Watts, Harvey M.

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AS A NATURALIST SEES ITBY HARVEY M. WATTSWHATE\^ER a scientist, a biologist, or, to use the more gen-eral term, a naturalist, may think of the great civilizing valueof the various religions of conduct, as developed by man from pre-historic periods on, he cannot but be amazed today at the cocksure-ness with which some of those defending dogmatic Christianity seemto believe that they have saved the day for their cults by frank'yabandoning what they term very loosely the lay-science and the lay-history of the Bible, its "Mediterranean ignorance" in an endeavorto stress what is called its "divinely inspired spiritual message."Intelligent as are these various leaders in those denominations whoassume to be more broad and more open-minded than their moredogmatic brethren, they do not seem to understand the inexorabhimplications, the inescapable dilemma of their admissions. It isapparent that with them the wish is father to the thought when theyloudly cry out that there is "no conflict between Science and Relig-ion," since when this statement is made from the pulpits or fromthe rostrums of science—and there are more "collegiate" scientistswho are as fond of saying it to save their skins, their jobs, as arethe pulpiteers—in every instance it does not mean and cannot meanthat there is no conflict between science and dogmatic Christianity.^1 Despite the fact that a number of able scientists connected witheducational institutions were not afraid to appear in favor of evolutionand all its implications at Dayton, nothing was so full of menace in theScopes case than the cowardice of certain other biologists, geologists, andnaturalists who, in the face of assertive orthodoxy, either kept silenceor played into the hands of the bigots by using the misleading phrase—weasel words, indeed—that science and religion were not in conflict.Even some of those who were conspicuous in their defense of evolutionlater fell back on this phrase when they were criticised, although theirwhole argument and their actual attitude precluded them believing whattheir Fundamentalist critics assumed that they believed that their re-searches were not in conflict with dogmatic Christianity. Indeed, manyAS A NATURALIST SEES IT 625For there is, indeed, an irrepressible and irreconcilable conflict be-tween the conclusions of science and all so-called "revealed" yetprobably man-made religions, not excluding Christianity, that theworld knows of at this precise period of its history. Indeed, all thatsuch a phrase can honestly mean is that there is no immediate con-flict between the observed facts of nature and religion, only if oneconceives of religion as some vague philosophic statement of a FinalCause and an Active Design in the development of the universeand man's relation thereto. For with all the familiar physical, per-sonal deities of the past, sciences is in flat contradiction and as tothere being any living, loving Personality, in the orthodox Christiansense, back of any Final Cause science is frankly skeptical, since,confronted by the illimitable extent of the universe whose make-upand motions under the reign of universal law are quite ascertainable,all the anthropomorphic personal deities of old. whether they be ofthe Plains of Shinar, the \'alley of the Nile, or of the heie-hts ofSinai, of Olympus, the Mount of Zion, or the Mount of Olives fadeaway. Moreover, no reasoning from the facts of nattire justifiesscience today, therefore, in inventing any new deified personalitiesto explain the universe merely to satisfy the whim of those forwhom the older mythologies still have a superstitious appeal. Sci-ence, indeed, repudiates the maudlin reconcilers and is never somuch in opposition as when it keeps its serene counsel in the faceof blatant orthodoxy broadcasting exultingly its obscurantisticignorance from a thousand pulpits.It is perhaps, too much to expect absolute candor in religiousdiscussions. There are too many vested interests that have to beprotected and too many positions that have to be supported. Hence,one is not surprised, though somewhat outraged, at the spectacle ofcertain doctors of divinity endeavoring to ward ofl:' the attacks ofscience by using smooth and specious words, rhetorical soft sawder,by adroitly claiming that the Church is not only not afraid of scienceof the heresy hunters went about quoting: Professors A, B and C as say-ing, "the natural sciences and the literal Bible are in perfect harmony."That the professors have indulged in vagueness to protect themselves intheir positions and in their work from pulpiteering antagonists is partexcuse, perhaps, and naturally they do not care to be hounded to death,as Burbank was, or removed from their positions by reason of a