivals goes as far back as the first quarter of the eighteenth century and continues even to this day. Indeed American Protestant churches whether they be Presbyterian, Baptist or Methodist, have regarded the annual revival meeting as much a part of their regular work as Sunday services and midweek prayer meetings. Revival meetings are not so common as they were a generation ago, but they are still regarded as an effective method of evangelism in many denominations and local churches.

Colonial awakenings, of which there were three, constituted a single movement which swept through the colonies from Maine to Georgia. They came to be known as “The Great Awakening.” None began simultaneously; traceable connections between them are slight. Each can be considered as a separate movement.

Dutch Reformed Evangelism

Four small Dutch Reformed churches in the Raritan Valley of central New Jersey were the center of the first revival in 1720. The revival was instigated under the preaching of Theodore Jacobus Frelinghuysen. Influenced by the Pietism of Holland, Frelinghuysen preached the Spener doctrines of experimental knowledge of religion, individual conversion, and purity of Christian character. The doctrines he preached were apparently new to his rough, complacent, ritualistic-minded parishioners for they proved to be at once astounded and outraged. He organized prayer meetings with laymen helping him. Opposition mobilized, factions developed, and certain Dutch Reformed ministers in New York sought to silence him. Disaffected church members even published a 246-page book against him.

But despite opposition, Frelinghuysen’s evangelism bore glorious fruit in numerous conversions and the transformation of several communities. The year 1726 especially witnessed a remarkably large number of conversions. As word of his successful evangelism spread, Frelinghuysen was invited to preach in other communities and the revival extended beyond Raritan Valley. And to counter the opposition of his fellow ministers, he began publishing his sermons. Although he eventually gained the support of most of the Dutch ministers, opposition to Frelinghuysen continued and even divided the Dutch church for many years.

Presbyterians Aflame

When the effect of Frelinghuysen’s preaching was at its height, young Gilbert Tennent, son of a Presbyterian pastor of Neshaminy, 18 miles north of Philadelphia, was called to preach at the New Brunswick Presbyterian Church, New Jersey. Having been taught evangelical doctrines by his father, Gilbert enthusiastically joined Frelinghuysen’s efforts. With a zeal equal to, if not surpassing, that of the Dutch minister, he preached sin, retribution, repentance, faith, and conversion to the English Presbyterians that resulted in hundreds of conversions.

Meanwhile, others were preaching the Gospel elsewhere. At Neshaminy William Tennent, Gilbert’s father, opened a school in 1726, derisively called “Log College,” for the training of young men for the ministry. In time, his three other sons, William, John, and Charles, were graduated from the school and became pastors of churches in central New Jersey. Samuel Blair, another graduate and an ardent revivalist, located at Shrewsbury, New Jersey. In 1738, five evangelical ministers, three of them Log College men, established the New Brunswick Presbytery, and by that time, the revival had spread yet further. Aaron Burr, Sr., was preaching at Newark; and in the highlands of New York a group of Yale graduates, including Jonathan Dickinson, joined the evangelicals. The following year a revival began at Fagg’s Manor, Pennsylvania, where Samuel Blair had gone to preach.

Although the revival was largely Presbyterian and a blessing primarily to that church, its ministers were divided concerning it. The conservative “Old Side” ministers with a Scotch-Irish and Scottish university background, opposed and derided Log College and its imperfectly trained graduates known as “New Side.” They opposed the revival because of its fervid, extemporaneous preaching and exhortations. “Falling exercises,” regarded as evidences of conversion, were common. Whereas Old Side ministers believed them to be the work of the devil, those of the New Side believed them to be approved of God. This opposition to revival and the licensing of imperfectly trained ministers tragically divided Presbyterian ranks and created a cleavage which was not healed until 1758. Then, largely through the efforts of Gilbert Tennent, the Synod of New York (New Side) and that of Philadelphia (Old Side) united. (Belcher, op. cit., pp. 119–120; Hays, Presbyterians, pp. 91–93, 112; and Sweet, Religion in Colonial America, p. 279.)

