The International Sunday-school Lessons for the first six months of 1887 are in Genesis and Exodus, ending with the ten commandments--Exodus 20. We are glad to see so much of the year given to the study of this portion of the Scripture. And yet we feel well assured that if the lessons are studied according to the guidance of the official "Select Notes" put forth by the Messrs. Peloubet, they will be studied to very little purpose, if indeed to any purpose at all except that of infidelity.
These "Select Notes" are a kind of commentary gotten up by the "Rev. F. N. Peloubet, D.D., and M. A. Peloubet." The Scripture that contains the lesson is printed in both the Old [KJV] and the Revised Version, and then accompanying this are notes of their own with many others selected from all sources which they approve; and are intended to be made the guide especially to the teachers of the International Lessons in the Sunday-schools. These notes perhaps more largely than any other helps, are used in the Sunday-schools throughout the country. And other than these notes, no better evidence is needed to show how thoroughly the modern "scientific theories" pervade the theology of all the Protestant churches.
All the so-called scientific theories, even to evolution itself, of the creation, and of man, of the flood and of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, are here freely admitted if not directly taught.
• Everything must be made to conform to what "science" says.
• All must agree with the decisions of "science."
• "Science" is the standard by which all must be tested, and if it agrees with "science" that is evidence conclusive that the word is inspired.
All this, however, is just the reverse of the true position. The true position is that the word of the Bible is true; that it is given by inspiration of God. That is the sole unerring standard. If scientific deductions agree with the Bible upon matters of which it speaks, it is well; if these deductions do not so agree then the deductions are wrong, that is all, and they, not the Bible, must be revised; they, and not the words of the Bible, must yield, or be re-stated.
In these "Select Notes" on the creation, we read: God may have made use of second causes, as, "Let the waters bring forth." "Let the earth bring forth." This does not decide the question of the truth of the development theory or of evolution, but shows that God had a plan of development in His own mind, or made creation so that, under His control, it unfolds as an acorn unfolds into an oak. God states the fact that He created all things; He does not state how He created them. God makes a tree as really when it grows in the field as if He had sent it ready made from Heaven. Let scientists discover how.
Very well but has science discovered how? Can science tell how a tree grows in the field? If God should send a tree ready made from Heaven, and should set it right alongside of one that had grown in the field, we should very much like to see the scientist who could tell how the one came any more than the other. There is not a scientist in all the world who can tell that thing, and there never can be one. For the simple truth is that he would have to be equal to God to do it. All this technicality, this shifting of changes, upon the point that God states that He created all, but does not tell how, is a sheer contrivance to save appearances. Those who use it are so far advanced in the "advanced science," and the "advanced theology" of the day, that even the appearance of believing the Scriptures can be kept up in no other way.
Suppose the Creator, beside telling us that He did create the oak, had also chosen to tell us how He did it. Suppose He had told us that He placed an acorn in the earth, that the earth was wet, that then He caused the sun to shine upon it, that the acorn sprouted and took root and grew and became an oak. Would that help the matter a particle? Would not the question still be, "How?" Still the scientific doubter would say: God states the fact that He did thus and so, but He does not state how He did it. He states the fact that He placed the acorn in the earth, but He does not state how He did it; He states the fact that He caused the sun to shine upon it, but He does not state how; He states the fact that the acorn sprouted, but He does not tell how; He states the fact that the acorn took root and grew, but He does not state how. Let scientists discover how.
But for scientists to discover how the oak came from the acorn is not enough. They must then discover how came the acorn. If God should state the fact that He created it, still the advanced science doubter would say,
True, God states the fact that He created it; but He does not state how He created it. Let scientists discover how.
But can scientists discover how? We have never yet seen or heard of the scientist who had discovered which was first, the acorn or the oak. We wish Mr. Peloubet or some one else would give us "the latest assured verdict of science" on this point. Then we shall ask them how it was first, and how it was at all. Then, too, it will be time enough for them to tell how.
The truth is that the Creator, in stating the fact that He created all things, has told all that can be told on the subject. At the point of creation we touch the infinite, and the finite cannot fathom it. There is one way and only one in which the finite can get beyond that word "how." That only way is by faith. For thus says the Lord: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Hebrews 11:3)
It is by faith alone that we can understand the creation of God. Faith alone can connect the finite with the infinite. Mark it, "the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear ... the worlds were framed by the word of God." (Hebrews 11:3)
"He spoke and it was; He commanded and it stood fast." (Psalm 33:9)
And "through faith we understand" it.
