* The following “Pulpit” discourse may be better appreciated with these thoughts in

mind:

Christianity does not deny evolution within the universe - as to the changes of living
things in accordance with their environment, good or bad, in which they live. We have
seen changes in men, the hue of their skin, their height and weight, and other physical,
and even mental, characteristics that have evolved over the centuries because of
environmental changes. That physical characteristics of man and beast have changed,
no reasonable person would deny. We have evidences of all manner of changes within
species of plant and animals that have occurred over the centuries.

The evolution that is denied is: that by evolutionary force, dead matter became living
matter; that plant life evolved into animal life; or that animal life evolved into human
life. There is no non-disputable evidence that any of these things have ever occurred in
nature or within the laboratory. The theories are speculative, varied and many, and are
ever changing and that is a good thing, not necessarily for the scientist of the present
age, but for all men in the ages to come.

A curious fact in my own mind, as simple as it may be, has always been that man, in all
parts of the world, are, in essence, the same. There are minor differences, but no degrees
of evolutionary advancement within the human species. Is this not a curious
phenomenon? What would be the evolutionary cause or explanation of why man has
evolved so evenly throughout the ages, and over the entire surface of the world, at the
same level given the variety of differing climates, topographies, circumstances and
societies? Why are there not lower and higher levels of human beings so far as the
physical and mental dimensions? Would it not make more sense, from an evolutionary
standpoint, that this be the case?

Or will we buy into the theory that after so many generations, every race of man has
now reached the limit of human evolution? This is a serious matter to contemplate for a
trans-species evolutionist. What species of life will man next evolve into now that we
have all reached the human limit of evolution? Are we now on the evolutionary-edge of
becoming a new species? Has it already begun? Are there now, within our very midst,
“persons” who are actually between human and the next post-human species? How
would we tell? What would the measurement be? Could it be measured, and if not, why
not? --- Perchance, were humans, at their inception, then and for all time, the highest
order of being in the world? What a radical proposal!

The Christian, with proper understanding of both spiritual and physical “science” may,
perhaps, have a better “theory”. That evolution is true, it is real, it is a fact. But, we
intuitively, and from a belief in the revelations from the Divine, have substantial reason to
believe that not only is the spiritual world ordered according to the universal Mind and
from the universal Energy, but that the physical universe, of which the earth is no more
than a sub-particle of dust, was thus formed, ordered and established, and now operates
according to the Eternal and fixed “laws” that now govern it.
As great a mind as even Einstein possessed could not fathom that the universe, so
complex, so ordered and so magnificent, could be so without a “God” who would leave
nothing to chance. Although he did not believe in a God who was active in the daily
affairs of man, he, nevertheless, could never achieve a belief in the God-less theories that
are so prevalent among those who deem themselves too intelligent to believe in intelligent
design and purpose of our universe. An interesting and quixotic state of mind indeed!
Maybe Einstein was a dummy after all. -- (C. A. Hatcher)

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

To suppose the universe nothing but a congeries of minute atoms, existing from all
eternity, and moving as chance directs, combining accidentally into forms more or less
permanent and after a while falling apart, ungoverned by any mind, without object,
intention, or cause; and to suppose life, intelligence, thought, the accidental results of
certain positions or combinations of the atoms; - is a theory so intrinsically absurd and
ridiculous, that it might have seemed impossible for the wildest fancy to have conceived
it, much more of any man of sane mind to have persuaded himself of its truth.
Yet this theory, elaborated by Democritus and Leucipus about B.C. 430 – 400,
embraced by Epicurus about B.C. 300 – 270, and recommended by the genius of
Lucretius about B.C. 75, became the favourite creed of educated Greeks and Romans. …
Among the adversaries which Christianity had to meet and subdue … Epicurian
philosophy was one of the most formidable. …
That God exist and nothing else; that he is “the One without a second;” that
individual men are God, duplications of him, imagining themselves separate; that the
material world is absolutely non-existent; and that all sights and sounds and actions are
“illusions,” cheats, nonentities with a semblance of being; - this, which is the creed of the
educated Hindoo, is another belief so contradictory to common sense, that it might have
been supposed impossible of acceptance by any considerable number of men. It is held,
however, by thousands, who see no absurdity in it, and are convinced that it is the only
rational theory of existence; and, so far as present appearances go, there seems to be no
probability that either Christianity or modern science will succeed in shaking the belief,
however absurd it may be and however mischievous. …
The spontaneous origin of life from inorganic matter, the development of protoplasm
from molecules, of vegetable life from protoplasm, of animal life from vegetable life, and
of humanity from advanced animals, which, though a pure hypothesis, has been accepted
almost universally by physicist in the present day, is intrinsically as absurd and
unthinkable a theory as either Epicureanism or Hindoo pantheism. But its absurdity is
not seen by those who have been taught it from the time that they first turned their
attention to physical science, who find it accepted by all their teachers, and assumed as a
basis by every book that is put into their hands, who live as it were in an atmosphere
saturated with evolutionism, and absorb it with every breath that they inhale.
The time will probably come, perhaps after no great delay, when a reaction will set in,
and the ability of unintelligent matter to improve itself and advance to perfection will be
seen to be as absurd and as self-contradictory as the ability or images carved out of wood
and stone to affect the course of events …
 Meanwhile, however, the existing false system is almost as impervious to argument
and criticism as was the system of heathen idolatry. It has possession of the field (the so-
called scientific field), as that had on the general field of human society; it supports itself
by a number of interconnected propositions, no one of which rests upon any sure basis;
and it does not even perceive the force of the arguments which are brought against it.
Thus it may keep its hold upon for some considerable time, before it takes its final place
as “a chapter in the history of human error.”

Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah II p. 101-102, Isaiah 41:21-29, (G. Rawlinson)

Gold Nugget 182

Suppositions of the Universe

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