As is the case with so many other theories, evolution only holds good within certain limits. There are many things that are entirely outside its ambit, many points at which it completely breaks down; many stresses it absolutely cannot stand; many gulfs it utterly fails to span. It can tell us nothing about God. The Bible can. It can tell us nothing about angels. The Bible does. It can hold out no hope of an after-life for man. “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” saith the Lord; “he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” What can evolution say compared with that? Its utmost, in comparison, is less than the foam of the waves to the mighty ocean.
Can evolution explain creation? Can it bridge the gulf between non-existence and existence—between the non-living and the living? What comfort and hope can it offer us in the trials, temptations, and perplexities of life? Faith is beyond its ambit; Heaven beyond its ken. Nor does it much help the scientist in arriving at the many truths he desires to learn. Can it explain time, space, darkness, light, life, death? Why are so many of the simplest forms of life still existent? Why the infusoria? Why the myriad simple forms of life still on land, and in fresh and salt water? Why the grass still clothing the fields? Can it throw light upon sin, the need for redemption, conscience, the guilt which a sinner feels when convicted by the Holy Spirit, the blessing of pardon through Christ?
Can evolution explain prophecy and its fulfillment? Can it light up the dark valley of the shadow of death? What knows it of those words of Job, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God?” Can it exultingly exclaim, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Or can it say, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive?” Evolution, alone, seems to know little or nothing either of Adam or Christ. And when those we love die, return again to the dust, as we read in Genesis, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”―oh! what despair would seize upon us with only evolution for our comfort and hope!
A soul departs—there lies the dead body before us. Can evolution bridge that distance between death and life and unite again the body and the soul? No; it is only the Divine power that can do that. As at the beginning, God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul; so once more, only God can re-fashion that body, bring the soul-life back, and make body and soul one again.
“New Faiths for Old?” Faith in evolution rather than in the truths of the Word of God? Oh, fools indeed we were, if, instead of resting on the true Foundation―on the living God our Father and the living Christ our Saviour and Lord―we place our trust in that shadow―evolution; grasp at that, and let all that is real and true slip from our possession. What other refuge have we than the everlasting arms of God? What other hope of salvation or of eternal life than through Christ our Lord?
C. J. Minter.