clamordirected at their honest convictions. But while this attitude may explainit cannot justify the action of those who have seemingly given in andbowed the knee to intolerance which, as the naturalist knows, is based onsheer humbug and appalling ignorance.626 THE OPEN COURTbut indeed views modern science as the very hand-maiden of a re-stated and broader faith. There are also unfortunately so-calledmen of science who, likewise, use ambiguous and ingratiating phrasesand are traitors to frankness in their seeming admissions that re-vealed religions are not subject matter for laboratory research. Butnothing, surely, since rhetoricians played with the blessed w^ord"Mesopotamia," nothing has equalled the blind confidence withwhich those who somewhat faintly are aware of the impregnableposition of modern science, and who wish to protect dogmatic Chris-tianity from attack, feel they have settled everything by admittingthat Mediterranean ignorance of natural phenomena, or knowledgeas they like to put it, can be jauntily abandoned by Christianity.That these fairly intellectual prelates do not see the implications oftheir frank admissions, their forced concessions in the face of thefacts of modern science which they feel the Church cannot anylonger fight, is one of the most curious phenomena of today. Theirseeming unconsciousness of the dilemma which impales them onboth horns is remarkable. Take, for instance, a recent declarationof Bishop William T. ^Manning made in St. Thomas' EpiscopalChurch, New York, in a Lenten discourse entitled "What WeBelieve About the Bible Today and Why We Believe It." Thisseemingly frank declaration of the Bishop contained, among otherthings, this paragraph : "The Bible teaches Religion. Tt does notundertake to teach Science. It is the spiritual message of the Biblewhich is inspired, not its scientific allusions which naturally reflectthe knowledge of the time." So ! Is there no memory here of thatold reconciler Gladstone, who was so completely demolished byHuxley? Is Bryan so soon forgotten? For, of course. BishopManning did not think it worth while to point out that not only thevarious communions of the Christian Church in the past but verylarge bodies of these communions today believe that the Bible doesnot reflect merely the human knowledge, or rather lack of knowl-edge, of the time in which it was written, but is completely, divinelyinspired through and through, from beginning to end. And, as theyassert, is as inspired in its teachings of history and science as it isin its so-called spiritual message which is the only thing that BishopManning wishes to save from out its contents as having meaningfor this day and generation. A naturalist, however, would point outthat the real fact is that the advance of all science has compelled theintellectuals of the Church, most reluctantly, to take the attitudethat Bishop Manning takes as to the errancy of the Bible in mattersAS A NATURALIST SEES IT 627other than its spiritual message. He would agree with the Bishopthat it is quite true that the Bible, representing a series of worksby human beings, produced over many centuries, does reflect theunscientific attitude and the ignorance as to all natural ])henomenaof the periods during which it was written. He would agree thatthe Mosaic cosmogonies, the geocentric ideas as to the earth beingthe chief thing in the universe and all the suns and moons and starsbeing but a certain decorative background for its theological ideasas to the importance of the earth and man, have been (juite disprovedby science and have naturally brought it about that intellectuals, suchas Bishop Manning are forced to yield along these lines, in order,as they see it, to save the Bible for the educated man of today andso find it necessary to say what the Bishop did in his curious Lentendiscourse.But these concessions do not stop the controversy. They onlygive it another angle for the honors are far from being with BishopManning, since the true naturalist cannot but point out that if theBishop extricated himself from impalement on the horn of one dog-matic dilemma he cannot extricate himself from the other horn andthat is that, as a study of comparative religions reveals, the Biblein its spiritual message is no more divinely inspired than in its secu-lar. This is the issue that is really before the world today : thatthe theology of the Bible is as unsound as its admittedly incompe-tent science. It is this implication, which is truly inescapable, thatBishop Manning and all those who represent him shrink from ac-cepting. Xaturally, the hopelessly orthodox of all the Christiancommunions get over this difficulty by simply standing by the Biblein all its aspects and make this acceptance a matter of faith and amystery which cannot be penetrated or understood