Читать книгу Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws - James Buchanan - Страница 11

There have been various applications of the general principle of Development, by means of which an attempt has been made to explain the origin of all things by Natural Laws, so as to exclude the necessity of any Divine interposition, either for the creation of the world, or for the introduction and establishment of Christianity itself. It has been applied, first, to explain the origin of worlds and planetary systems, by showing that, certain specified conditions being presupposed, there are fixed mechanical laws which might sufficiently account for the production of the earth and of the other planets and satellites of our Solar System, without any special interposition of Divine power at the commencement of the existing order of things. It has been applied, secondly, to explain the origin of the various tribes or races of vegetable and animal life, and especially the production of the human race, by showing that the existing types may have sprung, by a process of gradual development, from inferior races previously existing, and that these again may have been produced by the action of chemical agents in certain favorable conditions. It has been applied, thirdly, to explain all the most important phenomena of Human History, and to illustrate the law which is supposed to determine and regulate the progressive course of civilization, so as to account, on natural principles, for the origin and prevalence of the various forms of Religion, and even for the introduction, in its appointed season, of Christianity itself, without having recourse to anything so utterly unphilosophical as the idea of a Divine Revelation, or the supposition of supernatural agency. And it has been applied, fourthly, to explain the order, and to vindicate the use, of those additions both to the doctrines and rites of primitive Christianity, which Protestants have denounced as corruptions, but which Popish and Tractarian writers defend as developments, of the system that was originally deposited, like a prolific germ or seed, in the bosom of the Catholic Church.

It is the more necessary to examine the various forms of this theory, because unquestionably it can appeal to not a few natural analogies, which may serve, on a superficial view, to give it the aspect of verisimilitude. For many of the most signal works of God have been manifestly framed on the principle of gradual growth, and matured by a process of progressive development. We see in the natural world a small seed deposited in the earth, which, under the agency of certain suitable influences, germinates and springs up, producing first a tender shoot, then a stem, and branches, and leaves, and blossoms, and fruit; and every herb or tree, "having seed in itself," makes provision for the repetition of the same process, and the perpetuation and indefinite increase of its kind. The same law is observed in the animal kingdom, where a continuous race is produced from a single pair. And even in the supernatural scheme of Revelation itself, the truth was gradually unfolded in a series of successive dispensations; the First Promise being the germ, which expanded as the Church advanced, until it reached its full development in the Scriptures of the New Testament. These and similar instances may suffice to show that, both in the natural and supernatural Providence of God, He has been pleased to act on the principle of gradual and progressive, as contradistinguished from that of instant and perfect production; and they may seem, at first sight, to afford some natural analogies in favor of the radical idea on which the various modern Theories of Development are based. In such circumstances it would be an unwise and dangerous course either to overlook the palpable facts which Nature and Revelation equally attest, or to deny that they may afford signal manifestations of the manifold wisdom of God. Nor is it necessary for any enlightened advocate of Theism to betake himself to these expedients; he may freely admit the existence of such cases of gradual development, he may even appeal to them as illustrative of the order of Nature, and the design which that order displays; and the only question which he is at all concerned to discuss amounts in substance to this: Whether the method of production which is pursued in the ordinary course of Nature can account for the original commencement of the present system of things?

But the state of the question, and the right application of the argument, may be best illustrated by considering each of the four forms of the theory separately and in succession.