Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — April 1913, Seite 151

German transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

Cited in Eckhardt's Reallexikon (1907) under: Synoden

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Moderner Unglaube in der Generalsynode. 151

This breach between the university and some theological seminaries
is the most potent factor in deterring many of our best students
from enteéring the ministry.“ (561.)

Nach Delk liegt auch auf seiten des Christentums gar kein Hindernis
vor, warum die Theologie sich nicht der Evolutionstheorie akkommodieren
sollte. Die materialistische Evolution freilich vertrage sich nicht mit
dem Christentum. Die theistische Form derselben aber sei ebenso christ⸗
lich wie die biblisch⸗kirchliche Schöpfungslehre. Solange man darum
nur den Materialismus vermeide, bleibe die Substanz der Schriftlehre
unversehrt. Delk schreibt: It must be remembered that the men
holding this belief in organic evolution vary in their interpretation
of the physical factors and processes. There are found men holding
varied philosophical beliefs, theists, materialists, idealists, Christians,
and agnostics who are evolutionists. The so-called resident forces'
includeé for many men a spiritual, vital, directive force in the group
of agencies. Wallace and Le Conte areé positive in their declaration
that without a great, original, immanent first cause which has planned
and now directs and energizes the whole procedure, biology can offer
no rational or sufficient explanation of evolution.“ (560.) „Evo-
Iution, so long as we understand it to be God's method of creation,
is as much Christian as the older belief in the instantaneous creation
of man out of nothing or the dust of the earth. Prof. George Parke
Fisher, one of the most conservative of Christian apologists, writes
in his new edition of Grounds of Theistic and Curistian Belief,
P. 444: No theory 0of evolution clashes with the fundamental ideas
of the Bible as long as it is not denied that there is a human species,
and that man is distinguished from the lower animals by attributes
which we know he possesses. Whether the first of human kind were
created outright, or as the second narrative in Genesis repréesents it,
were formed out of inorganic material, out of the dust of the ground,
or were generated by inferior organized beings, through a meta-
morphosis of germs, or some other forces, — these questions, as they
aré indifferent to theism, so they aré indifferent as regards the sub-
stance of Biblical teaching. It is only when, in the name of science,
the attempt is made to smuggle in a materialistie philosophy, that
the essential ideas of the Bible are contradicted. The real problem
before us is to see how this doctrine of evolution must be related
to theé permanent elements in Christianity if we are to have a
theology which shall command the respect of modern scholars and
the informed public.“ (561 f.) Durch Akkommodation an die Evo⸗
lutionslehre werde die christliche Theologie nur gewinnen und nichts
Wesentliches verlieren. Aber nur liberale Geister, die für alles, was
spezifisch christlich ist, kein Verständnis mehr haben, können also urteilen.
Tatsache ist, daß die Evolutionslehre einen Strich durch die ganze Bibel
macht, und daß ein konsequenter Evolutionist keine einzige dem Chri⸗

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