by man or bvhis science. This is, of course, a familiar and an understandableposition if a fatuous one, but it is the position which is being andhas been successfully attacked by science. For the crux of the issueis that when the intellectuals and the modernists in the variousdenominations so frankly and almost glibly sacrifice the so-called"Mediterranean science," in order to hold to what they call the spir-itual message of the Bible, they argue without their host, since someof the most important fundamentals of this false science, which theyabandon as untrue, are the essentials of the dogmatic spiritual l)cliefsthat are the main message of Christianity. In accepting evolutionand in admitting that the cosmogonies of the Bible that would pre-clude a belief in evolution can be abandoned by the devout of today,628 THE OPEN COURTit is overlooked that the Semitic legend of Adam and Eve cannotbe jettisoned since a belief in the Adam and Eve legend, or in thetwo contradictory legends of Adam and Eve that appear in theBible,—admittedly reflecting the ignorance of Semitic and Mediter-ranean people as to the origins of life and of human beings,—is thevery foundation of the Pauline theology of the Incarnation whichis historic Christianity. That St. Paul in basing his teleological andtheological arguments for the Incarnation and for the divinity ofJesus of Nazareth on the supposed sacrosanct and infallible oldSumerian-Semitic story of Adam and Eve reflected the Mediter-ranean and Mesopotamian ignorance no true scientist will dispute.He will, therefore, hold Bishop Manning cannot get rid of the onedilemma without involving the other. And the naturalist will pointout that the religion of the Bible is as much subject to the investiga-tion of science and of qualified acceptance and rejection today as isthe secular science of the Bible which is now so frankly abandonedby the intellectuals and the modernists in the various Christian com-munions. For, hide the fact as it may. just as the Church has hadto acquiesce in the newer conception of the universe and all thosethings growing out of the development of the earth as a somewhatinsignificant dust speck with millions of solar systems and millionsof suns whirling in what is essentially illimitable space, so it willhave to deal with the revelations which science is today making asto the origin of all religions. And though in the face of an unpar-alelled recrudescence of old time bigotry in Catholic and Protestantcommunions by which the older orthodoxies are being passionatelyreafifirmed, the odds against science in general are not so formidableas they seem to many in these days of Dayton trials and anti-evo-lution laws.That the rationalizing prelates and modernist doctors of divinityseem to be able to indulge themselves in vain delusions in an eflfortto save what they consider the spiritual message of the Scriptureswhich they only consider Holy in one aspect is, after all, a smallmatter. For, if they know anything they know that the compara-tive study of religions and the comparative study of Biblical textsreveal the Bible as a man-made work and not as the inerrant inspira-tion of an omniscient, omnipotent deity, and Judaism and Christian-ity as developing along the familiar lines of all other religions, notunlike those that Christian dogmatism so freely describes as falsereligions. For these comparative sciences reveal that man, in anendeavor to give mystic and miraculous virtues to his own practicalAS A NATURALIST SEES IT 629inventions, in a very frenzy and ecstacy of self-abnegation ascribesto the most abject of deities all the cult obligations, customs andceremonies which he has himself worked out in travail these thou-sands of years. It is not God, nor the gods, but man who has in-vented all the litanies, all the liturgies, all the literature, all the the-op-onies. all the deities, creating them, indeed, in his own imagemore or less glorified ; all the poetr}% all the prose, all the arts, allthe humanities, all the consolations in an endeavor to invest theseso-called "divine" inventions which however are really all his ownwith beauty and a compelling appeal of love and light. And he hasalso i^ivented all the laws and codes of ethics and morals, all thereliofions of conduct developed through the life and utterances ofhuman beings who have assumed the role of prophets and teachers,sublime or otherwise. Consequently, instead of ascribing moralcodes, such as the Ten Commandments, to the necessities growingout of human experience they are claimed by the myth makers tobe the direct revelation of divinity and essentially miraculous as arealso all the taboos and all the don'ts of all other cults. And. natur-allv, the orig-in of all the founders of the various religions is investedalso with a