Darwin and Evolution
Paul Wilson
Table of Contents
Darwin and Evolution
Charles R. Darwin's book, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," was first published in 1859. One hundred years have passed, and centennial celebrations of the Darwin theory of evolution have been held in many lands. Much ink has been used by writers of scientific, cultural, educational, secular, and religious organizations during this year in an attempt to evaluate the effects of evolution in this past century. It has been one of great progress. Most of the writings and appraisals have commended the theory, and been laudatory, even to the extreme of adulation of the man Darwin.
We feel that it falls within the scope of our magazine and in the interest of our readers to review some of these articles which have appeared, as well as some of shortly earlier production. Business Week, a magazine of no mean stature in the business world, gave an objective report of a scientific centennial celebration which took place in Chicago last December. Under the title, "What Darwin Means to the Space Age," Business Week comments that,
"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 'miracle of Darwin,' however, is the way scientists a century later are still riding on his coattails-rewording, reinterpreting, and rephrasing-but never really offering much fresh thinking or fresh reasoning on how the world of living things evolved...
"In predicting what man faces in space, today's scientists are leaning as hard on old Darwinian theory for their ideas as their predecessors have for the past four or five decades.
"Although they couch their suggestions in new, fancy terms, the world's scientists are even paraphrasing Darwin when they suggest the aims researchers should seek to achieve during the next 100 years. Basically, the most important thing, they agree, is to continue the search for new knowledge to 'fill the tremendous gaps that still yawn' in knowledge of man's evolution....
"In other fields of science, there have been men of tremendous foresight and vision. In virtually no other field has one man, for so long, dominated the thoughts of so many."-Business
Week, December 12, pp 103 106
Before we make any comments on the above remarks, we will herewith quote from a later issue of Business Week, in which a reader addressed the following letter to the editor:
"Dear Sir:
"Your article What Darwin Means to the Space Age [BW -December 12, '59, p. 103] was most interesting.
"Surely Sir Julian Huxley would not pretend that the space satellites now circling our globe came into existence through mere chance. Yet he proposes that the men who developed these satellites, the planet on which they live, and the universe of which we are a part, are all the result of 2.5-billion years of `blind opportunistic workings of natural selection.'...
"It is revealing, I think, that these scientists' basic goal for the next 100 years 'is to continue the search for new knowledge to "fill the tremendous gaps that still yawn" in the knowledge of man's evolution.'...
"Yes, gentlemen, I too am amazed that after 100 years of scientific advancement Darwin's theory still dominates the thoughts of some of the world's scientists.
"The entire universe, to the smallest particle of matter, exhibits order and regulation. It is inconceivable to me and contrary to all the 'laws' of nature that this well-ordered universe could have merely chanced to evolve. The creation's existence is irrefutable evidence of the Creator.... David H. Thiessen, Minneapolis, Minn."
The above is reprinted from the February 6, 1960 issue of Business Week by special permission. Copyrighted (c) 1960 by the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, Inc.
As the second century of Darwinian-dominated thinking begins, the Christian, and especially the young Christian, must be on his guard against the reasonings of the human mind. This is a day when reason is exalted to the glorification of man. One verse bears on this very strongly: "Casting down imaginations [should be 'reasonings'], and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 2 Cor. 10:5. Never in the history of this world has the human intellect been deified as it is now; and its workings are basically infidel, and at complete variance with the revelation of God.
God could not be known in times past by the debased and debasing conjectures and speculations of heathen idolatry, oriental mysticism, or Greek mythology. Nor can man know God in this great intellectual age by any of the atheistic philosophies of the day. He can only be known in the manner and to the extent of divine revelation. But man largely rejects the revelation of the true God, because it makes nothing of man; he would rather have a god small enough for his finite mind to comprehend (which would be small indeed), or plainly reject God entirely and revel in his great "freedom" of thought which makes him feel unaccountable to any higher power. But this is a fatal delusion.
