EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 



Nevertheless did not the author of Genesis err, and does he 

 not lead his readers into error, at least in some of his asser- 

 tions? Error is an expression of judgment contrary to the 

 reality which a person sets out to express and which his 

 auditors can understand. But there is no error when nothing 

 is asserted, or when an assertion is true except from a stand- 

 point wholly foreign to the meaning a writer intends to convey 

 and to the expectation of the readers to whom he addresses 

 his words. The inspired vvTiter never intended to teach or 

 even to insinuate anything about the intimate nature of the 

 universe, and his readers did not expect anything of the sort 

 from him. Of course God, if He had so willed, could have 

 revealed the ultimate nature of the cosmos, and the human 

 author could have passed this information along to his con- 

 temporaries. But what words could he have found? Would he 

 have employed a scientific terminology such as is current 

 among astronomers, chemists, and physicists of today? What 

 could his readers have made of all this? Far from seeking to 

 disclose the secrets of the universe and the laws which govern 

 it, the writer limits himself to a discourse about natural phen- 

 omena as they strike the senses, in the popular language of 

 his time. 



Scientific research has not upset, and never will upset, the 

 doctrine of the six days of creation, because the Bible moves 

 on a plane that is utterly different from that of science. The 

 order of events recounted in the first chapter does not corres- 

 pond to reality, but is constructed on an artificial pattern 

 which itself is influenced by scientific notions quite alien to 

 those of our own day. Hence any quest for a chronology must 

 issue in futility. 



Not only the order, but also the manner of creation is 

 beyond the author's scope. The problem of the origin of life 

 is intensely interesting for us. We should like to know when 

 and how life began. Did it burst forth spontaneously? Did a 

 single living cell inaugurate the vital process? Did life emerge 

 in many places at the same time or at different times and 

 under different forms? The Bible has no answers for us. 

 Instead, the sacred author assures us that when life began, 

 God was there; and he asserts repeatedly that all living beings, 



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