Arrival Of Whitefield

The year of 1730, a notable one for American Christianity, witnessed the arrival of 26-year-old George Whitefield, already famous for his evangelical preaching in England. Whitefield, a Church of England priest, welcomed as colaborers Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, Congregationalists, Dutch Reformed, and anyone else who preached individual conversion. As he crossed the Atlantic, he wrote to a clergyman friend in England: “The partition wall has for some time been broken down out of my heart, and I can truly say, whoever loves the Lord Jesus, ‘the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.’ ”

Landing at Lewes, Delaware, he began his tour in central New Jersey, where Frelinghuysen and the revivalist Presbyterians had labored successfully for more than 10 years. From the very first, people flocked to hear him, and many were converted. New Side Presbyterians welcomed him enthusiastically, and did everything in their power to assist him.

Whitefield preached doctrines coinciding with the Articles of the Church of England and those proclaimed by the revivalists. He declared all men to be sinful by nature with the condemnation of God resting upon them. Salvation from that lost condition was by the grace of God through faith. Good works, he declared, had no share in man’s justification; there was need for regeneration through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

From the very beginning of Whitefield’s tour, people came in such great numbers to hear him that the largest meeting houses could accommodate only a fraction of them. On his first visit to Philadelphia, his impact was so immense that business throughout the city was almost suspended; and on Sundays the crowds were so large that the Lord’s Supper had to be served three or four times. During his stay, not less than 26 societies for prayer were organized. Concerning his influence upon the people in Philadelphia, a local newspaper said: “The change to religion here is altogether surprising, through the influence of Whitefield; no books sell but religious, and such is the general conversation” (Belcher, George Whitefield, pp. 101–102).

After Whitefield’s visit, services of worship were held in the city twice a day for a whole year. When he left to go to New York, people in towns and rural communities along the way abandoned their occupations and fields to hear him. On the way he met Gilbert Tennent, heard him preach and commented, “Never before heard I such a searching sermon. He went to the bottom indeed, and did not ‘daub with untempered mortar.’ He convinced me, more and more, that we can preach the Gospel of Christ no further than we have experienced the power of it in our hearts” (Belcher, op. cit., pp. 119–120).

Whitefield’s success in New York was greater than that which he had enjoyed in Philadelphia. Thousands heard him and thousands more were influenced by his printed sermons. From New York, he went to New England at the invitation of a leading Congregational minister in Boston. Then, late in 1739, he took ship for Savannah, Georgia, where he founded an orphanage called Bethesda.

Of the number converted under Whitefield’s preaching, no estimate is possible, but it is certain that it ran into the thousands. Naturally his very success intensified the opposition that had existed from the beginning toward the revival movement. Whitefield said, “An opposer told me I had unhinged many good sort of people. I believe it.”

Although the impact of the revival was everywhere popular with the common people, the Old Side Presbyterian ministers continued to oppose it. Their most strenuous objection was that the revivalists, including Whitefield, deliberately promoted faintings, shoutings, “falling exercises,” commotion and wild disorder. There was no denial that these things took place, but the revivalists interpreted them as the work of God.

Pattern For The Future

This entire revival is significant, not only because it was the first in America, but because it began without previous planning on the part of Frelinghuysen, Gilbert Tennent, or anyone else, without advertising, and without fanfare of trumpets. The news that sinners were being saved, and those already Christians were being lifted to a higher plane of living aroused interest everywhere. To a people who all their lives had been accustomed to cold, lifeless preaching, with scarcely a reference to inner, personal experience with Christ, all of it was nothing short of phenomenal. In both Gospel and mode of preaching, the revivalists followed the ways of those in apostolic days. And in this they set the fundamental pattern for all revivals to come.

This is the first of two articles on the Colonial awakenings of the Eighteenth Century. Raymond W. Settle, a retired Baptist minister, devotes his time to historical research and writing on American history, particularly of religion on the frontier. Author of several books, he lives in Monte Vista, Colorado.

The theory of evolution, as initiated by the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, has had a profound impact on the fortunes of Christianity. Since next year, 1959, is the centenary of that publication, it is appropriate for us at this time to audit our books and evaluate the contemporary situation.

Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle had noticed the similarities and the differences between the foxes on the mainland and the foxes on a distant island. They were so similar that a genetic relationship could not be denied, but they were also so different that they constituted a new species. From this and similar observations Darwin concluded that these species could not be explained by special creation but must have evolved from common ancestors.

The idea of evolution was then applied to man. Homo sapiens could not be regarded as a special creation, but must have evolved from some lower form of life. Such attraction did the idea of evolution exert on the minds of scholars that they soon extended it to the astronomical cosmos on the one hand and sociological and historical phenomena on the other. And thus there arose evolutionary accounts of religion and the history of the Hebrews.

At many points the conflict with Christianity was obvious. The evolution of religion from animism or fetishism and the history of the Hebrews that makes monotheism a very late development entirely contradicted the Bible and made special revelation impossible. Within biology, the assertion that man has evolved from lower species conflicted with the biblical account of the creation of Adam and especially of Eve. Evolution was made to rule out the existence of God altogether. For example, Corliss Lamont (Humanism as a Philosophy, 1949, p. 102) says, “Biology has conclusively shown that man and all other forms of life were the result, not of a supernatural act of creation by God, but of an infinitely long process of evolution … which started with the lowly amoeba and those even simpler things marking the transition from inanimate matter to life.… Mind, in short, appeared at the present apex of the evolutionary process and not at the beginning.” Since, further, these ideas became immensely popular, orthodox Christianity was faced with a conflict of major proportions.

First Reactions

Faced with this attack on the inspiration of the Scriptures, with this denial of creation, and in some instances faced with a blatant atheism, the Christians reacted vigorously. That their reaction was not always wise is hardly surprising. In many disputes first reactions often miss the point. For ages, from Aristotle in antiquity to Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, the scientists had taught the fixity of existing species. The Christians trusted the scientists and carelessly assumed that the existing species were the several kinds which God originally created. They did not consider the possibility that the kinds of Genesis might be what modern biologists call families or perhaps orders. Thus they failed to recognize that the existing species are many more in number than the special acts of creation listed in the first chapter of Genesis. (Indeed the special acts of creation are fewer than the contemporary status of biology seems to require; but more of this later.)

Because then the Christians were trapped into defending Linnaeus rather than the Bible, they often made regrettable blunders. And as is usual in free-for-all altercations the opponents publicized one’s blunders in order to distract attention from whatever is of worth. Considerable time has passed by now—a full century—and there may be some interest in observing what remains on the field of battle.

For a great many people, however, there is no point in viewing the scene of battle, if such a viewing is supposed to show some remaining balance between the two forces. The popular opinion is that evolution won a sweeping victory and the Bible was decisively defeated.

“Since Darwin’s day,” says Richard Swan Lull, professor of paleontology at Yale University (Organic Evolution, 1947, p. 15)—“Since Darwin’s day evolution has been more and more generally accepted, until now in the minds of informed thinking men there is no doubt that it is the only logical way whereby the creation (i.e. biology) can be interpreted and understood.”

William Howells of the University of Wisconsin (Mankind So Far, 1944, p. 5) says, “The ‘theory of evolution’ is an overworked term, in its popular usage, and unfortunate besides, because it implies that, after all, there may be something dubious about it. Evolution is a fact, like digestion.… The phrase is doubtless the expression of a die-hard prejudice.”

However, this is not the whole story. Even those who insist that evolution is a fact beyond doubt betray certain hesitancies. Howells himself admits that “there is also the mystery of how and why evolution takes place at all.… Nor is it known just why evolution occurs or exactly what guides its steps.” Professor Lull also admits, “We are not so sure, however, as to the modus operandi.” And J. Arthur Thomson makes an astounding statement:

“Many of the genealogical trees which Haeckel was so fond of drawing have fallen to pieces. Who can say anything, except in a general way, regarding the ancestry of birds or even Vertebrates? The Origin of Species was published in 1859, but who today has attained clearness in regard to the origin of any single species?”

Even Dobzhansky, who, in opposition to Thomson, would claim that he has attained clarity in regard to the origin of many species, admits, with respect to the human species, that “we have only the most fragmentary information concerning the stages through which the process has passed” (Evolution, Genetics, and Man, 1955, p. 319).