One of the greatest snares today is the temporizing of Christianity with the unproved hypothesis of evolution by so-called (perhaps, real) Christian educators and clergymen. One would have to search to find many so-called Christian schools and colleges which do not somewhere do obeisance to Darwin and evolution. It is commonly taught in these quasi religious institutions that one may believe in God and evolution at the same time. Our young people are led to believe that to reject evolution as the life source of all living things would brand one as an incorrigible and willful ignoramus. Even some true Christians are so swayed by the love of worldly approbation that they fall in line with the trend, and compromise the truth of God. Of many of them it is to be feared that they love "the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:43). But one need go no further than the writings of the greatest intellects in biology and other related sciences to find that those who try to harmonize the Holy Scriptures with the dark reasonings of unbelief found in evolution are not respected by the true evolutionist. They are (probably sometimes secretly) considered bigger dupes than the Christians who reject outright anything that does not honor God the Creator. Such adapters of Christian verities to the changing follies of man are not respected by the out-and-out evolutionist, nor are those who take that ground to be trusted as Christians. They are no more stable than a weather vane which turns with every gust of the wind. They savor of those of whom Scripture speaks: "They please not God, and are contrary to all men" (1 Thess. 2:15). If anyone is inclined to believe the evolutionary scheme, let him listen to the evolutionists who are head and shoulders above the average and then reject God forthwith, and not try to palliate such an abominable mixture. Listen to some dedicated evolutionists:
"At last week's Chicago meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Harvard's George Gaylord Simpson, vertebrate paleontologist, seized upon the centenary of Darwin's publication of the Origin of Species to summarize today's consensus of scientific thinking on the nature and origin of man. The ancestry of man is still not fully known, he conceded, but he denounced 'pussyfooting' about apes in man's family tree.
"Apologists emphasize that man cannot be a descendant of any living ape, and go on to state that man is not really descended from an ape or a monkey at all but from an earlier common ancestor. In fact that common ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it. Since the terms 'ape' and 'monkey' are defined by popular usage, man's ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both).... Man is in the fullest sense a part of nature and not apart from it. He is not figuratively but literally akin to every living thing, be it an amoeba, a tapeworm, a flea, a seaweed, an oak tree or a monkey. In a word, man lives in a world 'in which he is not the darling of the gods.' "
Then the Harvard paleontologist Simpson spoke of man's being unique in having a language whereby he could store his knowledge beyond the duration of individual memory. He also pointed out that man has a moral sense with a sense of responsibility; but note his comments on this:
"The evolutionary process is not moral-the word is simply irrelevant in that connection-but it has finally produced a moral animal."
Then to explain to whom man is responsible, Simpson added: "man is responsible to himself and for himself." See Time magazine, January 11, 1960, p. 30.
Thus according to an eminent paleontologist from a renowned university, man is purely a product of evolution; he was not created by God, nor is he responsible to God. His only salvation lies in saving himself from evolutionary degeneration. How is it that such degeneration did not set in long ago during the supposed millions of years that he has been working up from the smallest possible life that had just chanced to happen? This "salvation" is to be accomplished by man himself if he "takes a hand in determining his own future evolution."
Let us take another giant of the intellectual world and hear what he says of evolution and the Genesis account of God's creation; namely, Sir Julian Huxley, the British biologist, and grandson of the great T. H. Huxley who sided with Charles Darwin and battled to "convert the Christian Heathen of these islands [the British Isles] to the true faith," by which he meant "science." Time, May 9, 1960, p. 110.
This noted gentleman now says there need not be any conflict between science and religion, but what does he mean by "religion"? He does see a great conflict between Christian theology and science. In other words, Sir Julian will not have any truce with vital Christianity. In his opinion the battle has been won by science. He belittles Christianity as "a combination of an elaborate god-theory with a subsidiary but equally elaborate soul-theory," and consigns them to mere hypotheses.
This is a clever twist to take evolution out of the unproved hypotheses category and place God and the soul there. Poor duped man! Some day he will learn the facts to his eternal sorrow.
Huxley attacks the idea that the universe must have been created and therefore must have a Creator as discarded foolishness. When he met with the contention of an English cleric, Dr. Eric Lionel Mascal of Christ Church, Oxford, that creation was not an act of God's in the past but was an incessant activity by which it is conserved, he scoffed and called it "double talk." His remarks according to Time were:
"The whole range of physico-chemical and biological phenomena can now be accounted for in principle in naturalistic terms: to invoke the operation of God in the process is not only unnecessary but intellectually dubious." Time, August 1, 1960, p. 45.
Another report on that assemblage of scientists in Chicago late in 1959 quotes Sir Julian Huxley as saying:
"The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.
"Evolutionary man can no longer take refuge... in the arms of a divinised father-figure, whom he himself has created... nor absolve himself from the hard task of meeting his problems and planning his future by relying on the will of an omniscient but unfortunately inscrutable providence."
