Substance of an Address to Young Men, by H. P. Barker.
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding . . . oppositions of science, falsely so called."- 1 Tim. 6 :20.
What a name to conjure with is " Science"! With many it has become a positive fetish, before which everything else must bow and cringe. "Thus saith Science" is to them an end of all controversy, and no one must say a word after she has spoken.
But what is this thing that so imperiously insists on our submission ? Is it infallible ? Does it never contradict itself, and never throw its followers into confusion ? And why speak of it in connection with the Bible ? Why raise the question as to whether it is a" friend or foe ?
In answering, let it be said that science simply means "knowledge," more especially the knowledge of things in nature. As generally employed, the term denotes the sum of human learning and discovery in the great realm of God's material creation.
But, not content with facts, the " science " of today deals largely in theories, speculations, and inferences. These are often found to be erroneous, and have to be abandoned. Others take their place, and in their turn are discredited and disproved, and cast into the limbo of exploded theories.
Now, amongst those who claim to speak in the name of "science," there are some who say that their conclusions clash with the statements of the Bible, and they demand that a "Thus saith science" shall have precedence over a "Thus saith the Lord." Thus the question is raised as to whether, in point of fact, the Bible and science are at variance. And it is of no avail for the believer in the Holy Scriptures to shirk the issue, and to refuse to look facts in the face.
Here let me say that the Scriptures are not to be regarded as a literary storehouse from which men may derive knowledge of the facts of nature. If they are God-given and God-inspired writings, as we most assuredly believe them to be, we shall certainly not find in them anything that contradicts what nature teaches. But the Bible treats of far higher and more important subjects. Its theme belongs to eternity, and it reveals that which no human intellect could ever discover. It brings to us the knowledge of God Himself, as revealed in Christ, for the unspeakable blessing of those who receive that revelation.
All this is, however, called in question nowadays. It is asserted that we cannot give full credence to the Bible because its statements do not tally with the pronouncements of modern science. But the reader shall judge for himself as to the nature of the "science" which the Bible contradicts, whether it is true science-that is, true and accurate knowledge-or "science falsely so called."
I.
Sir Charles Lyell, the famous geologist, studying the mud-deposits at the mouth of the Nile, reckoned that it must have taken some thirty thousand years for such an accumulation to have formed. In these deep beds of hardened mud a piece of pottery was found at a great depth. Here was a discovery indeed ! If deposits covering that piece of pottery had taken thirty thousand years to accumulate, then the man who made it must have lived thirty thousand years ago! That is quite clear, is it not ? Yet the Bible teaches that man has existed on the earth for only about six thousand years.* Here then was a plain contradiction between "science" and the Scriptures, and, of course, the Scriptures were pronounced wrong, because this precious piece of pottery and Sir Charles Lyell's calculations had now proved that man had existed for all those thousands of years! *Collett's "Scripture of Truth," 4th edition, page 201.*
This wonderful discovery naturally enough aroused much interest, until the fragment of pottery was recognized by an expert as a specimen of rather modern Roman workmanship, and therefore could be only a few hundred years old.
It is not with this kind of "science" that the Bible agrees.
II.
"Evolution," as taught by Darwin, is largely answerable for placing "science" in antagonism to the Scriptures. This famous doctrine, however, is largely losing its hold upon the scientific world of to-day. It was at first supposed that facts would be brought to light that would support the theories spun by Darwin and others. But the facts have not been forthcoming, and the theories are being fast thrown to the dogs.
Not altogether, though, for there are pulpit orators who still wear the old discarded clothes of the scientists. They hold, tenaciously enough, to the effete speculations which so flatly deny the account of the creation in Genesis. Many clergymen, with others, yet believe that man has gradually advanced from a primitive, apelike ancestor to his present more perfect condition. And if one asks the advocates of this degrading theory for something in the nature of proof, they give the old, well-worn reply, " The coccyx!"
This coccyx, be it known, is a small, bony appendage to the human spine. They say it serves no useful purpose, but is only a rudimentary relic of the time when man was an ape.
There is one fact, however, which militates against this very naive supposition. If our ancestors were primitive, apelike men, we should expect that in ancient, fossilized human skeletons, such as have been found in various parts of Europe, this rudimentary feature would be much more developed than it is in the present generation. But such is not the case. Besides all that, the coccyx is by no means a useless part of the human body, but, as every anatomist now knows, gives firm attachment to certain ligaments and muscles.