If thus Dobzhansky admits less than Thomson, Howells is even more dogmatic than Dobzhansky, for Howells asserts that the human line can in fact be traced back to the fishes (op. cit. p. 5).

Here then are various claims and admissions. What is their significance? Perhaps after all there is some reason for reviewing the debris of battle.

An attempt to evaluate such concessions as these may begin with some more material from J. Arthur Thompson. Professor Thompson is a convinced evolutionist. In his volume Concerning Evolution (pp. 44–48) he treats very seriously the idea that life originated from non-living matter. He even suggests that this process is still going on. We may believe it is still going on because we are not sure that it is not going on. But if perchance life is not now originating from inanimate matter, perhaps the sun’s rays and the earth’s atmosphere were quite different long ago and produced results then which they cannot produce now.

Dobzhansky also, as well as Thomson, seems to accept the notion that life originated from non-living matter. He admits at first that this is only a conjecture, and that it is highly improbable; but then he concludes that “a highly improbable event may, however, take place somewhere in the universe. Such a ‘lucky hit’ happened to occur on a small planet, earth” (op. cit. p. 19). Thus he states the spontaneous generation of life as a fact.

In anticipation of the discussion of the philosophy of science that is to follow, something needs to be said here with respect to the origin of life from non-living matter. Is there any evidence of this? Is there sufficient evidence to assert point blank that it happened? It is a mere tautology to say that if certain conditions obtained in the past, certain effects could have occurred. But the important question is not: Could such and such have happened, if the conditions were right. The important question is: Were the conditions right and did such and such things actually happen?

Now, if the evolutionist must be so dogmatic on the origin of life, how can he afford to repudiate Haeckel’s genealogical trees or admit doubt as to the origin of species?

The explanation, as Thomson gives it, is as follows: “Uncertainty in regard to the factors cannot be said to affect the validity of the model concept of evolution, and it is entirely unfair to use confessions of ignorance in regard to the factors as if they implied doubt in regard to the fact.… There is not the slightest reason for jettisoning the modal formula because we are still very ignorant in regard to the detailed steps and factors in the process” (op. cit. p. 100).

Similarly Professor Lull, after admitting that “We are not so sure, however, as to the modus operandi,” adds immediately “but we may rest assured that the process has been in accordance with great natural laws, some of which are as yet unknown, perhaps unknowable” (Organic Evolution, p. 15).

A Lesson From Physics

The point I now wish to examine is whether or not a sound philosophy of science will permit us to rest assured with a theory whose factors are unknown and perhaps unknowable. If we examine scientific methods as practiced by the physicists, their superiority in ideals of caution, accuracy, and rigor will become obvious. The theory, or better, the theories of light can serve as a well-known example.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) believed that light consists of small particles or corpuscles. This he believed chiefly on the basis that the corpuscular theory best explains the rectilinear propagation of light. In addition to this hypothesis, there also existed in Newton’s day a theory that considered light to be a wave motion of a fluid medium; but it took some juggling to make this theory suitable for rectilinear propagation. Newton did not approve of the juggling.

Now, the corpuscular theory implies that the speed of light in water is greater than the speed of light in air. On the other hand, the wave theory of light implies that the speed of light in air is greater than the speed of light in water. Unfortunately there was no method, throughout the eighteenth century, by which the speed of light could be experimentally measured. That is to say, the factors, to use Professor Thomson’s language, were unknown and unverifiable. But instead of blindly declaring one of these theories a fact despite the ignorance of the factors, the best scientific reaction during the first half of the nineteenth century was a search for some method of discovering the factors. Eventually a method was invented and in 1850 Léon Foucault performed the experiment. By this experiment Foucault determined that the speed of light is greater in air than in water.

At this point Foucault showed a scientific caution that might still be emulated. He might have concluded that his experiment had demonstrated the wave theory. But he actually concluded that his experiment had refuted the corpuscular theory. The experiment makes the wave theory possible, and since no other theory had been suggested, scientists would naturally use the wave theory. Yet other theories then undreamed of might later be invented. These later theories might be better. Hence Foucault concluded only that the corpuscular theory is false and the wave theory is possible. And this conclusion came by attention to the mechanics, the modus operandi, the factors in the case.

