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 The Use and Misuse of the Bible

The bill now before the Kentucky legislature forbidding
teachers in that state to teach evolution has aroused a
great deal of comment from many people in various
spheres of life. If the law is passed it will mean that
a large number of the best teachers will either have to
leave the state or be intellectually dishonest with
themselves and with their pupils, or keep silent.

We realize that the question as to the origin of man is
one that cannot be solved by any theories as has been
propounded, but it has not harmed anyone to think back
and imagine how things have evolved in the realm of
nature. We do not claim to understand the origin of the
species, nor are we worried as to how man originated,
that field belongs to anthropology, but we like to
realize to the very utmost that we are living now and
that we are creating our destinies by what we are
thinking and doing. But if we want to make progress in
any sphere it will mean constant change, ceaseless
effort, nothing static, but always evolving to something
better.

This principle of life is reasonable, and is indeed a
fact, whether we care to believe it or not.

Naturally this question of evolution has brought fears
in many minds, especially in reference to the religious
life of themselves or others. Some speakers have treated
the subject as ridiculous and almost cynical. Many have
believed this kind of interpretation and are being
swayed by popular preaching, discarding entirely the
advanced steps science has made.

Others may be thrown into doubt and wonder what attitude
should be taken. To such who are of an open mind the
following article by Dr. Abbott will be a great help and
illumination on this question.

"At almost the same time that I received a request for
my opinion on the bill introduced into the Kentucky
Legislature forbidding the teaching of evolution in
schools supported by the State, treated in last week's
Outlook, I received two letters, apparently from
parents, dealing with the same subject, one of which
reads as follows:

Could Dr. Abbott give an article explaining how the
theory of evolution can be reconciled to the Biblical
account of creation in teaching young children?  E. J.
F.

I answer.  By teaching them the nature and uses of the
Bible.

A child grows up in the home and imbibes in the
impression that the Bible is an infallible authority
upon all subjects. His religious teaching in the Church
and the Sunday School is fragmentary; no attempt is made
to give him any systematic religious instructions. He
therefore systematizes it for himself. The result is
something like this:

Six thousand years ago God made the world.
He made it in six days and launched it on its voyage.
Since that time he has done nothing more to it except
occasionally interfere with its natural operation, as in
the Deluge, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and
the crossing of the Red Sea. But that sort of thing he
does not do any more. He made man perfect, as he made
everything else perfect. But the first man disobeyed
God, and all the disease and sin and misery in the world
has resulted from that disobedience.

This child goes to school carrying some such idea as
this with him. And before he gets through the high
school he finds all secular teaching set on a different
key. Life is progressive. Creation is continuous. As the
tree grows by a progressive process from a seed, so the
world has grown by a progressive process from chaos. As
the man grows by a progressive process from the babe, so
the race has grown by a progressive process from a
prehistoric cradle. The child's religious impression has
been that life is static, with occasional divine
interventions. His entire system of school education is
founded on the assumption that life is a continuous
progress. There is no one to tell him that "evolution is
God's way of doing things." And it will not be strange
if he rejects the Bible which has never interpreted
itself to him, the Church which has never interpreted
itself to him, and religion which he has come to regard
as a bar, not an inspiration, to progress.

Paul says, "The law is good, if a man uses it lawfully."
By the law he means the Old Testament law. The Bible is
good if it is used for the purpose for which it was
given. But it was not given to teach geology or zoology
or anthropology or any other of the modern sciences.
What is its legitimate use is very clearly defined in
the Bible itself. It "is protable ... for reproof, for
correctness, for instruction in righteousness."

For reproof.  Its stories furnish standards by which we
can judge ourselves and see wherein we are wrong.

For correction.  Its counsels furnish directors by which
we can guide ourselves into right paths.

For instruction in righteousness.  Its maxims are
nuggets of spiritual wisdom; its biographies are
dramatic illustrations of vices to be avoided and
virtues to be emulated.

You can find better information as to the scientific
processes of creation in Lyell's "Geology" or Darwin's
"Descent of Man" than in the first chapter of Genesis;
but nowhere a more illumination of the tragedy to which
the spirit of lawless disobedience always leads than in
the Garden of Eden story. Nowhere more concise and
comprehensive interpretation of social morality than in
the Ten Commandments, or more inspiring instruction in
the nature and sources of personal righteousness than in
the Sermon on the Mount. Probably nowhere in so short a
compass the sorrowful end of the disappointed life of
the profiteer in all ages as in the life of Jacob;
certainly nowhere the story of a life so worthy of our
reverent imitation as that of Jesus Christ, the model
and the inspiration of Christendom for nineteen
centuries.

The mother can render an invaluable service to her child
if she can make herself acquainted with the spirit of
modern education and can pursue the studies of her
children with them as their intellectual companion. This
is a far greater service to the world than any she can
render by taking part in political reform or popular
philanthropies. But if she cannot find the training, or
cannot procure the books, she can at least study the
Bible with her children and make it clear to them that
it is not a book of science but a book of religious
experience. If she is studying with them the first
chapter of Genesis, when they have read together the
eleventh verse, "And God said, let the earth bring forth
grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind," they can go out and see
in their garden God repeating this creative process.
When they come to the second chapter and read that "God
breathes into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man
became a living soul," she can explain to her children
that this makes the difference between man and the
cattle. The cattle are God's creatures, we are jis
offspring, and she can impart to them the offspring of
God.

If we use the Bible as a scientific authority, we misuse
the Bible. We use it aright when we use its stories of
spiritual disaster and spiritual achievement as warning,
instruction, and inspiration for our own lives."

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