A further disproof of the doctrine of the gradual evolution and improvement of the human race is found in the ancient skeletons already referred to, and which are evidently the remains of men who lived before the deluge. Describing one of these, Sir J. W. Dawson says :
" The skull proper, or brain-case, is very long-more so than in ordinary modern skulls-and this length is accompanied with a great breadth; so that the brain was of greater size than in average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well developed."
Thus the "science" that set itself against the accuracy of the Scriptures, and which numbered its votaries by tens of thousands, has been proved to be no true science at all. Teachers of religion, with those who love to have it so, may cling to it, but we who believe God's word can thank Him for the way that science itself has, in this matter, now come into line with the inspired Word.
III.
The representatives of modern science have yet to explain how it is that Holy Scripture is abreast of the most recent discoveries in physics, in geology, in astronomy, and in other branches of knowledge. The teaching of other ancient books is hopelessly out of date. One searches them in vain for a single statement, the truth of which is confirmed by the discoveries of the past fifty years. But with the Bible it is not so. It contains statements which have in bygone days been ridiculed as "unscientific" and "antiquated," but which are now seen to be perfectly true.
Let us consider some instances of this.
Gen. 1:has been contradicted because it states that while the sun was formed on the fourth day, light was called into existence on the first. "Science," on the contrary, has taught that "the sun is the source of all light," and that there could be none apart from it.* *See "The Heavens," by Guillemin, edited by Prof. Lockyer, F. R. A. S.*
But later science is not so bold. It is now known that motion can be translated into light. This is thoroughly in accordance with Gen. 1:2, 3. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light:and there was light." The Spirit of God caused light to break forth at His word when He had moved upon the waters, and this in a way quite in harmony with science in its most recent findings.
IV.
It is amusing to read, in old books on astronomy, the various computations as to the number of the stars. Each observer of the stellar heavens had his own idea on the subject, and figures are given of the approximate estimate by one and another. With improved instruments, hosts of fresh stars have become visible. The "thousands," of ancient astronomers, have become "millions" today. But with the application of photography to astronomical science, the stars are seen to be what the Bible twenty-five centuries ago declared to be the case-absolutely innumerable! No one in the scientific world guessed the truth as to this, but there it stands on the inspired page:"The host of heaven cannot be numbered" (Jer. 33:22). Who could have put that there ? It is a fact which scientists could not and did not discover until they had in their hands the most perfect modern instruments. Yet all the while the fact was in the Bible! Who put it there ?
V.
In Job 26:7 we read:"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place."
For many a long year scientists have railed at this passage. Skeptical astronomers swept the northern skies with their telescopes, and found no "empty space." They declared that "Job knew nothing about the geography of the heavens" when he uttered these words. Theologians could offer nothing in the shape of a reply, save a futile suggestion that "Job evidently referred to the north pole"! And "science" mocked.
But recently Prof. Loomis, of Yale University, has thrown some light on the matter; and the Scriptures, as usual, are fully vindicated. Dr. Munhall quotes him as saying, in the course of a conversation :
" By the use of the largest telescope in the northern hemisphere, in the Naval Observatory at Washington, a great vacuum, corresponding to the empty space of which Job wrote, has been discovered in the depths of the northern heavens."
And science, falsely so called, has had again to eat its own words, and to yield the palm for accuracy to the Scriptures.
We are most of us familiar with the ancient theory as to rain. It was taught that the evaporated water accumulated in great clouds, till they became too heavy to hold up any longer, and fell, by sheer force of gravitation, as rain upon the earth. An improvement upon this theory was that the vaporous masses were attracted by mountain ranges and condensed by contact with them into water.
That great master of electrical science, the late Lord Kelvin, has, however, taught us differently. He ascertained that rain falls as the result of electrical action in the air. The explanation of this would be too technical for a paper of this sort. But it is interesting to observe that the Bible was first in the field with this statement. Psalm 135:7 tells us, " He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He maketh lightnings for the rain."
It was only the other day that Lord Kelvin taught his class at Glasgow University that lightning produced rain, but that fact was recorded hundreds of years ago in the Bible. I ask, by whom, if not by the God of truth Himself ?
VII.
I would still further turn your attention to the two great stock objections on the part of "science " to the accuracy of the Scriptures. I refer to Jonah being swallowed by the whale, and the sun "standing still" at the command of Joshua.
It is objected that Jonah could not possibly have been swallowed by a whale, for the whale's gullet is too small to allow of a man passing through it. Theologians used to meet this argument by pointing out, truly enough, that the Bible does not positively assert that it was a whale. In the book of Jonah we read that "the Lord prepared a great fish"; and in Matt. 12, where the Lord Jesus Himself authenticates the narrative, the word translated "whale" might just as well be rendered " sea- monster."