However, even Foucault’s caution was too bold. In 1902 another important experiment was conducted. If light is a wave motion, the intensity of light gradually diminishes as the source becomes more and more distant. This diminishing continuously approaches zero. But if light is corpuscular, another implication follows. Suppose a metal plate is slowly made to recede from a source of light. If light is corpuscular, fewer and fewer particles hit the plate. At a given distance only one particle will hit the plate. Beyond that distance the intensity will be zero. That is to say, instead of the intensity decreasing continuously to zero, it will decrease to one and then suddenly drop to zero. The experiment showed that the intensity actually drops suddenly from one to zero. Therefore light cannot be a wave motion; it must be corpuscular in spite of Foucault’s experiment which showed it could not be corpuscular. What is worse, this result is in contradiction to the fundamental laws of the electromagnetic field.

Unknown Factors

Proper scientific ideals require the scientist to consider the possibility of alternate hypotheses. He can never accept any hypothesis as final and beyond doubt. The results of science are never “assured”; they are tentative and subject to constant revision. It is even possible, as in this case of light, that the theories discarded a century ago may return to favor in a somewhat altered form. And most pertinently for the present discussion on evolution, it must be insisted that the acceptance of a theory whose factors are unknown is extremely bad science, especially when one considers that these same factors may even be unknowable.

At this point the evolutionists will undoubtedly reply that the propagation of light is a fact whether or not we know its factors. To this I wish to make a shorter and a longer answer.

First, the propagation of light is ordinarily regarded as a fact because and only because of very careful attention to the factors. For centuries light was considered to be a non-propagated force, like gravitation, because no one was able to detect and measure its speed. It was indeed in Newton’s own lifetime that Roemer (1676) observed the differences in time between the near and far eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites and concluded that light has a finite velocity. Once again the acceptance of the theory came with a careful attention to the detailed factors.

To the assertion that evolution is a fact, I draw attention to the ambiguity of the term evolution itself. Evolution has two or more distinctly different meanings. The statement that evolution is a fact depends on this ambiguity. Dobzhansky (Genetics and the Origin of Species, 1951, p. 11) defines evolution in four clauses, the first two of which are pertinent to this argument. “The theory of evolution asserts that (1) the beings now living have descended from different beings which lived in the past.” This means nothing more than that we all had parents. If this is all that evolution means, and Howells also defines it merely as “descent with modification,” that is, if the word simply means that nature exhibits changes, or that different breeds of dogs and foxes have come into being, then for all colloquial purposes we can very well admit that evolution is a fact. But such a view of evolution was not what Christians were protesting against when they attacked evolution; nor was it the view that the evolutionists were propagating when they provoked the protest against their claims.

But if, on the other hand, the term evolution designates an atheistic, non-supernatural, spontaneous development of simple life from inanimate matter and the rise of all present forms of life through a slow and gradual development from that simplest form, the declaration that evolution is a fact would lose its plausibility. Yet this is the view that is propagated. Dobzhansky does not put it into his definition, but in other places he asserts, as we have seen, that life actually sprang from inorganic matter. He rejects vitalism, rules out all teleology, and accepts the mechanistic hypothesis. He says explicitly that “the diversity [among organisms] has not arisen from a whim or caprice [or as we should say, from the sovereign choice and purpose] of some deity” (Evolution, Genetics, and Man, pp. 20–21; Genetics and the Origin of Species, p. 3). This is evolution; but who could with intellectual honesty claim that this atheistic view is a fact better substantiated than former tentative theories of light? (An evolutionist who explicitly accepts mechanism cannot with good grace complain of being held to the standards of mechanistic science.)

If a fair survey of the field of battle is to be made, the evolutionist must not be allowed to use one theory, a detailed mechanistic and atheistic theory, for his attack, and a different theory, a vague and general theory, for his defense. To ridicule Christians for denying observed change when in fact they are denying atheistic naturalism is a technique of propaganda, not science. Nor is it calm judgment to accuse Christians of denying actually observed changes when in fact they are questioning unobserved alleged changes and pointing out the limits of the evidence.

