PROFESSOR MATHER OUTLINES ARGUMENTS TO PROVE WORTH OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

Although the World Series and the French War Debt have sent evolution, Dr. Scopes, and the now-famous "Monkeyville" from the limelight in the popular imagination into the shades of oblivion, an echo of last summer's controversy will be heard here Thursday night when Dr. John Roach Straton will speak at the Phillips Brooks House on "The Battle Over the Bible." The Scopes case and the publicity which it received in the American press are expected to play a large part in Dr. Straton's presentation.

Prominent among the scientists who offered their services in defence of Dr. Scopes was Professor Kirtley Fletcher Mather, Associate Professor of Physiography in the University. In the outline of evolution which the scientists prepared and submitted, Professor Mather, attempted to prove that none of the facts of evolution should be disturbing to the adherent of Christianity. Professor Mather is a student of the Bible and has lectured on it at Boston University.

Thinks Mather's Evidence Vunerable

That this evidence, and particularly the report submitted by Professor Mather, is "very vulnerable," is the opinion of Dr. Straton. He goes on to urge that a debate should be arranged in Cambridge between himself and Professor Mather. He says, in part: "The fact that he is a prominent figure in both the scientific and religious worlds would make him a very appropriate person to figure in such a discussion, especially as the anti-evolutionists had no chance to answer him and the other scientists at Dayton."

Dr. Straton has long been prominent in the country as a leader of the Fundamentalist group in religious controversy. He is the author, among other works, of "The Virgin Birth--Fact or Fiction," "The Dance of Death--Should Christians Indulge?", "Our Relapse Into Paganism", and "The Fall of the Hall of The Age of Man" The last of these is described as "standing revelations concerning the musty old bones that have been juggled and manipulated to prove that man descended from the brutes."

Christian Can Accept Evolution

As a Christian as well as a geologist, Professor Mather finds no difficulty in accepting the theory of evolution, and believes that the apparent contradictions in the Bible to any such theory can be explained with simplicity. He believes that the only significance of such a work as Genesis is to present the spiritual truth about God and the origin of the universe, and that it should be regarded as a textbook of biology. He goes on to say, in the report of his evidence given at Dayton:

"The idea of evolution does not dethrone the idea of God in any reasonable mind, for evolution is not a power, not a force; it is a process a method. God is a power, a force: He necessarily uses processes and methods in displaying His power and exerting force.

"If men are offered a choice between science with its unanimous acceptance of the evolutionary principle, and religion with its necessary appeal to things unseen and unprovable, they are much more likely to abandon religion than to abandon science, and if such a choice is forced on the people, the churches will lose many of their best educated young people, those upon whom they must depend for leadership in the coming years.

"Fortunately such a choice is absolutely unnecessary, to say that one must choose between evolution and Christianity is exactly like telling the child as he starts for school that he must choose between spelling and arithmetic. Thorough knowledge of each is essential to success both individual and racial in life.

"Although it is possible to construct a mechanical evolutionary hypothesis which rules God out of the world, the theories of theistic evolution held by millions of scientifically trained Christian men and women lead inevitably to a better knowledge of God and a firmer faith in His effective presence in the world.

Charges Ignorance of the Bible

"There are a number of reasons why sincere and honest Christians have recently come to distrust evolution. * * * Too many people who loudly proclaim their allegiance to the Book, know very little about what it really contains.

The Bible does not state that the world was made about 6,000 years ago. The date 4004 B. C., set opposite Genesis 1:1 in many versions of the Bible, was placed there by Archbishop Usher only a few centuries ago. It is in the footnotes added recently. It is not a part of the book itself.

Creation Week may Have Been Eons

"Concerning the length of earth history and of human history, the Bible is absolutely silent. Science may conclude that the earth is 100,000,000 or 100,000,000,000 years old; the conclusion does not affect the Bible in the slightest degree. Or, if one is worried over the progressive appearance of land, plants, animals, and man on the successive six days of a "Creation Week," there is well-known Biblical support for the scientists' contention that eons rather than hours elapsed while these things were taking place.

"'A day in the sight of the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.'

"Taking the Bible itself as an authority dissipates many of the difficulties which threaten to make a gulf between religion and science.

"The fact that the seventh day was stated to be a day of rest has no bearing upon the length of other days. I have no doubt that the man who made that chapter of Genesis had in his mind days of twenty-four hours each, but I reserve for myself the right to make my own interpretation of the meaning of words, as does every Christian, trivialist or modernist. * * *

Discovering God's Methods

"Many of us believe that science is truly discovering even the processes and the methods which God, the spiritual power and eternal force, has used and is now using to effect His will in nature.