Here it is in plain language from one who ought to know about evolution if anyone does. There is simply no place for God in evolution, nor can God and evolution be blended together. We affirm on the basis of the leaders of the evolutionist cult that it simply resolves into this: it is either God and Genesis, or atheism and evolution.
Sir Julian Huxley predicted that a new evolutionary religion will arise (giving credence to nothing supernatural), a religion which "will sanctify the higher manifestations of human nature in art and love and will emphasize the fuller realization of life's possibilities..."—Newsweek, December 7, 1959, p. 94.
God has thus labeled those who reject Himself as God: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Psalm 14:1; 53:1. But modern man is still more foolish, for he does not confine his rejection of God to his own evil heart, but proclaims it from the housetops. It is our strong conviction that they talk more and louder to keep themselves sold; for we doubt that there is a single man living (despite his protestations to the contrary) who does not at times fear that his boasted atheism may not be true, and then fears also that he must meet that God in judgment. We are reminded of the boy who lived outside of a small town, and he had frequently to walk home at night. His way home took him by the cemetery, and for some reason he was always fearful of passing that place; so as he approached the dreaded spot he would begin to whistle, and the more he feared, the louder he whistled. So we conjecture that the loud boasts of atheism are but efforts to still the voice of conscience.
True evolution rejects God, denies His revelation, pretends to tell man where he came from, but there the scientific hoax must stop. Man's destiny beyond the grave cannot be solved by his brain. The devil has from the beginning of man's history distorted the facts. True religion has not evolved, for Adam came from God's hand with a knowledge of the true God. All the corruptions invented by the "father of lies" corrupted the knowledge of God which was handed down from father to son. Then there were distinct manifestations of God at different epochs, and the creation itself has always borne witness to Him. Not so, says the evolutionist.
Zophar, in the book of Job, asks a pertinent question: "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job 11:7. Man's searching by any instrument at his command will never find out God; He is known by revelation only, and it is a substantial reality to faith. But neither can man by the evolutionary theory cancel out God, or remove Him from His creation. He may as well try to remove the air which surrounds the earth. Well may we add the words from the second Psalm: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision." But God has been longsuffering with wicked and unrepentant man; and because of this, many feel that they can with impunity treat Him as a myth, a delusion. We read: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccles. 8:11.
But of course there is no place for sin in the vocabulary of modern evolution or its counterpart, Freudian psychology. To them it is only a misnomer, a false idea of something nonexistent. So with no God to meet, no judgment after death, according to current atheistic teachings, man may as well do anything he can get away with. Is it any wonder that the crime rate is soaring to new highs almost every month? As an example of current thought, Albert Ellis, a Manhattan Psychotherapist, is reported to have said,
"No human being should ever be blamed for anything he does." If Mr. Ellis's son were kidnapped, or his life savings stolen, he might change his mind, for the moment at least. Thomas Huxley the atheist is said to have lived a circumspect life, but chiefly to prove that it could be done without any fear of meeting God, or of hell. So he had a reason for living as he did, but it was not to please God. Be it said with conviction, that man does behave better today because of the reflected light of the Christianity that he rejects. He fears even reflected light of the true light he shuns.
But we have more to say about the basic nature of evolution -that it is naturalistic and atheistic in principle and in net result. For our next "authority" on the subject of evolution, we will refer to one of the foremost biologists in the United States. one, Oscar Riddle. In 1939 he was ranked as "one of the half-dozen top biologists in the U.S." "He is a member of some twenty of the foremost scholarly societies in the United States, and holds honorary memberships in ten similar societies in Argentina, Brazil, Chili, Uruguay, Mexico, England, Italy, and India." "For many years he was attached to the Carnegie Institution's Department of Experimental Evolution at Cold Springs Harbor, New York."
This information is taken from the jacket of a book of Dr. Riddle's published by Vantage Press. The title of the book is The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought. Its publication date is given as 1954, and while it is of a late date, it sold so readily that it was soon out of print. This book came into our hands at the suggestion of Dr. Stephen Wilhelm of the University of California. He wished us to review it for the purpose of seeing what evolution really is and where, it leads. Doctor Wilhelm, in the course of his academic studies and research, has had to come to grips with evolution, and rejects it without hesitation as
being founded on the sands of human guesswork, as being atheist in teaching, and the source of much discredit to science.