Although Dobzhansky denies divine providence without acknowledging his denial in the definition of evolution, his other clauses are more definite than the vague statement of clause one. He adds, “(2) the evolutionary changes were more or less gradual, so that if we could assemble all the individuals which have ever inhabited the earth, a fairly continuous array of forms would emerge.”

Since this notion of a gradual change and a continuous array is a part of the definition, this too must be a fact, if evolution is a fact. If “at present, an informed and reasonable person can hardly doubt the validity of the evolution theory,” and if “the very rare exceptions prove only that some people have emotional biases” (ibid. p. 11), then doubt as to the continuity of the array is also subject to these strictures.

Expression Of Doubts

What then are we to make of the doubts indicated in the following quotation from Richard Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution (pp. 6, 7)? After stating that he “cannot agree with the viewpoint of the textbooks that the problem of evolution has been solved,” he continues, “This viewpoint … must take it for granted … that all possible differences, including the most complicated adaptations, have been slowly built up by the accumulation of such mutations. We shall try to show that this viewpoint does not suffice to explain the facts … I may challenge the adherents of the strictly Darwinian view … to try to explain the evolution of the following features by accumulation and selection of small mutants: hair in mammals, feathers in birds, segmentation of arthropods and vertebrates, the transformation of the gill arches in phylogeny including the aortic arches, muscles, nerves, etc.”

Later (p. 210) he says, “Thus we have been forced to assume large evolutionary steps … involving the whole system of the organism.” He mentions another scientist “who says that the change from one species to another must be in one or, at most, a few large steps, changing many or all characters of the plant at once.”

Now, if there is no continuous array of forms, and if the appearance of a new species occurs in one large step, involving the whole system of the organisms, then, however Goldschmidt himself might prefer it, and I am not implying that he would put it this way, it would seem that biology is much closer to the view of special creation than original evolutionists like Haeckel and Huxley would find comfortable. It was for such reasons as these that I said above that the special acts of creation listed in Genesis are much fewer than the actual status of biology seems to require.

In conversation a botanist friend of mine expressed the conclusion that quite aside from animals it was impossible to believe that all plants had evolved from a single original form. Before geology had made as much progress as it now has, it was possible to hope, my friend said, that the gaps would be filled up by later discoveries; but now the examination of strata has been so extensive that a discovery of the many necessary intermediate forms seems quite unlikely.

Theory Without Evidence

What can be said of the outcome of this century-old battle? It is true that the defenders of divine creation made a number of unfortunate blunders; but it is also true that the evolutionary theory has not emerged unscathed. The evolution that Christianity attacked, the theory that brings life out of matter without divine intervention, is still a theory without evidence and not a fact with which science may rest assured.

Perhaps the evolutionists have not retreated under the pressure of theological attack; but the weight of scientific evidence itself, the detailed factors, the insoluble problems, and above all the rigor of a sound philosophy of science have forced admissions that may be said at least to border on special creation. And this is no doubt as much as can be expected from purely scientific methodology.

WE QUOTE:

OSWALD SPENGLER

German Philosopher (1880–1936)

There is no more conclusive refutation of Darwinism than that furnished by palaeontology. Simple probability indicates that fossil hoards can only be test samples. Each sample, then, would represent a different stage of evolution, and there ought to be merely “transitional” types, no definition and no species. Instead of this we find perfectly stable and unaltered forms persevering through long ages, forms that have not developed themselves on the fitness principle, but appear suddenly and at once in their definitive shape; that do not thereafter evolve towards better adaptation, but become rarer and finally disappear, while quite different forms crop up again. What unfolds itself, in ever-increasing richness of form, is the great classes and kinds of living beings which exist aboriginally and exist still, without transition types, in the grouping of today.—Decline of the West, Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1932, p. 32.

Gordon Haddon Clark is Professor of Philosophy at Butler University in Indianapolis. From his pen have come such significant works as Thales to Dewey, A Christian View of Men and Things, and Readings in Ethics (co-authored with T. V. Smith). This address was delivered recently at the Southern Presbyterian Conference on Reformed Theological Thought, and it is here used simultaneously with its appearance in the current issue of The Southern Presbyterian Journal.