"We believe we have a more accurate and a more deeply significant knowledge of our Maker today than had the Hebrew Patriarchs who thought a man could hide from God in a garden, or who believed that God could tell man an untruth. (Genesis 2:17 states that God told man he would surely die if he ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; man ate, he did not die, God knew he would not die therefore.)

"There is the widespread misconception that if one accepts the evolutionary process as the method which God used, he will find himself in a moral dilemma. Regardless of sect or creed, all followers of Christ must accept His teaching that the lay of life is love, that service to others is the true guiding principle, that self-sacrifice, even to death, is the best trait a man can display.

Selfish to Triumph

"To many, evolution means the survical of the fittest in the struggle for existance; and that is taken to imply that the selfish triumph, the most cruel and bloodthirsty are exalted, those who disregard others win. * * *

"Here is a real reason for opposition to evolution; men are not driven from it by fear of discovering that their bodies are structally like those of apes and monkeys; it does not bother us to discover that we are mammals. * * * It does not bother us to find the implication that the law of progress has apparently been opposed to the love of Christ, but here are the facts:

"It has been my privilege as a geologist to read the records in the rocks; knowing the ages of the rocks has led to better knowledge of the Rock of Ages; I have watched the procession of life on the long road from the one-celled but of primitive protoplasm to the present assemblage of varied creatures including man.

Perpetuation Through Service

"At times of crisis in the past it was rarely selfishness or cruelty or strength of talon and of claw that determined success or failure. Survival values at different times have been measured in different terms.

"Ability to breath air by means of lungs rather than to purify the blood by means of gills meant success in escaping from the water to the land. Love of offspring and tender care for the young gave the weak and puny mammals of long ago the ability to triumph over much stronger and more powerful reptiles like the dinosaur.

"Especially in the strain that leads to man can we note the increasing spread of habits of cooperation, of unselfishness, of love. The survival of the 'fit' does not necessarily mean either the survival of the 'fittest' or of the 'fightingest.' It has meant in the past, and I believe it means today and tomorrow, the survival of those who serve others most unselfishly.

"Even in evolution is it true that he who would save his life must lose it. Here if nowhere else, do the facts of evolution lead the man of science to stand shoulder to shoulder with the man of religion.

"Another difficulty arises from our present limitations of knowledge. If man has evolved from other forms of animal life by the continuous process of evolution, it is asked how can there be any difference between him and them? How can we believe that he has an immortal soul?

Man Really Above Animals

"Again, the appeal to facts makes it clear that somehow out of the continuity of progress real differences have emerged. When the cow pauses on the hillside to admire the view, when the dog ceases to bay at the moon in order to construct a system of astronomy, then and not till then will we believe that there are no differences between man and other animals. . . .

"Knowledge and mystery exist side by side mystery does not invalidate the facts. Men of science are working on those very problems. They have not learned--and may never learn how God breathed a living soul into man's body. If they should discover that process, and the method used, God will still be just as great a power.

"'In the image of God' cannot refer to hands or feet, heart, stomach, lungs. That may have been the conception of Moses. It certainly was not the conception of Christ, who said that God is spirit and proclaimed that man must worship him in truth. It is man's soul, his spirit, which is patterned after God the spirit.

Not Scientist's Business

"It is the business of the theologian, not the scientist, to state just when and how man gained a soul. The man of science is keenly interested in the matter, but he should not be blamed if he cannot answer questions here. . . .

"Men of science have as their aim the discovery of facts. . . . After they have discovered truth, and not till then, do they consider what its moral implications may be. Thus far, and presumably always, truth, when found, is also found to be right, in the moral sense of the word.

"Men of religion seek righteousness; finding it they also find truth. The further along the two avenues of investigation the scientist and the theologian go, the closer together they discover themselves to be.

"Already many of them are marching shoulder to shoulder in their endeavor to combine a trained and reasoning mind with a faithful and loving heart. In every human individual and thus to develop more perfectly in mankind the image of God. Neither the right kind of mind nor the right kind of heart will suffice without the other. Both are needed, if civilization is to be saved.

Evolution is Necessary

"As Henry Ward Beecher said, forty years ago, 'If to reject God's revelation of the Book is infidelity, what is it to reject God's revelation of Himself in the structure of the whole globe?' With that learned preacher men of science agree when he stated that 'the theory of evolution is the working theory of every department of physical science all over the world.'

Withdraw this theory and every department of physical research would fall back into heaps of hopelessly dislocated facts, with no more order or reason or philosophical coherence than exists in a basket of marbles, or in the juxtaposition of the multitudinous sands of the seashore.

"We should go back into chaos if we took out of the laboratories, out of the dissecting rooms, out of the field of investigation, this great doctrines of evolution.

"Chaos would inevitably destroy the whole moral fabric of society as well as impede the physical progress of humankind.