Darwin and Evolution
The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought is frightening in its implications; its author is a thoroughgoing naturalist who is opposed to anything savoring of the supernatural. He sees no hope for mankind or the world except in the complete overthrowing of all idea of God. He is a militant atheist who not only speaks for himself, but has well-documented his case for the irreconcilable nature of evolution with that of any religion based on a supernatural. He has brought forth quite an array of the names of great men who feel as he does, and he breathes contempt for any compromise of religion and evolution.
Dr. Riddle links the Christian and non-Christian religions of the world together when he gives battle to the supernatural. To him there is no difference between true Christianity and lifeless profession. His chief antagonism is reserved for the Roman Catholic Church which to a large degree education controls for its own people, and also seeks to control state education as well. This is done in spite of the fact that some prominent Catholic educators are willing to allow evolution up to a point where the soul of man is concerned. To this, he asserts that there is no place for the soul in the human body, and rejects it on the basis of "fact" and "reason."
When the noted biologist comes to the Protestant denominations, he allows that they have been and are more liberal toward evolution. (This is due largely to the lethargic character of a sizable segment of Protestant leaders.) Let us quote from Dr. Riddle:
"Protestantism, except, chiefly, its smaller sects, is a less consistent and less dangerous enemy of evolutionary biology and modern thought than is Catholicism. In part, this is a consequence of the disunity of Protestantism.... Protestant antagonism usually is so largely an indirect, off-campus and precollege affair that the true extent of its restraint is little recognized or resented even by the biologists who teach in these universities. It would be much more resented if it were better understood." (emphasis ours) p. 175.
Here is a thrust at Protestant leaders who allow varying degrees of evolutionary thought to be propounded; they simply do not understand its full atheistic implication. Dr. Riddle contends for "unmitigated evolutionary thought" (p. 176) as against "diluted evolution" (p. 177). It is high time that true Christians were awakened to what they are paving the way for by any allowance of evolution, mitigated or otherwise. Again, we say, It is either God and Genesis, or atheism and evolution. When once you leave the solid ground of God as the Creator and the Bible as His revelation, there is no stopping place until you come to the ship of "unmitigated evolution." Will you trust yourself or your children to this unsafe ship which is doomed to go down with all hands on board?
This book also deals with the attempts of biologists to compromise the issue with religion, thus:
"Biologists in nearly all countries, and particularly in America, have tried a compromise with religious creeds. That compromise has failed [emphasis ours].... Most youth of 1954... leave our schools without having an opportunity to learn that the worthy facts concerning man's origin and destiny come not from religious traditions but from investigations made in biological and other sciences within the time of men now living." p. 195.
When that writer takes up the subjects of morality and ethics in man, he utterly rejects religion as the basis. He says:
"A denial by theology or religion of the purely natural sources of morality and of values is a bald and crude pretension.... But, in advanced societies, a religion based on revelation, or indeed one that looks to any intervention of the supernatural in human affairs, mainly offers confusion to the jobs that call for fact, clarity and unchallenged logic. In presenting an account of unmitigated evolution, the natural sources of morality and values -or at least their nonrequirement of a separate and 'spiritual world'-must now be particularly emphasized.... The entire structure of evolution has neither consistency nor any deep significance without it." p. 92.
We are also told that man's evolutionary upgrading had finally produced a conscience for him (pp. 77, 84, 86, 91, 95).
Conscience is that inward sense of being able to distinguish between right and wrong that a beast does not have; but, according to divine revelation, man acquired it in the garden of Eden by the fall. Prior to that he only knew good; thereafter he knew "good and evil," but without the power for doing good. The conscience which he thus acquired was a bad one, for he knew he had sinned. This made him a coward who hid behind the trees to avoid meeting his Creator. Let any Christian answer the question, Whom are we to believe, God or an atheist?
This great man of letters does not hesitate to belittle the men of solid Christian faith, as the renowned Sir Isaac Newton, and John Napier. Both of these Christian men expected the second coming of Christ. Not that they were thoroughly clear as to the prophetic word as it is now better understood. But Sir Isaac's expressed belief that the coming of Christ was at hand (and this was to have been the hope of the Church in all ages)-they were converted to wait for Him-only served as a base for Mr. Riddle's ridicule:
"If history can prove anything, it proves that when science was less developed than it is now many good scientists accepted some or all of the most violently absurd theology of their particular age and place of birth." p. 62.
