Northwestern Bible School - Scroll Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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Geology and Genesis agree in giving vegetation first place in Creation . So far as I know there is not a geologist of the regular school who doubts that alga, or sea weed, is the earliest form of life to be found in the world’s burying ground, nor is there any dispute in that school over the circumstance that plant life, in great abundance, appeared before animal existence, George Frederic Wright says, “The appearance of plants upon the earth preceded that of animal life. This is proven by the nature of the case, and by positive evidence. So far as is known, animals arc not able directly to assimilate mineral matter. Animals arc compelled to iced cither upon plants or upon one another, while the plants draw their nutriment directly from earth and air. Plants will also endure a much higher temperature than any known animal. Some varieties of plants will even withstand 220 degrees above zero; that is, they will not be destroyed by boiling water. ‘Every argument, therefore, in support of evolution in nature, points to the I act ol the appearance of vegetable life before animal life ’ The extensive deposits of black lead, or graphite, of Canada are now generally accepted as pure carbon, or coal, and consequently of vegetable origin. And there are men who believe that the archean rocks might hold vegetable features but for the circumstance that heat has so metamorphized them as to destroy the earliest evidences of plant life. The verse with which Genesis opens, “In the beginning ' lays no time limit upon the creative acts of God, and presents an elaborate defense of the elastic use of the word “day” both by Ancient and Modern, and proves by the Book itself that Scripture students were not shut up to the solar day in interpreting any of the acts of God recorded in “ ' TTe IMg ' Ghree’s Secretaries” DORIS GUSTAVSON MRS, JENNIE WENJGER MARIAN LOVERING Sir Alfred Wallace, who with Darwin, adopted the evolutionary hypothesis as working base for scientific investigation, and whose interest in the Bible was never great enough to prejudice his thinking in the latter realm, remarks, “The agreement of science with Genesis is surely very striking. The man who makes himself familiar with the book of Nature and this opening chapter in the Book of Revelation, will be profoundly impressed by that parallelism. “Geology is the study of the structure, history, and development of the earth and its inhabitants as revealed in the rocks. Genesis is a study of the structure, history, and development of the earth and its inhabitants as revealed in The Book.

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CREATION—GEOLOGY AND GENESIS by W. B, RILEY, Di . T HIS theme is one that brings the theologian and the scientist into conference, and compels either an agreement or a division of opinion, ft is (tot the subject of the scientist only, since the Scriptures arc involved In it; it is not the subject of the minister only, since science is involved in it, It is a theme of which both must think, and if deeply, then speak. That the scientist is an unbeliever cannot exempt him from the force of these remarks. The Bible has been in the world too long and is believed by too many people for even an unbeliever to ignore iu h has seen unbelievers buried by the thousands; in fact, it has been the last spokesman at the grave of most of them, and men, either living or dead, can escape neither its speech nor its final judgment. My subject involves a question but does not even suggest an intended answer. How¬ ever, being dearly convinced that truth never clashes with truth, let me hasten to say that whenever Genesis is properly interpreted, and Geology is perfectly understood, inharmony is as impossible as a conflict between God’s revelation in the ages of the rocks, and God’s revelation in the Rock of Ages, Prof. George Frederic Wright, Oberlins most distinguished scientist, once truly said, From every quarter, unexpected light is breaking in upon us from apparent darkness. The strength of the evidence of the truth of the historic statements in the Bible is, therefore, not diminished but rather increased by modern scientific investigation.” William B. Scott, of Princeton University, in his big volume An Introduction to Geology,” says truly enough, In no science arc Lhcrc more open questions than in Geology, in none are changes of views more frequent, and in none, consequently, is it more important to emphasize the distinction between fact and inference, between obser¬ vation and hypothesis. An open-minded hospitality for new facts is essential to intellectual advance.” Entertaining the hope that you come to this study with such minds, whether your text book he the Bible or some uninspired volume on Geology, I proceed to call your attention to the theme as it relates itself to the Order of Creation. This involves a discussion of the first chapter of Genesis, and particularly of verses 1, 11, 24 and 27. The Tig Three”

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Genesis, but that God’s days are geological days, as extensive in time as the rocks will require when once the truth of their creation is clearly known Here then we have Genesis and Geology speaking together concerning the formless and nebulous state of our original world; and they are clearly together when order emerges from chaos in answer to the Word of God, “Let the earth bring forth grass and lifts its prophetic face to the freshly revealed but imperfect rays of the sun, and is followed in quick succession by herbs and trees, the law of whose generation was established once and forever, “After its kind.” All claims that this original life was produced by a shining sun, by spontaneous generation, by inherent potencies, by any conceivable power apart from the God of Genesis, are not science but pure speculation; and Geology itself gives such theories no approval, and in the light of the Book of Genesis, they are nothing better than godless unbelief. We arc not ready to admit with so-called thcistic evolutionists that the speck of protoplasm is as perfect a proof of God as is a completed universe. Logic insists that if men make such a speck the only god of the universe they render some intelligent account of the origin of the speck itself, and further account for the infinite potentialities in that speck, which if it wrought out a universe, must have been not only as powerful but as infinitely wise as the God of the Bible. For while the illimitable number of planets, and unthinkable systems that fill infinite space impress us to the point of awe, we can come hack to the single perfected feature of life, namely the eye, and if we attempt to account for it; have coerced from our lips— “only Godl 17 It is little wonder that Charles Darwin, long after he had written The Origin of Species” candidly exclaimed, “The eye, to this day, gives me a cold shudder.” It will continue to give an ague to any godless atheist who looks into its limpid depths, and recognizes the infinity of wisdom in its organism and function. Geology and Genesis agree in giving fish and fond the second place in creation. “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath lile, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven In the language of a believing Scientist, We are not compelled to suppose that every class of winged fowl and every class of sea monster was actually brought into existence during that period,” blit that certain and prophetic features of both appeared in that exact place is put past controversy by the investigation of tins cemetery of the centuries, Oherlin’s great geologist tells concerning the beginning of animal life upon the earth and sea, that it was lirst peopled with animals not having a backbone, such as the various kinds of shell fish, and later fishes with a backbone, then amphibious life, the frog and reptiles. The origin of birds is less determined. There seems to be no doubt that they preceded the earliest mammals.” How remarkable! Moses had not opened the bowels of the earth to discover their contents. In spite of his matchless mind and his evident learning, it is not the least likely that by pick and shovel he first pursued nature’s order and then later recorded it in the first hook in his Pentateuch. The parallelism there between these two records is exactly such as to exclude the explanation of a fortu¬ nate guess, and to compel the view that science properly interpreted, and inspiration correctly understood, speak together. Once admit the opening sentence of Scripture In the beginning God,” and nature’s puzzles are no longer unsolved or insoluble Once admit the truth of that opening sentence and we have an instant, adequate, and only conceivable explanation, and the same shibboleth for Geology and Genesis being alike voiced in the first instance through the stones of the earth, and in the second, through human speech, they answer the one to the other point by point to the last particular. Geology and Genesis agree in giving vertebrate animals third dace in creation. One night in Pol well Hall, the University of Minnesota, I listened to a biological teacher