But, after all, it is highly probable that the great sea-monster which swallowed the prophet was a whale. There are, however, more kinds of whales than one. No less than Sixty species have been counted; and of these, only one kind, the Greenland whale, is incapable of giving passage to the body of a man through its throat. "Scientists " being more familiar with the Greenland whale than with any other, argued from their knowledge of it! They were really arguing from the exception rather than the rule.
The sperm whale, for instance, has a gullet of very different capacity. Cuvier, in his Regne Animal, describes this kind of whale as frequenting the Mediterranean Sea-the very sea upon which Jonah embarked upon his voyage. And Beale, a surgeon who wrote a book on the natural history of the whale, states that it has a throat quite capacious enough to allow of its swallowing a man.
The following testimony will be still more convincing. Frank Bullen, in his well-known book, "The Cruise of the Cachalot," describes the capture of one of these huge sperm whales. He says that they have a habit, when dying, of ejecting the contents of their stomach. In the case of the captured whale, he observed these ejected masses of partially-digested food floating about. They were of enormous size, and on measuring one of them he found it to be two feet longer than a tall man, and equal in breadth and depth to the bodies of several men rolled into one! What kind of "science," then, must that be which affirms the impossibility of a whale swallowing a man ?
In stating these facts, I have no wish to cast doubt upon the miraculous element in Jonah's narrative. If it was no miracle for the whale to swallow Jonah, it was a miracle that kept him alive for so long in its belly. This is no difficulty at all to the man who believes in the Almighty God. The incarnation, resurrection and ascension of Christ are the greatest of all miracles. If we believe these, it is easy to believe in the wonderful preservation and deliverance of Jonah.
VIII.
Now as to the question of the sun standing still, I quote from an able book, '' The Scripture of Truth," by Sidney Collett, fourth edition, page 285:
" No man really knows how this long day of Joshua's was accomplished; but it must have been accomplished somehow, for astronomy demands that something of the kind must have happened, while history declares that it actually took place.
"Prof. Totten has studied this subject from an astronomical point of view, and has published the result in an elaborate mathematical calculation, with the following remarkable conclusion, that by taking the equinoxes, eclipses, and transits, and working from the present time backwards to the winter solstice of Joshua's day, it is found to fall on a Wednesday; whereas, by calculating from the prime date of creation onwards to the winter solstice of Joshua's day it is found to fall on a Tuesday; and he argues that by no possible mathematics can you avoid the conclusion that a whole day of exactly twenty-four hours has been inserted into the world's history. ….
"The statement, too, in Josh. 10:14, that 'there was no day like that before it or after it,' is equally accurate ; for there is no room mathematically in the world's history for another such long day. Prof. Tot-ten affirms that ' not before or since …. has there been a date which will harmonize with the required relative positions of the sun, moon, and earth, as conditioned in the sacred record.' "
On page 287 Mr. Collett further states :
" It is well known that the three great record-keeping countries of the world were Greece, Egypt, and China; and these, together with Mexico, have all had the record of a long day.
" Herodotus, ' the father of history,' who lived 480 B.C., himself a Greek, has left it on record that the priests of Egypt told him of a time when 'the sun had four times risen out of his usual quarter, that he had twice risen where he now sets, and twice set where he now rises.' This is believed to be a reference (though distorted and exaggerated) to Joshua's long day. . . .
" Lord Kingsborough, in his great work on the American Indians, …. states that the Mexicans have a record that the sun stood still for one entire day in the year known to them as ' Seven Rabbits,' which corresponds almost exactly with the year in which Joshua was conquering Palestine ! "
A similar, and still more striking, tradition is to be found in the ancient Chinese records.
Thus both modern science and history, and traditions current in places so far apart as China and Mexico, unite to confirm the truth of the wonderful narrative in Scripture. To doubt it nowadays is really to brand oneself as unscientific and un-historical. Yet, alas, even Christians have wavered in their allegiance to the truth of divine inspiration with regard to this passage, and have spoken of it as a mere poetic figure of speech.
It is necessary sometimes, though not our highest or most precious work, to expose the fallacies of "science, falsely so called," which sets itself against the Scriptures, and finds unholy pleasure in undermining the faith of weak and unestablished souls. We may be sure that no true knowledge, no real science, will lift up its voice in opposition to any statement in the Bible. Let us then be true and loyal to this God-given book. Let us read it diligently, believe it whole-heartedly, obey it implicitly. Instead of criticizing it, let it criticize us; and may its holy pages be the means of deepening the communion of our souls with God !