Again, Dr. Howard H. Kelley, the great surgeon of Baltimore, and probably the father of modern gynecology, who was a devout and earnest Christian, came in for his share of criticism. Mr. Riddle takes issue with Dr. Kelley's statement that man was created in the image of God, and that his progress was downward and not upward, and for saying, "I am a thoroughgoing believer in the special creation of man." Dr. Riddle accuses Dr. Kelley of mitigations of the meaning of the word "evolution." Now, it should be evident to any eighth grade scholar that Dr. Kelley was not mitigating evolution, but denying it outright. His reference to man's downward course is taken from Romans, chapter 1, where God points out the original knowledge that man had of Himself, but that when he gave up God, God gave him up to his lusts and passions. Romans aptly describes the excesses of fallen man in the days of the Roman Empire, and before (yea, and largely today). Listen to Dr. Riddle in his castigation of these mitigations, by which he means what Dr. Kelley said, and what all believers in and teachers of evolution say who do not comprehend the real depths of this Satanic innovation and adopt full "unmitigated evolution":
"Rather similar mitigations of the meaning of the word `evolution' widely prevail in Protestant and other world religions.... These 'mitigations' everywhere rob the broader principle of evolution of its real meaning and of its vast ability to assist society to a level-of sanity and warranted hope. They rob the race of a chance to build a genuinely modern society It would seem that no story now needs to be more firmly written nor widely spread than that of unmitigated evolution." p. xiii.
While these men of faith are held up to scorn, such heretics, agnostics and atheists as Voltaire, Freud, Hans Reichenbach, Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Huxley, Julian Huxley, Charles Darwin, John Dewey, and Thomas Paine, come in for his favorable comments and plaudits.
Dr. Riddle does not hesitate to say that astronomers and other scientists are not qualified to speak on biological evolution; but he, an atheist, does not hesitate to quote from the Bible and attempt to speak on Biblical items. Here his great ignorance shows. By his own principle he has no right to speak there, but he has no such reserve. Lest any think we overstate the case against Dr. Riddle's praise for skeptics and atheists before mentioned, note this is an example:
"The over-all philosophy of this book is essentially that of John Dewey. It is the same as that of Freud's booklet of 1927, The Future of an Illusion, in which he showed that psychology must resist and defeat religion. And it is also the same as that of Reichenbach, whose book, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy appeared as the present work was nearing completion." p. xxi.
Here is a quotation from John Dewey:
"Faith in divine authority in which Western civilization confided, inherited ideas of the soul and its destiny, of fixed revelations, of completely stable institutions, of automatic progress, have been made impossible for the cultivated mind of the Western world." p. 60.
Much is made in this book of the "cultivated mind," "best informed minds," "intelligence of learned people," and it is assumed throughout that any really informed person would accept "unmitigated evolution," and reject anything supernatural. This is the acme of self-conceit. Only the rejecters of God are cultivated, learned, and informed. One may well wonder if there is not a source of some information of which they little dream.
Our thrusts are also directed at the so-called fundamentalist preachers and teachers who accept or teach a mitigated evolution, thinking that there is somehow or somewhere a meeting place between this (so-called) science and true Christianity. Let Mr. Riddle again speak on this subject:
"The eyes of unmitigated evolution, though not those of a protectively dwarfed and misty evolution [emphasis is ours], see the persistence of hot conflict down to our own day, in every quarter of the globe. Only the full retreat that is associated with a rejection of a supernatural element that exempts morals and values from considerations of time and place-from process of change-and with a resulting redefinition of religion would provide escape from this conflict. This required redefinition involves religion's abandonment to science of its former dominion—the origin, nature and destiny of man...
"As long as religion or religions. presume to provide an interpretation of man, of nature, or of conduct-or, again, as long as religion or religions have a supernatural content-nothing can
be more absurd than the, contention that religion and science
are distinct areas and are free from conflict." pp. 38, 39.
Some statements and quotations from others are too shocking to relate here, but suffice it to say that unholy hands (and brains) do not hesitate to compare God unfavorably to the beast Nero, and to scoff at the holiest of miracles-which to reject brings damnation. "0 that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end." Deut. 32:29. Is this man not guilty of "wishful thinking"? Is not the wish that there were no God parent to his thoughts? And yet he uses the term "wishful thinking" along with "imagination and myth" to any who use the word "create" and hence a "Creator" for any process along the line, all the way back to an atom.