Again says the Select Notes: If it should be proved that the theory of evolution is true to a large extent (not evolution instead of God, but evolution under God's control with God as Creator and Guide of all), the story of creation as told in Genesis would not be inharmonious with such evolution.
But "the latest assured verdict of science" is that "the doctrine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation." Now if Mr. Peloubet or any of the teachers of the International Lessons can explain just how the story of creation in Genesis would not be inharmonious with such evolution; that is, if he can tell just how that story can be in harmony with a theory that is directly antagonistic to it, we should like very much to see how it can be done. Have scientists yet discovered how this can be?
Again we read: That the DAYS are not days of twenty-four hours, is clearly seen by the use of the word in these chapters. It is used of three days before there could have been any such days, as the sun did not appear till the fourth day.
Is it one of "the latest assured verdicts of science" that the earth did not rotate on its axis till the fourth day? If the earth did rotate, did it not do so once in twenty-four hours, as it still does; or did it then go so slow that it took it ages upon ages to make one rotation? The latter cannot be so, as we believe that it is "the latest assured verdict of science" that it is entirely to its rotary motion that the earth owes its oblate-spheroidal form. If that motion had been so slow as to consume ages in turning once then the earth would not be the shape that it is. But instead of the rotation being then so slow, it is the "assured verdict of science" that "one hundred million years ago" the rotary motion of the earth was actually nearly three-quarters of an hour faster than it now is. Therefore "the latest assured verdicts of science" prove that the days of creation were not more than twenty-four hours long.
As to there being any difference in the days before and after the sun shone on the earth, there was none. The first day, "God said, Let there be light. And there was light. ... And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning [the darkness and the light] were the first day. (Genesis 1:3,5)
And so it was the first day, and the second day, and so it has been every other day, and so it is now. Causing the sun to shine did not make the day. God made the day--the light--the first day. Thus day was upon the earth before the sun shone on the earth, and then when God made the greater light, it was to rule--not make--the day.
"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, He made the stars also." (Genesis 1:16)
It is singular that the advanced theology has not found out that there was light on the first day and that God called that light Day.
Again says Mr. Peloubet, of the creation of man, if the theory of evolution, believed by so many scientific men, should prove to be true so far as relates to man's body, and it should be shown (though it has not been proved as yet) that the physical man was developed from monkeys and the lower order of animal life, yet that would not contradict the statement that man was made from the dust of the earth. It would only explain how he was made of the dust--an explanation which the Bible nowhere gives, but leaves men to discover.
But the extreme height of this theologico-scientific nonsense and absurdity, is reached when he comes in his select notes to the creation of woman. He says: Woman was created from man by taking a rib (not merely the bone, but a piece of the side), and forming it into a woman. This is strictly in accordance with the processes of life as revealed by modern scientific research. ... God chose the only method in existence among His creatures which the nature of the case rendered possible.
So then this "method" was already "in existence among His creatures" was it? It is a great comfort, however, to know that science has kindly left us the privilege of thinking that the Creator was wise enough to choose "the only method ... which the nature of the case rendered possible."
Again: So from a portion of Adam, He made a woman. A miracle, indeed (as all creations are miracles), but a miracle conforming, as far as the conditions admitted, to methods already in use.
"Methods already in use"! By whom, we should like to know? Was that the "method already in use" in the making of women, before ever there was a woman made? Was that "the method already in use" in the making of women, before God made the woman? If so who made them? and if so, then where was the miracle?
And this is the stuff that the children are to be taught in the Sunday-schools throughout the land! This is the way that faith in God and respect for His word are to be implanted in the minds and hearts of the young! And this is to be called Christianity! Parents, is it so that such senseless jargon as this shall be taught to your children as the word of God? Is this the way that they are to be taught to remember their Creator in the days of their youth? (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
That such things as these should be put forth to be taught, yea, as part and parcel of the essential teaching, in the Sunday-schools throughout the English speaking world, is, to him who respects the Bible as the word of God, a most startling thing. For it shows how all-pervading this scientific infidelity has become. For infidelity it is and nothing else. If it is not, then there is no such thing as infidelity. If these things can be held consistently with sound belief in Christianity and the Bible as the word of God, then there is no such thing as unbelief. If this be faith there can be no such thing as doubt.
"Keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith." (1 Timothy 6:20-21)
"When the Son of man comes shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)
For, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Hebrews 11:3)--Signs of the Times, December 16, 1886.
A.T. Jones