miraculous glamor and every teacher and prophet, aboutwhose personality crystallizes a religion, is assumed not to havebeen born in ordinary g-eneration, but to have been the product ofthe extra and supernatural relation of divinity to human beings.Virg-in or miraculous births are common to many beliefs and haveendowed numerous founders of religion with attributes of godhead.To all this, which might be called, and which often is in the humor-less discussion of the day, an almost grotesquely obstetrical concep-tion of religion, science very flatly, through biology and through itscomparative study of religious origins, declares that these outgivingsare all man-made and "inspired" only in the sense that any work ofcreative human ability is inspired.To sum up. science faces both the dilemmas presented by BishopManning's statement and refuses to be impaled under one or theother. Science, viewing the Bible as man-made, listens somewhatcontemptuously to the constant disparagement of science not only byFundamentalist divines but by other prelates who ought to knowbetter, and by certain week-kneed scentists affecting a false humil-ity, and is particularly impatient of those who believe they are de-fending the faith by loudly proclaiming the disingenuous argumentthat because geologists, physicists and biologists may differ honestlyas to the age of the earth and the determining methods of evolution,630 THE OPEN COURTthe only alternative is to accept blindly a worn-out Sumerian-Semiticlegend of a world created in six days, culminating in Adam and Eve !And science is even more impatient of the ecjually specious claimsmade in so many Fundamentalist pulpits today that archaeologyand historic research "confirm" the Bible. Science frankly admitsthis "confirmation" but in a wholly different sense from that inwhich the pulpiteers present it to their bewildered auditors. As anaturalist sees it, in the proper logical sense, the science of archae-ology and of comparative history and the science of comparativereligions and the science of comparative texts "confirm" the Bible ina nowise different manner than modern investigations confirm Ham-murabi, the Babylonian and Egyptian writings, Hesiod, Homer andHerodotus, or any of the Greek and Roman myths, legends and be-liefs as to the origin of man, the origin of their deities and theircivilizations. In these "confirmations" which indicate all these Scrip-tures as man-made, a naturalist, however, sees nothing derogatory,nor does anyone worthy of the name of an equipped scientist denythe ethical value of or that there were and are magnificent consola-tions and civilizing influences in all these man-invented cults and re-ligions, though the part man played in them is ignored, degradedand despised for dogmatic purposes by Christian theologians. AsWilliam James once pointed out in determining the values of thevarious religions and the civilizing effect of their codes and con-solations, Christianity naturally is placed on the highest plane. Butscience values these consolations for their approved results as man-made institutions, knowing that there is nothing supernatural backof them, the beliefs being nothing more than human altruism in itsmost appealing and transcendant aspect, the result of man's human-ity to man reflected in the practical codes and in the most idealisticof the beatitudes. As to secular science itself the naturalist knowsthat the illuminating fact is that it is through the unparalleled physi-cal discoveries of science that man has been spiritually emancipatedby beng freed from the abject fear of nature over which he hasacquired dominion by his own unaided efforts. In the face of this,when somewhat impertinently asked by orthodoxy today to affirmits attitude toward a possible personal deity behind the mechanismof the universe, science honestly takes the agnostic position and de-clares "it does not know." This is not the same thing as sayingthat it cannot know or may not know sometime, though there is noth-ing which Fundamentalism so misrepresents as this agnostic positionof science which Fundamentalism interprets, because it is fearful ofAS A NATURALIST SEES IT 631the real implications as meaning that science is incompetent to judgeof Christianity or of any religion. It refuses to see that, on thecontrary, as to the inadequacy of the Mediterranean religions to ex-plain the universe science sees displayed, as it were, in the book ofXature the old familiar inscription, writ larger and more luminousthan the vision that Belshazzar had, conveying to the squabblingChristian secretaries the inescapable warning: "Mcne, Mene, Tekel,Upharsiii !"

As a Naturalist Sees It.

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As a Naturalist Sees It.

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