# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1913_S150
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

150 Moderner Unglaube in der Generalsynode.

Die Artikel über Evolution in der Eneyelopedia Britannica und im
Neih Schaff-Herzog müßten jeden vorurteilsfreien Denker überzeugen,
«that the theory is here to stay and is unquestioned by the group of
editors selécting représentative spécialists in the various sections of
thought“. (560.) Auch habe er (Delk) durch direkte Anfrage festge⸗
stellt, daß es kein College und keine Universität ersten Ranges in
Amerika und Europa gebe, wo die Evolutionslehre nicht vertreten
werde. D. Jordan, Präsident der Leland Stanford University, habe
ihm geschrieben: „Thére is no question as to the fact of evolution,
the derivation of existing forms of life from earlier and différent
forms through natural processes. There is much question as to the
relative value of the factors involved — mostly these four — beredity,
variation, selection, and segregation: especially the third.“ (561.)
Theologen und Predigern, meint Delt, bleibe darum nichts anderes
übrig, als die in der ganzen Welt anerkannte Tatsache der Evolution
anzuerkennen und ihre Theologie dieser Tatsache anzupassen. But
just now we are not discussing the full explanation of the theory,
but its world-wide acceptance as a world-fact with which the
theologian and preéacher of to-day must reckon and adapt.“ (560.)
Wollten die Theologen nicht zu Obskuranten werden, nicht alle Achtung
der Männer der Wissenschaft einbüßen und der Kirche nicht großen
Schaden zufügen, so müßten sie ihre Lehren in Harmonie bringen mit
der evolutionistischen Wissenschaft, deren Fortschritt sie leider bisher
mehr gehindert und verzögert als gefördert hätten. Delk schreibt: „It
would weary my hearers to quote from other men, holding com-
manding positions in university life, who are fully committed to
a belief in evolution as the only rational explanation of the rise
and progress of animal life. Wallace's latest book on The World of
Life is the best popular expression of a theistie interpretation of
the theory. Here the preacher is brought face to face with an un⸗
deniable situation. What will he do? What has the average theo-
logian and preacher done in the past? I regret to say he has usually
fought every advance in science, sought to minimize its signifleance,
or played theé part of the obscurantist, while younger men, convinced
of the truth, have become alienated from theology and the Church.

selection theories, considered with regard to their claimed capacity to be
an independently sufficient mechanical explanation of descent, stand to-day
seriously discredited in the biologieal world. On the other hand, it is also
fair truth to say that no replacing hypothesis or theory of species-forming
has been offered by the opponents of selection which has met with any
geneéral or even considerable acceptance by naturalists. Mutations seem
to be too few and far between; for orthogenesis we ean discover no satis-
factory meéchanism; and the same is true for the Lamarckian theories of
modification by the cumulation, through inheritance, of acquired or onto-
genic characters. Kure und gut, we are immensely unsettled.“ (5.)