Lest any compromiser of evolution and Christianity thinks he has achieved a modus vivendi, let him note the following:
"To all this natural process and result, accomplished under natural, not supernatural, law, the term 'evolution' is rightly applied. And this clean and precise term would not now be widely misunderstood if church and theology, aided by an occasional scientist, had not, since Darwin's day, put their own several head-chopping mitigations on the true meaning of this word." pp. 45, 46.
But if you were to ask, But where did the creation come from? Dr. Riddle says:
"The 'earliest' state of the universe is, indeed quite unknown."
But he adds:
"Rather more than suspicion puts all matter of the known universe in an inconceivable concentrated `monobloc' occupying a fixed position in space, with an 'explosion' of the monobloc providing what our ideas of time call a beginning of galaxy formation." p. 45.
May we be permitted to be naive enough to ask, Where did the said monobloc come from? Dr. Riddle disposes of Christianity as myth and imagination, but does he not have a fertile imagination? After all the arduous task of seeking to prove that there is not, need not, and could not be a Creator, he ends up with having to invent a source from which all the tangled processes of evolution must have sprung. He, as do all of his kind, finally leads his followers up a blind alley from which there is no exit. Only by a retreat, by a complete reversal of direction, can they attain to the true wisdom.
"For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." 1 Cor. 1:19-21. May many persons be delivered from the deception of these "blind leaders of the blind," who can very ably state their case against God and the work of His fingers (Psalm 8:3).
Darwin and Evolution
Dr. Oscar Riddle, in The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought, gives an outspoken, uninhibited, and unabashed declaration of the basic atheistic nature and aims of the evolutionary scheme. This coming from so eminent a man, with the support of the highest men in this field, is reason enough to consider the import and implications it has on our Christian heritage. As far as these men are concerned, there is a war to the finish between real-unmitigated-evolution and Christianity, with the fore-announced plan of frontal attack that will allow of no compromise. How sad it is when Christians, or persons professing to be Christians, propose a compromise between the true God of the Bible and His revelation, and an uncompromising enemy! Note the following excerpts from Dr. Riddle's book:
"The informed atheist of our day gladly looks at the passing of God as part of the dawn of the day of Man. Otherwise he views it as dispassionately as others view the passing of the fairies and the devil. And no void is left by the relinquished God.... Only an infantile emotionalism pillows the worthiness of human existence upon the supernatural. It is failure to grapple firmly with the natural that prevents one's finding a saner satisfaction in naturalism." p. 340.
How can the daring of man go much further? He wants to get rid of God, and longs for that time. He speaks of the dawning of the "day of Man"; but God has already spoken of that day, and it is present. God has told us that this day of man will culminate in the presumption of "the man of sin." Man is fast going forward to the time when he will attempt to fight against God and His Christ. When God's King comes forth out of heaven, the sin of man will reach its great climax. Man cast God's Son out of the world when He came into it in grace; but when He comes again with the armies of heaven following Him, He will make war in righteousness, and dash man, together with his atheism and defiance, "in pieces like a potter's vessel." Let us note what God• has to say about His day:
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. 3:10-13. Man's day is going to end in the judgment of God, to be superseded first by the day of the Lord (1 Thess. 5:2), and then by the final day of God. But "the informed atheist" and all who reject the Lord Jesus will find their part in the lake of fire with the devil and his angels. (Rev. 20:10-15; 21:8.)
On page 42, Dr. Riddle also states:
"It seems certain, however, that in greater proportion than in any previous generation the living members of this learned group now reject ideas both of Blesser and Creator. Also, within this learned group, a greater proportion of leading biologists and psychologists than of lawyers and writers now accept a Godless universe."
The learning of "this learned group" will avail them nothing when they stand before Him with whom we have to do, with Him whose eyes are "as a flame of fire," and whose sword will proceed "out of His mouth." He will have but to speak to break them in pieces or to consign them to the lake of fire.
One might well wonder why Dr. Riddle does not go to Russia where a godless society has largely been established, and where it is the avowed purpose of the ruling clique to annihilate God. Let us have a look at his remarks about Russia:
"An early acceptance of the implications of Darwinism in most public education would then have taken from many Western nations-long before the Russian (Bolshevik) revolution of 1917 -all traces of their trust in God to correct the ills of man. With that accomplished, the Communist ax would have been dulled before it was fashioned-for a different outlook upon religion was one additional way in which the ideals of that Socialist state must depart from those of other nations. And on this central point of intellectual outlook, the leaders of the Russian revolution could rightly feel that they were on firm ground, and far in advance of other nations. To what extent this solid and man freeing conclusion-though drawn by many on undigested evidence- further influenced the power and fervor of Bolshevik sentiment for radical social transformation, for unrelenting opposition to the non-Soviet world, and for a contempt of ethics by Soviet leadership, no one can ever know. But to this writer it seems entirely probable that past and present attitudes of Soviet Russia toward Western nations are far more antagonistic and dangerous than would have been the case if other nations had dethroned the personal God before Russia did." pp. 309, 310.
Here in unmistakable language is Dr. Riddle's personal opinion, an opinion based on unmitigated evolutionary thought, that the present struggle between East and West is due to the West's retaining some belief in God, which should have been discarded long before Russia cast God out. It seems evident that he longs for the day when God will be cast out everywhere. This man little knows that he is only helping to prepare the way for the awful carnage that will take place when the "beast" of the revived Roman Empire and his confederated kingdoms will do just that-cast off God and all restraint. After the true believers (a relatively small minority) are taken out of this world, and the remainder of Christendom will be united under the banner of Rome-Babylon the Great-man will then overthrow the whole structure of Christian profession. It will be destroyed root and branch. Read Rev. 17 and 18. But will the world be any better by having the real Christians taken out of it to heaven, and the lifeless profession that is left utterly destroyed? No; rather, it will be the consummation of wickedness, and the deification of man. Dr. Riddle's book, and the whole evolutionary scheme, is furthering the awful doom of this Christ-rejecting world. After all religion is destroyed or effectively suppressed, the "day of Man" will rise to its zenith, only to have the judgments of the "day of the Lord" dash all to pieces.
Another remark or two regarding Russia and Communism in relation to the Western nations should be noted:
"Thus, except for this vast injury from Christianity, the Western world-like the Russians-could have offered its brand of secular naturalism along with its secular technology to the Asians. Indeed, this could have been offered them long before the Russians had either communism or technology to offer anyone. Western failure does not lie in failure to export its Christianity to the East, but... in its prolonged failure to accept a truer and worthier world view in the presence of that faith." p. 355. "Most cruelly and quite unconsciously, the religions persisting since the Darwin of 1859 have contributed to the spread and virulence of communism." p. 413.
No nation and no people will become so benighted as the ones who once had light from God and His revealed Word, and who in arrogance cast it away. We all know that the Christianity that Russia once knew was not the Christianity of the Bible (but in a very small part), but what shall we say of their present atheistic dogma? Has it not produced the most cruel and heartless oppression the world has ever seen? Has it not enslaved hundreds of millions? Have not millions of lives been sacrificed to state aggrandizement? But Russia is only a little ahead of the highly privileged Western nations who are preparing to cast off God. Then darkness and savagery will have their way, and the devil (at whom Dr. Riddle scoffs) will have the upper hand as he pushes men over the precipice into a whirlpool of excesses and madness. Then Dr. Riddle's remark will show its meaning:
"For marching men, worry and humility [emphasis ours] are excess baggage." p. 413.
There is certainly no humility seen in the Russian pattern today, but the One who was "meek and lowly in heart" shall one day rule with a rod of iron. The present condition in the world, and the characters marked out for the days ahead by the noted biologist, are all unmistakable evidence of the last days, as so carefully depicted for us by God in His Word.
To Dr. Riddle everything good for man can only come by bold naturalism that rejects God. But what does it promise the individual? Let us see:
"These [a few species] descended from the trees, mastered a new and greatly varied food supply, and later became subject to social heredity, through which they lost nature's means of ridding their species of the unfit. Sooner or later, man must find a substitute means for that discarded one of nature. And he must do this while he is still in possession of a better conscience than exists in any other species.... His species is the only one that can deliberately promote its own deterioration.... The informed person facing natural death at the end of a normal span of life can know that even timely decease serves a social end. If the biologically unfit of any social age-the present included-could live forever, there would be no hope for man. He who declares a 'love' for all men has either slight contact with the species or great power of self-delusion." pp. 84, 85.
"Let it be granted that there are various arguments against euthanasia, and some of them are not of religious origin. But ultimately it is Bible-born arguments... that... continue to deny this well-guarded form of merciful release to some persons who need and want it." pp. 341, 342.
Here is what evolution promises a man-the great liberating "knowledge" that he just evolved through millions of years by fortuitous circumstances; that he was not created by God; that there is no God to love him, or to punish him either; that when he has served his day he should welcome death for the benefit of society, and that the unfit should be eliminated by some method yet to be developed (or at least not stated by Dr. Riddle); and that should he tarry in suffering he should be able to be put out of his misery. This, reader, is evolution; and it is cruel. Thank God, He is, and "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Heb. 11:6. The God of the Bible is a God of love, but He is also a God who is LIGHT; and He must and will punish the wicked. Dr. Riddle professes to believe that it is harder to believe in a Creator than in an evolutionary process that required no Creator. But he is not credulous enough to believe that about any work of man.
When Dr. Riddle quotes Scripture, he displays how little he knows about it. When he says,
"To learn early that one will never become an angel is swiftly to find reason for becoming a worthy person" (p. 341),
he is not quoting from the Bible; for nowhere in it is it ever said that any human being will ever become an angel. This is myth and not truth. That anyone might have said so, does not alter the fact that Scripture never said so. When he quotes a statement that the Lord Jesus and Paul did not know of the Trinity, or at least do not speak of it, this is gross error. Did not the Lord speak of the Father and also of sending the Spirit after He Himself returned to the Father? Many scriptures could be adduced to correct this! He quotes the unbelief of Bishop Colenso, that it was discovered that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, but these timeworn and discredited objections have no basis in fact. They only betray an attitude of opposition to God.
We are ready to admit that Dr. Riddle's contention is true; namely, that evolution is basically atheistic and cannot be made to fit in with Christianity. They are diametrically opposed, and never can meet. Those who seek to do obeisance to evolution to be accredited by the world, dishonor the truth and do not please a real evolutionist.
Dr. Riddle quotes from an approving letter which complemented him thus:
"I was particularly glad to note that you called attention to the essential dishonesty of the argument that a belief in evolution is quite compatible with 'a' religious faith." p. 383.
The battle is joined and the fight will be waged, for Dr. Riddle himself said,
"Society and evolutionary thought must now specifically wage a fight against the supernatural element (salvation included) of all religions." p. 336.
Then why should any Christian aid, abet, or give comfort to a system that is set to destroy the very foundations of our faith?
In one place he said that
"A completed 'blueprint' for the Fundamentalism and supernaturalism of our times would indicate that these have remained more formidable and more durable enemies of science and society than Nazism and communism." p. 396.
This challenge calls for some words of explanation. It is apparent from Dr. Riddle's book that Fundamentalism is charged with ignorance, intolerance, and many other unsavory things. It is even suggested that the Ku Klux Klan had its roots in it, and that bigotry abounds within its scope. Now no one doubts that fringe elements attach themselves to any movement, but that part of Fundamentalism which stood squarely for the Bible as the revealed mind of God, and rejected any philosophy and every suggestion that would nullify it, is another matter. Not that it is a foe of true science, or of society (although we hold no brief for the name "Fundamentalism"); but wherein any have stood firmly and squarely against the inroads of the deceptive and destructive reasonings of the evolutionary theory, they are to be commended. It is only sad to note that in the few intervening years since Dr. Riddle's book was published, and today, many once stalwart defenders of the faith have fallen victims to evolution's seductive influence. But Dr. Riddle's statement shows how he views unflinching faith in God's Word; he deprecates it as worse than Nazism and Communism. Never mind, those of his persuasion will not have long to wait until all the faithful Christians (indeed all real Christians) will be taken out of this world; and then the unmitigated evolutionists can have the world with its anarchy and chaos as they like it, but not for long; for sudden destruction will come upon them, "and they shall not escape" (1 Thess. 5:3).
When Jude wrote to the saints, he was minded to write of their common salvation; but then it was needful to exhort them to "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." v. 3. If this was true in his day, it is decidedly more needed today. On every hand there are those who would by stealth or open assault wrest from us the precious truth which we have received. May God grant us grace to stand firm and unyielding in this day of battle. Many have already capitulated to the enemy. Young Christian, and all Christians, let us heed that word, "Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness." Eph. 6:13, 14. Not one foot of ground should be surrendered-not one atom of truth lost.
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.